Listen on * Spotify * Apple Music * Amazon Music Endlich Gold für Deutschland? Das Bundeskabinett beschließt heute die Unterstützung für eine deutsche Olympia-Bewerbung für 2036, 2040 oder 2044. Gordon Repinski analysiert den anstehenden Wettstreit der Regionen zwischen München, Rhein-Ruhr, Hamburg und Kiel sowie Berlin und erklärt, warum Kanzler Friedrich Merz jetzt sechs Millionen Euro für den Bewerbungsprozess zusagt.  Im 200-Sekunden-Interview: Christiane Schenderlein. Die für Sport zuständige Staatsministerin im Kanzleramt verteidigt erklärt, was in der möglichen  Bewerbung steckt, warum auch ein Olympia in Berlin 100 Jahre nach 1936 eine Chance sein kann und wie die Spiele als Motor für Infrastruktur und Bürokratieabbau dienen sollen. Außerdem: Die Zahl der ukrainischen Geflüchteten in Berlin steigt so stark wie seit 2023 nicht mehr. Jasper Bennink berichtet über die zeitgleiche Maßnahme der Koalition Ukrainern, die künftig kein Bürgergeld, sondern Leistungen aus dem Asylbewerberleistungsgesetz zu geben und so Geld zu sparen. Und: Rasmus Buchsteiner meldet sich aus Peking. Er begleitet Vizekanzler und Finanzminister Lars Klingbeil, der dort an über Elektrobusse staunt, aber gleichzeitig überraschend deutlich davor warnt, nach Russland nun in eine Abhängigkeit von China zu geraten Das Berlin Playbook als Podcast gibt es jeden Morgen ab 5 Uhr. Gordon Repinski und das POLITICO-Team liefern Politik zum Hören – kompakt, international, hintergründig. Für alle Hauptstadt-Profis: Der Berlin Playbook-Newsletter bietet jeden Morgen die wichtigsten Themen und Einordnungen. Jetzt kostenlos abonnieren. Mehr von Host und POLITICO Executive Editor Gordon Repinski: Instagram: @gordon.repinski | X: @GordonRepinski.

BERLIN — Germany’s governing parties have agreed on a fresh compromise for revamping military service, after an earlier political deal was derailed last month. The new agreement, finalized Wednesday night by senior lawmakers from the center-right Christian Democrats and the center-left Social Democrats, marks the coalition’s second attempt to settle one of the country’s most contentious defense reforms.  The earlier draft collapsed after Defense Minister Boris Pistorius intervened to halt a model that relied on automatic lottery triggers to fill personnel gaps. That sparked a wider debate over how far Germany should go in compelling young people to serve. The newly negotiated compromise, released Thursday morning, takes a different path. It introduces mandatory registration and medical screening, but makes any move toward compulsory service dependent on a separate parliamentary decision — a political middle ground. Under the new plan, all 18-year-olds will be formally registered for service, with men required to complete a compulsory questionnaire about their fitness and willingness to serve. In a significant shift, the parties agreed to reinstate mandatory medical examinations for male 18-year-olds starting with those born in 2008, giving the government early visibility into who could serve if needed. But the real compromise lies in the next step. Instead of automatically activating call-ups when volunteer numbers fall short — the mechanism that fueled political resistance last month — the plan creates a “needs-based service duty” that can only begin if parliament votes for it. If lawmakers decide the security situation or staffing shortfalls justify compulsory service, the Bundeswehr would select only the required number of recruits through a structured process, resorting to a lottery only as a final measure. To strengthen the voluntary pathway, the deal includes new incentives: €2,600 monthly pay, a subsidy for a car or truck driver’s license after one year of service and a new status for long-serving volunteers. The compromise proposal also anchors a legal troop-growth target of 255,000 to 270,000 active soldiers plus around 200,000 reservists, aligned with Germany’s NATO commitments and reviewed twice a year by parliament. Currently, Germany has around 182,000 soldiers. The draft law is expected to be introduced to parliament for a vote by the end of the year.

President Donald Trump careened into the weekend with no sign of abandoning his futile “kill the filibuster” strategy to end the shutdown, despite a stinging week of political rebukes. Trump on Friday repeated his calls for Senate Republicans to terminate the 60-vote Senate rule — a “nuclear” off-ramp that even he has admitted has little chance of becoming reality. Those demands, echoed by administration officials, including Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought, came after deep Republican losses during Tuesday’s off-year elections, a Supreme Court hearing that called Trump’s tariff power into doubt and new signs of cracking in public support for his party’s handling of the shutdown. “I am totally in favor of terminating the filibuster, and we would be back to work within 10 minutes after that vote took place,” Trump told reporters Friday. “It doesn’t make any sense that a Republican would not want to do that.” The president’s insistence on an unproductive filibuster strategy — and Senate Republicans exhibiting a rare refusal to go along with his agenda — provides little clarity on how the shutdown, now in its 39th day, may end. Shortly after Trump demanded senators remain in Washington to reach a deal, Majority Leader John Thune said he would bring the chamber back on Saturday. But what, if anything, senators vote on this weekend is unknown. Trump’s posture reflects his belief that he’s in a filibuster arms race with Democrats, who he fears would immediately repeal the rule if they retake the chamber and use it to pass sweeping legislation. The push mirrors the failed effort he deployed during his first term to scrap the filibuster, as he similarly warned that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Democrats would do it if Republicans didn’t. Democrats did not. “The president is showing the American people that he’s looking at this from every angle to end the shutdown, and he’s willing to call out his own party to do something,” said a former Trump official, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “There’s a political tool piece of this,” the former official added. Democrats’ victories by higher-than-expected margins in Tuesday’s elections — when an ideologically diverse set of candidates won on a common message about cost-of-living — alarmed the White House and buoyed the faction of the Democratic Party urging senators to lock in and fight for health care subsidy concessions. Trump this week said the shutdown contributed to Republican losses, as he and his allies only intensified their pleas to terminate the filibuster in order to advance his agenda ahead of next year’s midterms. “If Republicans in the Senate capitulate, it’ll be a mess. I do. I think it’ll be bad for the party,” said Alex Bruesewitz, an outside Trump adviser. “And I hope Republicans in the Senate learn how to fight for their voters. Otherwise, I don’t think that they’re going to continue to get elected. I really don’t, which is unfortunate, but I think the president and his judgment should be trusted by now.” But the president’s allies also concede that the White House knows the votes aren’t there, and that Trump’s filibuster talk is part of a broader messaging push to gain shutdown leverage. “I think they’re gonna cut a deal, I really do,” said one longtime White House ally. The person, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly, added that Trump was using the threat of filibuster repeal “to scare the Democrats into cutting a deal.” “He wants to get things done,” the person added. “He’s frustrated by what’s going on in Congress.” But Democrats’ efforts on Friday also did little to advance those negotiations. Republicans balked at Schumer’s counterproposal: attaching a one-year extension of expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies to a spending stopgap. A White House official, granted anonymity to speak about internal thinking, described Schumer’s proposal as a “massive climbdown” from Democrats’ initial position and “shows they’re under massive internal pressure.” “They should open the government, and we’ll meet with them on the tax credit and work with them on it,” the official said, reiterating that the White House’s position has not changed. Republican leaders also criticized Schumer’s latest offer, with Thune calling it a “nonstarter” and saying the “Obamacare extension is the negotiation.” The president, for his part, left Washington for Mar-a-Lago on Friday, despite his call for the Senate to remain in session. But Trump didn’t offer any clarity on what sort of deal, if anything, he might support to reopen federal agencies. “If they can’t reach a Deal,” the president said in a Truth Social post, “the Republicans should terminate the Filibuster, IMMEDIATELY, and take care of our Great American Workers!”

Listen on * Spotify * Apple Music * Amazon Music Außenminister Wadephul sagt seine China-Reise kurzfristig ab. Ein Vorgang, der zeigt, wie sehr sich die Machtverhältnisse verschoben haben. Hans von der Burchard analysiert, wie China Deutschland die Grenzen aufzeigt, warum die EU zum Vermittler wird  und welche Folgen die Eskalation hat. Im 200-Sekunden-Interview spricht Markus Frohnmaier, außenpolitischer Sprecher der AfD, über Pekings Rolle in der Welt, deutsche Interessen und warum er die Regierung für „hypermoralisch“ hält. Danach: Innenminister Alexander Dobrindt will Deutschland besser gegen Cyberangriffe wappnen und erlaubt künftig auch digitale Gegenschläge. Rixa Fürsen erklärt, wie schwierig das Konzept der Abwehr ist und warum Zuständigkeiten zwischen Bund, Ländern und Bundeswehr so unklar sind. Zum Schluss: Ein Blick auf die SPD, die in Bielefeld gegen den Kanzler und damit die eigene Regierung demonstriert. Das Berlin Playbook als Podcast gibt es jeden Morgen ab 5 Uhr. Gordon Repinski und das POLITICO-Team liefern Politik zum Hören – kompakt, international, hintergründig. Für alle Hauptstadt-Profis: Der Berlin Playbook-Newsletter bietet jeden Morgen die wichtigsten Themen und Einordnungen. Jetzt kostenlos abonnieren. Mehr von Host und POLITICO Executive Editor Gordon Repinski: Instagram: @gordon.repinski | X: @GordonRepinski.

ATHENS — Greek authorities made dozens of arrests on Wednesday related to Greece’s spiraling farm fraud case, in an investigation led by European prosecutors. Some 37 people suspected of being members of an organized criminal group involved in large-scale agricultural funding fraud and money laundering activities were arrested, and searches were carried out throughout the country, according to a statement by the European Public Prosecutor’s Office. In a snowballing scandal, the EPPO is pursuing dozens of cases in which Greeks allegedly received agricultural funds from the European Union for pastureland they did not own or lease, or for agricultural work they did not perform, depriving legitimate farmers of the funds they deserved. POLITICO first reported on the scheme in February. Several ministers and deputy ministers have resigned over their alleged involvement in the scandal. The EU has already fined Athens €400 million after finding evidence of systemic failings in the handling of farm subsidies from 2016 through to 2023. Greece also risks losing its EU farm subsidies unless it provides an improved action plan on how it will stop funds being siphoned off into corruption. The original deadline was Oct. 2, but this has now been pushed back to Nov. 4. “The Commission is awaiting the submission of the revised action plan and in the meantime, it continues to be in contact with the Greek authorities,” a European Commission spokesperson told POLITICO earlier this month. Wednesday’s operation centered on a criminal network accused of illegally obtaining EU farm subsidies through false declarations submitted to the organization in charge of distributing EU farm funds in Greece, OPEKEPE. According to the EPPO, in the course of the preliminary investigation, 324 individuals were identified as subsidy recipients, causing an estimated cost of more than €19.6 million to the EU budget. Of these, 42 are believed to be involved in this case and are considered current members of the criminal group, says the EPPO. Most of them appear to have no actual connection to farming or producing, according to the Greek and EU authorities. The EPPO said that, at least since 2018, the group “allegedly exploited procedural gaps” in the submission of applications using falsified or misleading documents to claim agricultural subsidies from OPEKEPE. They are suspected of fraudulently declaring pastureland that did not belong to them or did not meet eligibility criteria. They allegedly inflated livestock numbers to increase their subsidy entitlements. To conceal the illicit origin of the proceeds, they are believed to have issued fictitious invoices, routed the funds through multiple bank accounts, and mixed them with legitimate income. Part of the misappropriated money was allegedly spent on luxury goods, travel and vehicles, to disguise the funds as lawful assets. Greece’s anti-money laundering authority is investigating Giorgos Xylouris, a farmer from Crete and until recently member of ruling New Democracy. Xylouris is one of the key characters mentioned in EPPO case files, under the nickname Frappé (“Iced Coffee”), regarding the OPEKEPE scandal. Some €2.5 million was discovered in his bank accounts during a random inspection, the Greek officials said. Authorities found that Xylouris had failed to submit the required financial documentation and could not justify the large sum. Eight vehicles were also identified in his possession, including a Jaguar luxury car. The case file has been sent to the prosecutors to examine possible violations of anti-bribery laws and an investigation is ongoing regarding whether money laundering has occurred.

CAGLIARI, Italy — Sardinia is one of the world’s most beautiful islands, which raises the question: Where is everyone? Not tourists — there are plenty of those — but locals. The island’s population is 1.57 million, down from 1.64 million three decades ago, but half live in its two largest urban areas, while smaller towns and villages are withering. The big problem is that people aren’t having babies. With an average of 1.18 children per woman, Italy has one of the lowest fertility rates in the European Union. Sardinia recorded the lowest rate in Italy, at 0.91 children per woman. Just to keep a population stable, women should have an average of 2.1 children. High unemployment on the island and better job prospects elsewhere are doing the rest, emptying dozens of villages of their young people. “The last child was born here 10 years ago,” said Maria Anna Camedda, the mayor of Baradili, Sardinia’s smallest village with a population of 76. The place is tiny — less than 500 meters separates the “Welcome to Baradili” sign from the one marking the end of the village, which is well-maintained and adorned with photos — like a big family house. The risk of places like Baradili becoming ghost towns is prompting the island to try to lure in newcomers. A couple moving to a Sardinian village of fewer than 3,000 residents can receive up to €15,000 to purchase or renovate a home, up to €20,000 to start a business that creates local jobs, and a monthly subsidy of €600 for their first child plus €400 for each subsequent child until they turn 5. These incentives are part of an anti-depopulation package introduced by the island. They come on top of local emergency measures, such as the municipality of Ollolai’s offer of €1 houses for newcomers. Despite the incentives, migrants are snubbing the island. The risk of places like Baradili becoming ghost towns is prompting the island to try and lure in newcomers. | Tommaso Lecca/POLITICO Romania, Senegal, Morocco, China and Ukraine are the home countries of roughly half of the 52,000 foreigners residing in Sardinia, which is about 3.3 percent of the island’s population. The national average is 8.9 percent. In 2022, the number of foreigners moving to Sardinia did not account for even a quarter of the population decline that occurred that year. The Italian demographic winter, which is even tougher in Sardinia, recently forced Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing government to allow 500,000 foreign workers into the country over the next three years. But the population collapse remains stark in small communities like Baradili. Over 30 years ago, the village closed its one-room primary school, in which all 15 local children, ranging in age from 6 to 10, learned together. Baradili and nearby villages opted for a rotating school system in which children attend classes in three different villages throughout the year. A free bus picks them up every morning. Attending high school or reaching a hospital is much harder, as both services are over 30 kilometers away. The challenges of serving communities like Baradili prompted Meloni’s government to acknowledge in the recent National Strategic Plan for Internal Areas that some parts of the country “cannot set themselves any goals for reversing the [depopulation] trend, but neither can they be left to their own devices.” The document proposed setting up “a targeted plan to assist them in a process of chronic decline and aging.” This wording provoked indignation, even among 140 Catholic Church representatives, who denounced the government’s plan as “support for a happy death” of villages. But Camedda is not impressed. “It was simply put down in black and white what the government — not just this government — has been doing for several decades,” she said. Baradili is doing everything it can to survive. It introduced a €10,000 subsidy on top of the incentives granted at the regional level. The village is served by a swimming pool, a football field, tennis and padel courts and even a motorhome park. In 2022, Baradili celebrated the arrival of four families, which brought nine new residents. EXPAT CAVALRY While many young Sardinians are leaving small rural villages to embrace urban life, some expats are taking the opposite direction. Ivo Rovira, a Spanish photographer working for the America’s Cup sailing competition, ended up in his new home village of Armungia by chance. In 2023 he spent several months in Cagliari, the capital city of Sardinia, snapping photos for the Italian sailboat Luna Rossa. “One day, in January, I was driving toward the interior of the island looking for some snow. I arrived in Armungia, a place I had never heard of before.” Rovira’s photographer’s eye was captivated by the landscape of the village, which has fewer than 400 residents. Ivo Rovira, a Spanish photographer working for the America’s Cup sailing competition, ended up in his new home village of Armungia by chance. | Tommaso Lecca/POLITICO “I parked the car and went for a walk. I found a house in the historic center with a ‘For Sale’ banner. Ten days later, I put down a deposit to buy it,” he said. After renovating the old house, which used to be a wine shop but had sat empty for 30 years, Rovira and his wife, Ana Ponce, moved to Armungia permanently. They also set up a restaurant that is open a few days per month, depending on demand. “It takes half an hour to drive to a supermarket along winding roads, but there is an international airport an hour away,” he said. “We don’t feel like digital nomads; we are real Armungians,” Rovira added. Bianca Fontana, an Australian with Italian roots, dreamed of moving to Italy after the pandemic. She joined a friend who was staying in Nulvi, a town of around 2,500 — larger than some tiny communities, but still eligible for the regional grants. A historical photo of the Secci family store, the house purchased by Ivo Rovira. Courtesy of the Sa Domu de is Ainas – Armungia Ethnographic Museum Collection. | Tommaso Lecca/POLITICO “I bought a house within two weeks. And I moved here about six months later,” Fontana said. She grew up in a country town in Australia before living in London and Shanghai. “I did get to a point where I was feeling quite exhausted in bigger cities, and I wanted to find a smaller, quieter place,” she said. Fontana now talks about her new life in Sardinia on her YouTube channel, which has over 3,000 subscribers. Many of them regularly comment on her videos about renovation grants, work on her own house, archaeological excursions and local wine. There is also an effort to keep locals from leaving. Marcello Contu left Sardinia at the age of 18 to move to Turin, and then lived in Barcelona and Australia. Bianca Fontana sits in front of a mural in the village of Nulvi. Courtesy of Bianca Fontana. | Tommaso Lecca/POLITICO But then he moved to the 120-person village of Bidonì to start a vegan cheese-making business. “The artisanal production of plant-based cheeses requires great attention, waiting times, experimentation, and daily care that are difficult to reconcile with chaotic environments,” he said. Contu’s products are now available in dozens of restaurants and shops across Sardinia and the rest of Italy. “Geographical isolation and a lack of services translate into a constant practical challenge: Sourcing raw materials or making deliveries often requires long journeys, with longer times and higher costs than for those working in better-connected areas,” he said. But Contu believes that small villages can become “ideal places for developing craft, creative, and sustainability-related activities, because they offer what large cities have often lost: time, spaces on a human scale, authentic relationships, and a strong connection with the local area and nature.” Rovira and Fontana are also impressed by the capacity of Sardinian villagers to stick together. Ivo Rovira and Ana Ponce in front of their new house in Armungia. | Tommaso Lecca/POLITICO Rovira was once told by a neighbor: “We live in such a small village that if we don’t help each other, we’re dead.” REALLY, REALLY CHEAP HOUSES Ollolai made a name for itself as the town of €1 houses — a project that started in 2016. According to Francesco Columbu, the local mayor, about 100,000 people registered interest in the €1 houses, but the municipality could only accommodate a few aspiring Ollolai residents. The scheme acts as an intermediary between owners of old houses — often split across different families of heirs — and those seeking to obtain them for peanuts. As a result, only a handful of foreign families have obtained a €1 house. Meanwhile, the village has continued to lose inhabitants, dropping from 1,300 when the offer began to 1,150 now. “While it’s possible that a cultured American or German who loves stone architecture or that of another Sardinian village moves there, this does not create the economic benefits needed to solve problems,” said Anna Maria Colavitti, professor of urban planning at the University of Cagliari. Colavitti analyzed the results of the €1 houses, concluding that they “alone are not enough, just as incentives for having kids are not enough,” she said. Colavitti’s study also showed that new owners sometimes decide to resell the €1 property at the same price they paid for it because they cannot afford the higher-than-expected renovation costs or are dissatisfied with their choice. But the mayor of Ollolai keeps fighting with the tools he has. “Ollolai will not die so easily. The inland villages of Sardinia have seen their fair share of crises. They went through periods of plague in the 1600s … yet they recovered,” Columbu said. “We have a better quality of life, and we’re an hour away from some of the most beautiful beaches in the world. I say the beautiful things will never die.”

OPTICS EUROPE’S CLIMATE REFUGEES: THE GREEK COMMUNITIES WIPED OFF THE MAP Villages in the country’s agricultural breadbasket lie half-abandoned two years after catastrophic floods. Text by NEKTARIA STAMOULI Photos by LOUIZA VRADI in Palamas, Greece Above, a house destroyed by Cyclone Daniel two summers ago, in Keramidi. Next, 70-year-old Zoe Papaioannou. Her family left Palamas after the floods and relocated to nearby Metamorfosi. She lives in a two-bedroom apartment with her son Konstantinos Papaioannou, his wife Aglaia and their two children Panayiotis  and Zoe, aged 8 and 4. In a cramped two-bedroom apartment, Konstantinos Papaioannou lives with his wife, two children and his mother. The 51-year-old farmer’s former home in the village of Metamorfosi is an empty shell: mold in the plaster, the flood line marked by a dirty ring above the door. They are not going back. Two years after Cyclone Daniel turned Greece’s farm belt into an inland sea, Metamorfosi is one of the dozens of villages that remain half-abandoned. The families who fled say they are among Europe’s first climate refugees: displaced by extreme weather, priced out of nearby rentals and stuck in bureaucratic limbo as the government studies whether, and where, to rebuild entire communities. “Only the walls and windows remain of our house,” Papaioannou said. “It’s impossible to rebuild from scratch.” The rent for their apartment is state-subsidized, but payments arrive late and the paperwork is heavy. The subsidy is due to expire, and the family is hoping for an extension. The government promised to relocate the village to safer ground; two years on, residents say the relocation studies are still incomplete. 51-year-old farmer Konstantinos Papaioannou and his son Panayiotis. Next, a red graffiti marks a house for demolition. Below, a bar destroyed by Cyclone Daniel in Metamorfosi.  38-year-old plumber and farmer Konstantinos Goutelas, left for Palamas and is slowly doing some renovation work on his own in his house in Vlocho For Papaioannou’s 70-year-old mother, Zoe Papaioannou, leaving her home is a rupture she never wanted. “Families with small children don’t return to the villages. If my husband were alive, we would have returned. I was born there, and I want to die there. But I’ll go wherever my children go.”  The region has long been subject to flooding. The elder Papaioannou remembers being lifted into a boat during a flood when she was 2, but what happened on the night of September 5, 2023, when the water reached the roof tiles, was something different. She grabbed an icon of the Virgin Mary, a blood-pressure monitor and her health booklet before relatives got her out. She regrets not saving the family photos. Back in Metamorfosi, Konstantinos Tsioukas, 60, said he and his wife managed to save only their wedding crowns. “We don’t want to return here. We will always be afraid of flooding. Why should I go through that drama again? Why should I put my children through this?”  Advertisement He estimates that about 40 families have returned to the village, even though no government official has inspected the houses for safety. Those who came back did so because they had trouble with rent. He travels back and forth to Metamorfosi to care for his land, a 2-hour drive, but neither he nor his children want to farm.  “It’s not worth the trouble,” he said. “Do I want to starve my children? No.” At the village café, the only establishment that was undamaged enough to reopen, Fani Ntantou, 55, said business has trickled to just a few dozen people coming for coffee, tsipouro or meze. “If I were 30, we would leave. We would go to Germany and wash dishes,” she said. “This was a lively village with three or four cafés, but now we only have funerals.” A REGION UNDER WATER Cyclone Daniel dumped more than a year’s worth of rain on central Greece in just hours. According to the EU’s Copernicus monitoring service, some 750 square kilometers, roughly the area of New York City, of the Thessalian plain were inundated, much of it farmland. The plain accounts for 25 percent of Greece’s agricultural production, with much of the country’s wheat, barley, chickpeas, lentils and pistachios grown there.  “There was absolutely no planning whatsoever,” said Dimitris Kouretas, Thessaly’s regional governor. He indicated three maps in his office in the city of Larissa that showed where the government has promised to implement flood prevention projects, including modifications to riverbeds and dams in the mountains, none of which have been completed.   “The current system can only handle about 40 percent of the water volume of Cyclone Daniel,” said Kouretas. Above, Fani Ntantou, 55. She owns a local coffee shop and is one of the very few that have returned to Metamorfosi, together her 67-year old husband. Bottom, George Didagelos, seen below in a destroyed breeding unit of his now-abandoned pig farm, in Koskina. To make matters worse, climate change is bringing not just flooding — but drought. Drier summers, combined with the overuse of groundwater, have led to significant shortages. Farmers in the villages are fighting about how the water will be distributed. “In winter, we work to maintain the embankments so that we don’t flood,” said Konstantinos Tasiopoulos, a 77-year-old farmer who left the floodplains for the city of Karditsa after Cyclone Daniel. “In summer, we don’t have enough water for irrigation. Soon, we won’t even have anything to drink. It will become a desert.” The 2023 flood also killed some 100,000 animals, a problem compounded by the culling of tens of thousands of sheep and goats following an outbreak of fast-spreading illnesses.  Advertisement “This place was bustling with life, there were always thousands of pigs,” said George Didagelos, a pig farmer in the village of Koskina and the president of the Greek livestock association who lost 6,600 pigs to the cyclone. “I still get nightmares of that night.”  It was so difficult to find help to remove the carcasses that the remains of the drowned pigs can still be seen in Didagelos’ now-abandoned breeding farm. REBUILD OR RELOCATE Even as villagers remain scattered across the region, some are debating whether it’s better to rebuild or to relocate. Before the flood, the village of Vlochos had about 400 residents. Today, fewer than a third have returned. A recent referendum on whether to relocate divided the community, leaving some residents refusing to speak to one another. While 65 percent of the population said they wanted to leave, authorities have answered that this is not enough. “They tell us that if we want relocation, we all have to agree. But this is impossible,” said Vassilis Kalogiannis, the head of the village.  Konstantinos Tsioukas, a 60-year old farmer, and his wife moved from Metamorfosi to Palamas following the floods. Vassilis Kalogiannis, president of Vlochos: “We asked for reinforcement of the embankments. The pumping station was not functioning properly. The rivers had not been properly cleaned; dams should have been built up in the mountains.” “It’s like a family, they rarely agree unanimously. The parents decide. A decision should be made by the state,” Ioannis Koukas, 52, Kalogiannis’ predecessor. Vasilis Galanis, a 54-year-old craftsman and painter, now lives in Karditsa with his wife and three children. He said that if the relocation doesn’t go ahead, he is considering leaving the country. “I’m not going to spend a fortune here and lose it again. My children aren’t going to stay anyway.” Advertisement

The Czech government is demanding that the business owned by former Prime Minister and election favorite Andrej Babiš return more than €200 million in farm subsidy payments, raising the stakes ahead of a national vote in October. Giving an overall figure for the first time, Agriculture Minister Marek Výborný said that the Agrofert conglomerate should repay 5.1 billion koruny (€208 million) — of which 4.24 billion koruny were EU direct payments, with the remaining 860 million koruny made up of national subsidies. The decision follows a series of court defeats suffered by Agrofert in recent months, relating to subsidies the conglomerate received back when Babiš was prime minister from 2017 to 2021. Despite putting Agrofert into two trusts, the courts found that he continued to control the business, meaning that the company was not eligible for the subsidies. “Based on the facts known to me and the Supreme Administrative Court’s decision, which was confirmed by the Constitutional Court at the end of April, we are moving forward with proceedings to reclaim payments made during that period to companies ultimately owned by Andrej Babiš,” said Výborný. Babiš accused the center-right government, which polls show faces defeat in the Oct. 3-4 polls, of pursuing a political vendetta. “Minister Výborný has been abusing his position and officials for political battles and only wants to gain visibility before the elections. The whole coalition is obsessed with Babiš and Agrofert,” said Babiš. Babiš’s populist ANO party has long been the election front-runner, with support reaching 33 percent this week, despite a dog-slaying hitman scandal that rocked his party. The tycoon campaigns on messaging often associated with the far right and has vowed to scrap ammunition deliveries to Ukraine — but has not unveiled the official election program yet. His main opponent, the Spolu coalition, which includes three out of four governing parties, lags on 20 percent. The bloc’s ratings have suffered from unpopular decisions such as a pensions reform, poor communication and internal friction — along with factors like high inflation and energy costs. In a separate but related ruling, Prague’s High Court has overturned an earlier decision clearing Babiš of wrongdoing in a €2 million EU subsidy fraud. That case is now with the same Prague District Court that in February 2024 acquitted Babiš and his former adviser and current Patriots for Europe Member of the European Parliament Jana Nagyová of fiddling ownership documents so the former leader’s agriculture holding qualified for the subsidies. The High Court said the lower court had not evaluated the evidence properly — and obliged it to follow its legal opinion. That essentially means that the lower court cannot acquit Babiš again unless new evidence is found. If he takes power after the elections, the court will need to ask the newly elected deputies to waive his immunity. Both Babiš and Nagyová have pleaded not guilty on numerous occasions, claiming the case is politically motivated.

ATHENS — A probe into a massive fraud involving hundreds of millions of EU farm funds in Greece is widening to include a former official from the ruling New Democracy party of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. This new strand of the investigation follows a report in the in.gr website that Kalliopi Semertzidou, her partner and at least six other family members received €2.5 million in subsidies from OPEKEPE, the organization in charge of distributing EU farm funds in Greece, between 2019 and 2024. Amid mounting pressure following the report, Semertzidou resigned from her post as coordinator of EU funds and women’s entrepreneurship in New Democracy. She called the allegations “a targeted and slanderous attack with false claims” and also insisted in her resignation letter that her activities were “transparent and legal.” The Greek office of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, or EPPO, is now awaiting findings from the Anti-Money Laundering Authority, which raided the offices of OPEKEPE on Wednesday. The raid sought information regarding EU subsidies received by individuals from the Thessaly region — including Semertzidou, according to officials involved in the investigation. The authorities say that if they find evidence of illicit wealth or a lifestyle that does not align with declared income, they will freeze assets and forward the case to European prosecutors. In a snowballing scandal, EPPO is pursuing dozens of cases in which Greeks received agricultural funds from the European Union for pastureland they did not own or lease, or for agricultural work they did not perform, depriving legitimate farmers of the funds they deserved. POLITICO first reported on the scheme in February. Photos of Semertzidou’s lavish lifestyle, showing her driving a Ferrari and a Porsche, as well as selfies with New Democracy leaders, circulated on social media. The couple says the subsidies received were all legal and that the luxury cars were bought many years before, while they have undergone several audits by authorities in the past and were cleared. Meanwhile, farmers in northern Greece have begun protesting, citing delays in subsidy payments from OPEKEPE. Some payments have been frozen amid ongoing judicial investigations.

BRUSSELS — The European Commission says it’s safeguarding farmers. Farmers say Brussels is stabbing them in the back. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen unveiled plans on Wednesday to cut funding for the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy from €386.6 billion to just €300 billion after 2027 as part of a sweeping revision of the bloc’s next long-term budget. That’s a headline reduction of more than 20 percent — before even accounting for inflation. Von der Leyen, presenting her budget proposal, denied that farmers would lose out and highlighted the funding available to rural communities under other spending programs. “Agriculture will be strengthened. What we have safeguarded are the direct payments to farmers,” she told a news conference. “That is one part that is clearly safeguarded and secured.” She left Agriculture Commissioner Christophe Hansen to defend the cuts that he himself spent months fighting against behind closed doors. “In the money that is coming into the pockets of farmers, there is no cut,” he insisted when pushed on the reduction at a press conference, arguing that the missing billions are accounted for in other parts of the budget. Speaking earlier before an angry European Parliament agriculture committee, Hansen said that the €300 billion figure is not a ceiling but a floor, the minimum that EU countries must spend on agriculture over the next seven-year budget cycle. The money, he stressed, will be legally ring-fenced and protected from being siphoned off to other priorities like defense or competitiveness. “No other policy area has this level of protection,” Hansen told MEPs. “This guarantees stability and predictability for farmers.” WELCOME TO VONDERLAND Farmers aren’t convinced. While Hansen tried to calm tempers inside the Parliament, hundreds of farmers rallied outside the EU institutions in Brussels, waving flags and chanting slogans like “Welcome to Vonderland” — a jab at von der Leyen for what they see as the betrayal of Europe’s farm sector. “They’re dismantling 70 years of European history,” fumed Massimiliano Giansanti, the head of Copa, the powerful EU farming lobby, referring to the CAP’s post–World War II origins.  For many of Europe’s farmers, the CAP isn’t just a subsidy system, it’s a birthright.  “They want to have a declaration of war to the farmers. OK, we are ready,” Giansanti added. This time, there were no tractors, just flags, chants and an artificial intelligence-generated song blasting about farming subsidies as protesters marched from the Parliament to the Berlaymont, the Commission’s headquarters. WHAT’S REALLY BEING CUT Hansen’s defense rests on a controversial distinction. He told MEPs that not all of the current €386.6 billion CAP budget actually lands in farmers’ pockets. Of that amount, some €291.1 billion is earmarked for income and sectoral support, while another €95.5 billion is meant to support rural development programs. In reality, most of the rural development funding still goes into farmers’ pockets, through investment support, funding for environmentally friendly farming and extra support for those working in challenging natural areas, like mountains. Copa-Cogeca, which brings together the EU’s main farmers’ and agri-cooperative lobbies, branded the day a “Black Wednesday for European agriculture.” In a blistering statement, it accused von der Leyen of secretly preparing a “radical, unilateral and cynical” cut while paying lip service to dialogue. “We know exactly who will be hit hardest — family farms, the cornerstone of our model,” the group said. Inside the Parliament, lawmakers from across the political spectrum piled on. “Don’t try and sell us a 25 percent CAP cut as a success story,” said Herbert Dorfmann, a veteran of farm budget fights from the center-right European People’s Party, von der Leyen’s own political family. Fellow Italian, Socialists and Democrats lawmaker Dario Nardella, was equally blunt: “Maybe I’ve misunderstood, but €300 billion is not more than €386 billion. How is this a success story?” Hansen pushed back, insisting member countries can always top up their national farm envelopes, but few believe cash-strapped governments will find the extra money. “They’ve got us tied down,” said Álvaro, a farmer from Toledo who only gave his first name, summing up the mood on the protest line. “I wish we could survive without subsidies, but we need them. The Spanish countryside and European agriculture are being ruined from here.” By early evening, the farmers had packed up their flags and gone home.  But the political fight over Europe’s farm budget is just getting started.