Mitsotakis: Regardless of the election result, Greece and the US have a strategic relation
Regardless of the election result, Greece and the US have a strategic relation that will not be affected, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Tuesday in a meeting with the President of the Republic Katerina Sakellaropoulou.
Draft law on tax cuts and company mergers posted for public consultation
A draft law of the National Economy and Finance Ministry on tax regulations and company mergers was posted on Tuesday, including 12 tax cuts and measures to boost citizens’ incomes.
Androulakis: Greece does not have a national plan for Sustainable, Resilient and Fair Development
The government has failed to promote a substantial modernization in the productive base of the economy, in the infrastructure, in the energy autonomy of the country. Unfortunately, the Greek people are paying dearly for these lost opportunities, either with the high prices or with the increase in inequalities and the deterioration of the quality of life both in the urban centers and in the regional areas, said the president of PASOK-Movement of Change, Nikos Androulakis, speaking on Monday afternoon at the “Green Deal Greece 2024” conference organized by the Technical Chamber of Greece, at the Conference Center of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation.
Firefighters battle to prevent wildfire in western Greece from reaching protected Strofilia Forest
Firefighting forces worked through the night to contain a wildfire that broke out Tuesday afternoon in Vouprasio, in the Achaia region of western Greece, aiming to prevent its spread to a nearby protected nature reserve.
ATHEX: Bourse gets back on rising course
Stocks on the Greek bourse enjoyed a rare respite on Tuesday after the pressure of the previous days, regaining some of the ground lost on the day of the US presidential election, with the benchmark all but recapturing the 1,400-point level, on significantly improved turnover too. The result across the Atlantic and the Fed decision on Wednesday and Thursday will be decisive for the rest of the week at Athinon Avenue.
https://www.ekathimerini.com/economy/1252708/athex-bourse-gets-back-on-rising-course
KATHIMERINI: US elections: Ballots closed, division remained
TA NEA: US elections: Division remains
EFIMERIDA TON SYNTAKTON: United (?) States of America
RIZOSPASTIS: Greece is taken for granted in NATO’s plans
KONTRA NEWS: 40,000 pensioners to receive retroactive payments
DIMOKRATIA: Taxation changes in revenues, businesses and real estate assets
NAFTEMPORIKI: Bouquet of 16 changes in taxes, levies, contributions and insurances
DRIVING THE DAY: US ELECTION
TRUMP LEADS: As Americans’ votes are tallied, Republican Donald Trump leads nationally, while Democrat Kamala Harris is seeing her path to winning the necessary 270 Electoral College votes narrow.
Sleeping on it: Harris’ campaign announced just minutes before publication of this newsletter that she would not address the crowd at her election watch party in Washington, D.C., as vote counting continues. Which is reminiscent of the vibe at Hillary Clinton’s would-be victory party in 2016.
Follow along … on our live blog, which has the latest results and analysis.
Southerners swing to Trump: There are seven key “swing” states that decide the outcome of the U.S. election — Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina — and the former U.S. president is on track to claim several of them. Trump has already claimed North Carolina and Georgia. Arizona and Nevada are still in play.
Blue Wall cracks: Disappointing for Democrats? Yes. Surprising for veteran vote-watchers? No. The fundamental dynamics haven’t really changed: The northeastern state of Pennsylvania, as well as the upper midwestern states of Michigan and Wisconsin, look likely to decide the race. Part of the so-called Rust Belt in the U.S., they’re what Democrats refer to as the “Blue Wall.” It’s a wall that broke in 2016, when Hillary Clinton lost to Trump. It held in 2020, when Joe Biden beat him.
Harris team projects calm: Harris’ campaign manager, Jen O’Malley Dillon, sent a memo to campaign staff saying “we have known all along that our clearest path to 270 electoral votes lies through the Blue Wall states. And we feel good about what we’re seeing.” The “closeness of the race,” she said in the memo obtained by our POLITICO colleagues in the U.S., “is exactly what we prepared for.”
Trump trumps his 2020 results: An analysis of 1,300 counties that have reported nearly complete results show Trump doing better than in 2020, regardless of whether he won or lost them. There’s a caveat: Many of the densely populated Democratic strongholds aren’t finished counting. Nonetheless, reports Jessica Piper, it’s a troubling sign for Democrats that Trump has made gains across much of the country (more on that below).
GOP TAKES THE SENATE: Republicans have taken a majority in the Senate, the upper chamber of the U.S. legislature. That would ease the path for Trump to install his preferred Cabinet officials and judges — while stifling any Harris effort to swap out Biden’s appointees.
RAPID ANALYSIS
IT’S A TRUMP WORLD, WE’RE JUST LIVING IN IT: Regardless of whether Trump wins the White House, his strong performance echoes the trends we’ve seen across Europe and in other Western Democracies.
It’s the economy: The pandemic grace period is over. Voters are mad about inflation — even in the U.S., where the speed of price increases has slowed. They’re still too high.
Immigration enrages: We’ve seen it in Portugal. In France. In Germany. In the Netherlands. In Austria. Regardless of the reality of immigration numbers, voters feel the pinch of a zero-sum game, and they don’t want to share.
Anger activates: Trump’s closing pitch leaned heavily on immigration and culture war issues like trans rights, in a race against a female candidate of color. His bid to bring out voters who usually don’t pay attention to politics — relying more heavily on meanness, mockery and memes than a more traditional “ground game” to get voters to the polls — seems to have paid off.
HOW IT’S PLAYING IN THE BUBBLE
EAVESDROP ON PLAYBOOK’S TEXT MESSAGES: Here are highlights from our phone …
MEP Hannah Neumann, 9:50 p.m. (Nov. 5): “Going to bed now. Clock is set for 5:30. Hoping to wake up to a world showing that women can be everything and not one that reduces us to either porn stars or child bearers.”
Accredited parliamentary assistant, 6:25 a.m.: “Men did it again. Horrible feeling… I can’t believe he is probably gonna win.”
Consultant, 6:48 a.m.: “Getting 2016 vibes, not 2020. Trump victory will tilt things on this side of the Atlantic. How did the U.K. look like the last best hope of European centrist politics. I need a drink.”
MEP Hannah Neumann, 6:56 a.m.: “Looks as if we need to step up our European game — for real this time.”
LOOKING AHEAD TO BUDAPEST
EU PREPS FOR ORBÁN’S HOST MOMENT: Even as EU leaders look west across the Atlantic, they’ll be preparing to head east to Hungary for key meetings on Thursday and Friday as part of the country’s rotating presidency of the Council of the EU.
“BUDAPEST DECLARATION” DIVISIONS: Everyone agrees we need to prioritize “competitiveness,” right? Well, it turns out competing ideas about how to achieve competitiveness are leading to deadlock. Today, EU ambassadors are set to sign off on a plan that has been essentially stripped of significance, so their bosses can officially endorse the so-called Budapest Declaration on Friday.
“Chainsaw” treatment: What started as a playbook for boosting Europe’s stagnating economy has lost anything but the least contentious positions. So many things were cut that WhatsApp exchanges included gifs from “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre,” one EU official quipped.
What happened? It’s hard to get much of substance done with Orbán in charge, some noted. But four EU diplomats also pointed fingers at European Council President Charles Michel, who will chair his last summit in Budapest, as the text looked too much like a “legacy” of the outgoing Belgian. Pros can read more in this story from my colleagues Giovanna Faggionato and Barbara Moens.
EPC ATTENDEES (AND PURPOSE) TBC: Ahead of the EUCO gathering, leaders from the EU and surrounding states will huddle on Thursday for the fifth edition of the European Political Community — the brainchild of French President Emmanuel Macron, designed to foster conversation between EU and neighboring states. As time goes on, questions about the meeting’s purpose have grown more pressing, Nick Vinocur writes in to report.
Awks: Ostensibly, the main agenda item is Ukraine. And since Orbán is hosting the meeting, it’s unclear what sort of deliverable might emerge. At a briefing Tuesday, three journalists took turns asking questions that boiled down to: What exactly is the point of the EPC? Here’s the reply from a senior EU official: “The added value is the gathering, the informality … I think you need to see it as a U.N. week rather than a formal summit. It’s a place where they have an opportunity to meet and that’s the added value.”
In other words: Relax, it’s about the vibes, not the outcome.
Who’s coming? Officials were tight-lipped about the guest list, only letting slip that several leaders would not attend and that their absence shouldn’t be considered a boycott of Hungary. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is expected to participate.
INUNDATED AGENDA: Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez won’t travel to Budapest for the EPC or the informal EUCO, he announced on X Tuesday, citing the deadly floods.
History echoes: Orbán himself had to skip his first date with the European Parliament to deal with summer floods in Hungary.
ASK THIS GUY ABOUT THE BEST PARTY IN BUDAPEST: József Szájer, the Fidesz founder and former MEP who resigned after getting caught at a lockdown-breaking orgy in Brussels during the pandemic, has been tapped to lead a new Orbán-linked think tank, the Institute for a Free Europe (h/t POLITICO’s Csongor Körömi).
COMMISSION CONFIRMATION HEARINGS
UP TODAY: The most contentious nominees will bookend Day Three of the European Parliament’s grillings of commissioners-designate: Hadja Lahbib at 9 a.m. Live blog … Maria Luís Albuquerque at 9 a.m. Live blog. Costas Kadis at 2:30 p.m. Live blog … Jozef Síkela at 2:30 p.m. Live blog … Andrius Kubilius at 6:30 p.m. Live blog… Olivér Várhelyi at 6:30 p.m. Live blog.
LAHBIB AIMS FOR MOST IMPROVED PLAYER: Lahbib, the Belgian foreign minister poised to become the commissioner for preparedness, crisis management and equality, is likely to overcome early doubts at her hearing this morning, barring major gaffes, Barbara Moens reports.
Initial skepticism: The TV anchor turned top envoy was a surprise last-minute nominee, given some Belgian politicians and diplomats saw her as having failed in the foreign minister role. Her reputation was worsened by a blunder during the General Affairs Council after her nomination, when she didn’t realize she was reading from the wrong piece of paper.
Doing her homework: Since then, Lahbib has put aside most of her duties as foreign minister to prepare for her hearing, taking intensive English classes, focusing on the content of her new portfolio and doing a mock hearing.
VÁRHELYI FACES REVENGE OF THE “IDIOTS”: Hungary’s Olivér Várhelyi, the current enlargement chief, faces MEPs this evening in his bid to come back as the executive in charge of health and animal safety. Though EU lawmakers seem to be pretty forgiving of other nominees’ vulnerabilities up to this point, they’re not all ready to forget the time he called them “idiots.”
It’s not looking good: While there wasn’t a formal agreement by the mainstream groups to oppose Várhelyi’s confirmation on the eve of his hearing, the odds seemed to be stacked against him meeting the threshold of support he needs from committee coordinators, reports an all-star team of POLITICO health and Agri reporters: Paula Andrés, Mari Eccles, Claudia Chiappa, Rory O’Neill and Bartosz Brzeziński.
“There are lots of voices suggesting his rejection,” one parliamentary official said. “Our prediction is that there will not be a two-thirds majority in favor [of] Várhelyi,” added a second. Read more here.
Useful Brexit precedent: There’s been some reluctance even among some of the Parliament’s top Orbán antagonists to reject Várhelyi out of fears the Hungarian PM could stall the whole Commission by refusing to nominate a replacement. But over at the Berlaymont, they’re not too stressed — von der Leyen already looked into the possibility of moving forward with the team five years ago, when then U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson resisted naming a British commissioner before Brexit was finalized.
NOW CATCH UP ON TUESDAY’S HEARINGS …
IN TROUBLE — Sweden’s Jessika Roswall, commissioner-designate for the environment, gave a disappointing performance, showing her lack of chops on environmental policymaking. MEP group coordinators postponed a decision until 2:30 p.m. today. She may be asked to provide written responses to additional questions before they make a final call.
Party divisions: The EPP (Roswall’s political family) and ECR wanted to push the center-right former Europe minister through last night, but S&D, Renew and Greens wanted more time, Parliament sources told our reporters.
SAFE — Austrian Magnus Brunner, pegged to be the EU’s new migration czar, spoke to both sides of the aisle, dodged tricky questions and lulled the audience with his “no drama” style. Five takeaways.
SAFE — Denmark’s Dan Jørgensen, the would-be boss for energy and housing, cleanly navigated difficult questions and managed to give MEPs a laugh. His toughest moments came on the question of nuclear power.
SAFE — Croatia’s Dubravka Šuica, commissioner-designate for the Mediterranean, who was grilled on Israel’s war in Gaza and migration, but managed to safely navigate those choppy waters.
SAFE — Ireland’s Michael McGrath, the would-be commissioner for democracy, justice and rule of law, gave a confident performance, sailing through the hearings.
SAFE — Bulgaria’s Ekaterina Zaharieva, who’ll be tasking with policy for start-ups, research and innovation, started strong before flagging (but she’s safe).
GERMAN GOVERNMENT CRISIS
DECISION DAY: German SPD Chancellor Olaf Scholz meets with his Green Economy Minister Robert Habeck and Finance Minister Christian Lindner from the Free Democratic Party (FDP) this morning at 8 a.m. to figure out a way through the crisis engulfing the three-party governing coalition — or not. There will be a second meeting in the afternoon, before the coalition committee (with more politicians from the three parties) meets at 6 p.m.
Who wants in, who wants out: The Greens and SPD want to hold on, but the FDP wants out, my Berlin Playbook colleagues report.
MEANWHILE, IN SAXONY: An AfD councillor in the town of Grimma was among eight people arrested as part of an alleged extremist plot to seize areas in the country’s east and carry out ethnic cleansing, the FT reports.
NATO
RUTTE’S MESSAGE ON UKRAINE: NATO chief Mark Rutte, in an article for POLITICO this morning, argues that North Korea’s involvement is an ominous development in the conflict in Ukraine and urges Western allies to “stay the course for the long haul.”
It’s worth it: “Backing Ukraine costs a fraction of our annual military budgets and less than 1 percent of our annual GDP,” Rutte says in his first op-ed as NATO secretary-general. “That’s a small price to pay for peace. The question is, can we afford not to?”
Singling out Beijing: “China bears particular responsibility here, to use its influence with Pyongyang and Moscow to ensure that they cease these actions,” the secretary-general says. “China cannot pretend to promote peace while turning a blind eye to increasing aggression.” Read the full piece here.
NSFW angle: The Pentagon late Tuesday said it couldn’t confirm or deny a report that North Korean troops are taking advantage of internet access in Russia to consume copious amounts of online pornography, with a spokesperson saying he couldn’t verify the soldiers’ “internet habits or virtual ‘extracurriculars.’” Not exactly hosing it down, though. Gigi Ewing has the write-up.
ELECTION EVE NEWS DUMP
UNDER THE RADAR: Here’s some stuff you shouldn’t miss amid this chaotic news cycle.
VDL TO SKIP COP: Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is skipping next week’s climate summit in Azerbaijan, Karl Mathiesen reports. She joins a growing list of climate-friendly leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron, who are skipping the meeting, which is considered relatively minor. However, if Trump looks set to return to the White House, climate advocates hope the talks might send a message of solidarity. And NGOs want whoever else is showing up to challenge Baku on human rights. (Over to you, Charles Michel.)
SERBIA PROTEST TURNS VIOLENT: Demonstrators in the northwestern Serbian city of Novi Sad threw flares and red paint at a government building last night in protest at the collapse of a roof at a railway station that killed 14 people on Friday. Opposition supporters blamed government negligence and corruption for the tragedy. Police used pepper spray to disperse the crowd and President Aleksandar Vučić said, “All those taking part in the incidents will be punished.” Reuters has the story.
NETANYAHU REPLACES GALLANT: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fired Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, citing a “crisis of trust” between them, Elena Giordano and Nahal Toosi report. Gallant will be replaced by Foreign Minister Israel Katz, with his old job going to Gideon Sa’ar.