Greece - ekathimerini.com (English)

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1. Minister says most farmers qualify for lower power tariff

   Rural Development and Food Minister Kostas Tsiaras said Friday that nearly nine in 10 agricultural electricity connections included in the GAIA low-tariff program qualify for a reduced electricity price of 8.5 cents per kilowatt-hour.

2. Likeliest reasons for the airspace blackout

   Having established what happened, the reasons for that remain to be clarified.

3. Still hard to start a business in Greece

   Greece is good for business in theory, but it suffers in practice, according to the World Bank’s “Business Ready 2025” report, which assesses the conditions for doing business in 101 countries.

4. Farmers in central Greece move to ease blockades ahead of PM talks

   Farmers in Central Greece began de-escalating road blockades as they prepare for a meeting with Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Tuesday at the Maximos Mansion.

5. Greece narrows SAFE loan bid to six defense programs

   Greece is promoting six defense programs for financing through the European Commission’s Security Action for Europe regulation (SAFE) that offers low-interest loans and favorable terms to strengthen European defense.

6. Temporary schedule changes on Athens metro Line 2 from Jan 11

   Work to replace the rails and install a 5G network on the Athens metro will continue on Line 2, resulting in temporary changes to train schedules and earlier station closures at Syngrou Fix, Neos Kosmos and Agios Ioannis between January 11 and February 21.

7. New wave of private university applications

   The Education Ministry expects more than five new applications from foreign universities seeking to establish branches in the country for the 2026-2027 academic year, Education Minister Sofia Zacharaki announced during a television interview.

8. EU envoys provisionally approve signing of record Mercosur trade deal

   EU ambassadors gave provisional approval on Friday to the signing of the bloc’s largest ever free trade accord with South American group Mercosur, over 25 years since negotiations began and after months of wrangling to secure key member states’ backing, according to three EU diplomats and sources.

9. Survey shows Karystianou party tapping protest vote, minimal impact on ND and PASOK

   A new GPO survey suggests that a potential new party led by Maria Karystianou – president of the association representing the families of victims of the 2023 Tempe rail disaster – would draw most of its support from Greece’s protest and anti-establishment parties, leaving the ruling New Democracy party and the main opposition PASOK largely unaffected.

10. Trump’s jungle rules

    2026 is a tipping point year. The biggest source of global instability won’t be China, Russia, Iran, or the some 60 conflicts burning across the planet – the most since World War II. It will be the United States.