News in brief
Escalating the inflammatory rhetoric directed at Athens, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed again, after his return on Sunday from the Berlin conference on Libya, that the island of Crete does not have a continental shelf while also slamming Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis for receiving Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar in Athens last week.
The EU has deployed a naval mission, dubbed “Operation Sophia”, into the Mediterranean to monitor the UN arms embargo on Libya as well as combat migrant smuggling from the country.
Diplomatic sources noted that Greece has expressed its will to participate in any mission of surveillance of the arms embargo the UN Security Council supports.
Monday’s Eurogroup in Brussels provided an opportunity to the Greek government to reassure European officials that it is making efforts to create more fiscal space, while discussions will continue in Athens this week regarding the fifth enhanced surveillance review.
Finance Minister Christos Staikouras held a productive meeting with European Economic Affairs Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni, who said discussions of Greece’s demand for the reduction of primary surplus have begun. The Commissioner also said he will visit Athens early next month.
Staikouras also met with European Stability Mechanism managing director Klaus Regling in Brussels. Regling, after the completion of the Eurogroup meeting, stated that the “latest figures are better than the ESM’s initial estimate, but they must first be proven”.
State hospitals are experiencing a lack of beds available in ICUs. The union of state hospital employees rings an alarm bell as a new flu virus has made its appearance in our country.
As Donald Trump prepares today to address the billionaires in Davos, the US Senate prepares to hear opening arguments in an impeachment trial that could remove Trump from the presidency.
Αnd the weather forecast…
Partly cloudy in Attica today with the temperature expected to reach a high of 9 degrees Celsius.
More news in brief tomorrow morning at 9.
