Rama burns bridges with Beleri conviction
Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama’s choice to cut ties with Athens was reflected by Tuesday’s ruling of the Special Anti-Corruption Court in Albania sentencing the elected ethnic Greek mayor of Himare, a municipality in southern Albanis, Fredi Beleri, in the first instance, to two years in prison on charges of vote buying.
https://www.ekathimerini.com/news/1233354/rama-burns-bridges-withbeleri-conviction/
Prosecutor orders review of SYRIZA leader’s asset declarations for possible violations
A first-instance court prosecutor ordered a review of SYRIZA leader Stefanos Kasselakis’ source-of-income declarations (pothen esches) for possible violation of the law, it was announced on Tuesday.
PASOK leader to request party discipline on private universities
The decision by socialist PASOK head Nikos Androulakis on Tuesday to make the party’s members of parliament vote against a bill allowing for the operation of private universities in Greece has stirred tensions among party lawmakers.
Consumers ‘can already see lower prices on the shelf’, PM says after visiting Athens supermarket
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Tuesday visited a supermarket in central Athens, accompanied by Development Minister Kostas Skrekas, in order to determine whether the recent measures taken to counteract the high cost of living and reduce retail prices have started to work.
ATHEX: Trading day for all kinds of tastes
Tuesday offered traders at Athinon Avenue an extensive menu for all appetites, ranging from the drop in bank prices, led by Piraeus after the soaring of the stock on Monday, to the rise of most stocks and the mid-cap index. The benchmark came off Monday’s 13-year record high to post some losses, while turnover remained at high levels.
https://www.ekathimerini.com/economy/1233375/athex-trading-day-for-all-kinds-of-tastes/
KATHIMERINI: Tax-office auditors have will a 1-year deadline to complete each audit
TA NEA: We were near another fatal railway incident last Christmas
EFIMERIDA TON SYNTAKTON: Washington calls on Athens regarding the “Predatorgate“
AVGI: Cheap show amid high prices
RIZOSPASTIS: Health becomes a commodity with a price list and “legal” bribes
KONTRA NEWS: The PM’s office is terrified of the judicial investigation regarding personal data protection
DIMOKRATIA: They betrayed Beleri
NAFTEMPORIKI: Prices are the “Gordian knot” for retailers and industrialists
WHO KILLED THE EU ARMY? For years, Paris, Berlin and even Budapest have called for an EU army. But over the past few months, as European leaders have held intense discussions on the Union’s defense ambitions, the voices calling for an EU army have largely fallen silent.
What happened? “Defense is a member state competence. The point is not about having an EU army but rather to work better together among the 27 armies,” Josep Borrell, the EU’s top diplomat, told Playbook.
Really? But German MEP Hannah Neumann, an expert in defense, has a different explanation: “It doesn’t make sense to call for a European army at a time where you can’t even produce enough ammunition to defend yourself or support your closest partners.”
GOOD MORNING. This is Jacopo Barigazzi. Since the early days of our newsroom I’ve covered defense, politics and migration — and watched politicians pretend to manage key issues, such as addressing global inequality or finding sustainable asylum solutions. Now, I’ve taken on the post of POLITICO’s senior defense correspondent, joining a fantastic new team, in the hopes politics will actually manage at least this one huge issue, even without an EU army. Suzanne Lynch is writing Thursday’s Playbook — send tips her way.
BUT FIRST — TRUMP’S SUPER TUESDAY: Donald Trump cruised to victory across multiple U.S. states holding Super Tuesday presidential primaries. The former president is unlikely to lock up enough delegates to secure the Republican nomination just yet — but he’s close. My Stateside colleagues have a live blog here.
DRIVING THE DAY: WHAT COMES NEXT ON DEFENSE
BY THE NUMBERS: The European Commission presented its long-awaited strategy for Europe’s defense industry on Tuesday. Its raison d’être was encapsulated by numbers Josep Borrell highlighted to journalists: In 2022, “the defense investment of our member states amounted to €58 billion, fragmented among 27 demand centers. In the U.S., a single one, the Pentagon, has invested €215 billion — almost four times more.” Here are five takeaways from the Commission proposal, from Laura Kayali, myself and Joshua Posaner.
Urgency: “It is clear that there is a new sense of urgency and responsibility among member states to step up our joint work on defense and a clear wish to do more and together,” Borrell told Playbook.
On Russia’s frozen assets: Referring to the potential to use the profits made by Russia’s frozen assets to procure weapons for Ukraine (since the EU budget can’t be used to buy them), Borrell said: “If revenues can be used for reconstruction, why not also to prevent destruction in the first place? And we have an instrument to do this” — the European Peace Facility (EPF). Borrell said member countries will have to make a decision on the matter. (The Commission has already floated the idea that these profits could actually be used for the EU defense industry.)
On defense bonds: The Commission didn’t include plans for EU defense bonds in Tuesday’s proposal — that would have widened the gap between Paris (which supports the idea, along with Estonia and Poland) and Berlin (which doesn’t).
But it did open the door to countries teaming up with each other and jointly issuing bonds. A draft document issued by France, Estonia and Poland, and seen by Playbook, hinted that this could soon be on the table. Referring to the EU’s pandemic response, the document said: “While defence products present an inherently different set of challenges, the risks of a defence industry ill equipped to meet the demands of the new security reality are no less strategic and no less deserving of a common response.”
REACTIONS: Overall, diplomats were moderately positive about the Commission’s proposal, which EU leaders are set to discuss at their summit later this month. Several diplomats noted that Brussels seemed to have received the message that defense powers are reserved for EU member countries.
Dutch Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren told Playbook she was ready to consider the Commission’s controversial plan to copy the U.S. Foreign Military Sales program, which is used to transfer military kit, services and training to Washington’s international partners and organizations. “We will study the proposal in the coming days, but in general I support creative ideas that enhance the competitiveness” of the EU Defence Technological and Industrial Base, Ollongren said. “Whether an EU version of Foreign Military Sales is the best way to do this we’ll have to discuss, but we are open to the idea.”
MEANWHILE, IN BRUSSELS: EU ambassadors meeting today will continue trying to find a solution to the Franco-German problems that are blocking a deal to reform the EPF, the off-budget mechanism that partially reimburses countries for military kit sent to Ukraine. The sticking points are a French push for a “buy European” clause and a German campaign for bilateral contributions to Ukraine to be counted as equivalent to monetary contributions to the EPF. EU leaders called for a solution “by early March.”
Wait, isn’t that now? While there’s optimism that Berlin is almost across the line, the same can’t be said for Paris.
Only EU: In Prague on Tuesday, French President Emmanuel Macron seemed open to the idea of EU funding for a Czech initiative to buy hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition from outside the Union. But in Brussels, things aren’t moving in the same direction. In an internal document seen by Playbook, France has scrapped a flexibility clause on buying European from the text ambassadors will discuss today.
Joint procurement: Since the text says that the reimbursement from stock and unilateral procurement should be phased out at the end of this year, that means that after December 31, only joint procurement will be reimbursed.
Meaning: If France gets its way, only joint procurement of kit purchased from within the EU will be rebated.
FIGHTING WORDS: The long-simmering tensions between Berlin and Paris spilled into the open Tuesday, with German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius hitting back at Macron for urging Europeans not to be “cowards” in defending Ukraine. Clea Caulcutt has the story.
NOW READ: Figuring out how to defend Ukraine isn’t the only thing splitting Western allies — deciding who should pay to rebuild the country is causing divisions, too. Joe Biden’s administration is pushing to confiscate assets belonging to the Russian state that were frozen two years ago. Such a raid would potentially free up more than €250 billion. But Paris, Berlin and Rome are unconvinced, Gregorio Sorgi and Nahal Toosi report.
CONSERVATIVE CONFAB
EPP TIME: So many European commissioners are attending the European People’s Party congress that starts today in Bucharest, that the College meeting to examine the EU’s defense plans was held on Tuesday rather than the usual Wednesday. The congress will endorse Commission President Ursula von der Leyen as the EPP’s face of the EU election campaign, with the party expected to come first in the June ballot.
What to expect: The two-day congress will function as something of a policy incubator for conservatives to chart the Continent’s course amid the headwinds of Russia’s war in Ukraine and Donald Trump’s lengthening shadow, write my colleagues Eddy Wax, Sarah Wheaton and Barbara Moens. One sticky issue: von der Leyen’s German party, the Christian Democrats, still wants to kill the EU’s combustion engine ban, as Zia Weise reports.
But the most interesting question will be what sort of reward Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Greek PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis will get in the next European Commission College. According to an EU official: “After all, they were the ones who officially proposed von der Leyen” for a second term.
IN OTHER NEWS
FRANCE SCALES BACK OLYMPICS OVER TERROR FEARS: France has scaled down the Paris 2024 Olympic Games opening ceremony, which will take place in July on the River Seine, amid concerns over the potential for an Islamist terror attack. Victor Goury-Laffont has the story.
BUDAPEST SAYS NO TO RUTTE: Hungary is against Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s bid to become NATO chief when Jens Stoltenberg vacates the secretary-general post later this year, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said Tuesday. Stuart Lau has more.
RUSSIA CLAIMS NAVALNY DIED NATURALLY: Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died aged 47 in custody in an Arctic jail with reported bruises on his head and chest, suffered a “natural death,” according to Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service chief Sergei Naryshkin. “Sooner or later life ends … Navalny died a natural death,” he told Russian state television.
POLISH FARMERS HAND PUTIN A WIN: The fight between Poland and Ukraine over Polish farmers blocking Ukrainian grain has only one winner: Russian President Vladimir Putin, write my colleagues Bartosz Brzeziński and Veronika Melkozerova.
But is Kyiv willing to budge? Ukraine may seek to diffuse the row with its neighbor, by accepting restrictions on its trade with the EU in exchange for a ban on Russian grain imports, Ukrainian Trade Minister Taras Kachka told the FT. A “managed approach to trade flows between Ukraine and the EU is something that we all need,” Kachka said, but insisted that “for wheat, it is not Ukraine that is causing problems for Polish farmers, it is Russia.”
CYBER ACT DEAL: The Council and European Parliament struck a provisional deal overnight on the cyber solidarity package. The move aims to strengthen the EU’s ability to detect and respond to cybersecurity threats, and protect critical infrastructure such as hospitals and utilities.
EUROPEANS ONLY, PLEASE: The Commission has posted job ads for a chief competition economist and a chief technology officer to help enforce its new digital competition rules under the Digital Markets Act. Following French outcry over a previous attempt to appoint American economist Fiona Scott Morton, the ads now require candidates for both jobs to be EU citizens, Giovanna Faggionato reports.