BRUSSELS – Greece will get €2.73 billion from the European Union’s temporary Support to mitigate Unemployment Risks in an Emergency (SURE) program, the European Commission announced on Monday.

 

During an EU teleconference of the European Union Foreign Affairs Council (FAC) on Friday, Greece and Germany disagreed on the content of the statement officials had planned to issue after the talks, according to diplomatic sources.

European Council President Charles Michel on Thursday expressed the EU’s solidarity with Greece and Cyprus during a telephone conversation with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Kathimerini has learned.

European Commissio President Ursula von der Leyen says it is crucial for member-states to start drawing up national recovery plans immediately with which they can seek funding from Next Generation EU, the 750-billion-euro Recovery Fund.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis faced a battle on two fronts at Friday's European Union leaders’ summit in Brussels, the first physical meeting in the era of the coronavirus, determined to secure Greece’s share of a European recovery fund for the fallout of the pandemic, while also pushing his peers for a stern response to growing Turkish aggression.

As European Union leaders converge in Brussels on Friday for the first physical meeting in the era of the coronavirus to discuss a recovery fund to tackle the fallout of the pandemic, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis is aiming to ensure that some 32 billion euros in grants and loans earmarked for Greece is not reduced and that no conditions are attached to that aid. 

The European Union is seeking ways of imposing sanctions on Turkey in the event that its transgressions in the East Mediterranean are scaled up, and in the wake of its decision to convert Hagia Sophia into a mosque.

Greece’s economy is set to shrink by 9% this year instead of 9.7% as estimated two months ago, the European Commission said in its Summer Forecast, published on Tuesday, adding the rebound in 2021 will also be smaller than estimated in its Spring Forecast, at 6% of gross domestic product instead of 7.9%.

Berlin plans to play an active role, in the context of Germany's presidency of the European Council, in easing tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean where Turkey plans to expand its exploration for oil and gas in contravention of Greek and Cypriot exclusive economic zones. 

With Germany assuming the European Union presidency on Wednesday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed concern over developments in the Eastern Mediterranean and Greek-Turkish relations in response to questions from MPs in the Bundestag.

The European Commission is launching proceedings against Greece over its failure to provide data regarding the reduction of emissions of five major pollutants by 2030 and beyond.

Greece’s plan to open up to the world on July 1 to salvage its tourist season could be jeopardized as there is a growing risk that European Union member-states will fail to agree on the details regarding the opening of their borders to travelers from third countries on that date. 

Greece fully supports the European Commission’s proposal for a Recovery Fund to tackle the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Friday told his European Union peers during a summit by teleconference.

A top-ranking European Commission official on Friday condemned as "unacceptable" the actions of Turkey in the Eastern Mediterranean, noting that the issue would be broached by the European Union's High Representative Josep Borrell to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo who is to join a teleconference of the EU foreign affairs council on Monday.  

The overly ambitious fiscal targets included in Greece’s bailout programs undermined the debt-racked country’s economic growth, according to a report commissioned by the European Stability Mechanism.

The Eurogroup council of eurozone finance ministers will on Thursday consider suspending Greece’s obligation to achieve a primary budget surplus of 3.5% of gross domestic product.

European officials praised on Friday Greece’s response to the health crisis and stressed that the country will be in the same position as its eurozone peers in the terms of the support it receives from the European Union.

When he was appointed to the job in 2018, Thomas Bareiss, a deputy minister at the Department of the Economy and Energy and Germany’s commissioner for tourism, probably didn’t expect it to be quite so challenging. 

Cyprus is the first country in the eurozone to announce that it plans to make use of the cheap, long-term credit lines that will be made available by the Pandemic Crisis Support fund of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM).

The European Commission gave Athens some much needed fiscal leeway on Wednesday, as in its sixth enhanced surveillance report on Greece it recommended the disbursement of the earnings of eurozone central banks from Greek bond holdings.