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Greece Elections: New Democracy on Track to Win Most Votes
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’s New Democracy party did not win enough votes to form a one-party government. But he appeared to rule out talks to form a coalition, setting the stage for a second vote in weeks.The party of Greece’s conservative prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, was on track to win a decisive victory in the general election on Sunday but fell short of the majority required to lead a one-party government, setting the stage for another ballot within weeks since Mr. Mitsotakis appeared to rule out forming a governing coalition.Mr. Mitsotakis described the preliminary outcome as a “political earthquake” that called for an “experienced hand to the helm” of Greece, and said that any negotiations with fractious potential coalition partners would only lead to a dead end.With 93.7 percent of the votes counted on Sunday night and his party, New Democracy, leading the opposition Syriza by 20 percentage points, Mr. Mitsotakis greeted a crowd of cheering supporters outside his party’s office in Athens.“We kept the country upright and we’ve laid the foundations for a better nation,” he said. “We will fight the next battle together so that at the next elections what we already decided on, an autonomous New Democracy, will be realized.”New Democracy had captured 40.8 percent of the votes by Sunday night, preliminary results showed, after calling on Greeks to opt for economic and political stability over “chaos” in a tense campaign. The center-left Syriza party, led by former Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, under whose tenure Greece came close to leaving the eurozone in 2015, landed in second place, with 20.7 percent of the votes. The socialist Pasok-Kinal party took third place, securing 11.6 percent.Mr. Tsipras said in a statement that he had called to congratulate Mr. Mitsotakis on his victory, and that his party would convene to discuss the result given that a second election appeared all but assured.On Monday, when the final result is clear, the leading party will get a mandate to try to form a government. But it appeared most likely that the prime minister will not explore that option, leading to a new election, possibly in June or early July.New Democracy was on track to win 145 seats in the 300-seat Parliament, with 72 seats for Syriza, preliminary results showed. Syriza’s poor performance spurred speculation in the Greek news media about the center-left party’s future.Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis addressed supporters at his party’s headquarters in Athens on Sunday.Thanassis Stavrakis/Associated Press“It reflects the utter collapse of Syriza’s strategy, its perpetual rightward drift, a hegemonic position on the left that deepened confusion and demoralization,” said Seraphim Seferiades, a professor of politics and history at Panteion University in Athens.He also noted the high abstention in the vote, over 40 percent: Turnout stood at 60 percent, preliminary results showed.Three factors added to the ambiguity of the election on Sunday: the one in 10 undecided voters; the roughly 440,000 young people who were eligible to vote for the first time; and the 3 percent of the electorate that had backed a party founded by the jailed spokesman of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party, which was banned from running.The absence of an outright winner had been expected, since the election was conducted under a system of simple proportional representation, which makes it hard for a single party to take power. Any second vote would be held under a different system, which grants bonus seats to the winning party, giving New Democracy a better chance of forming an independent government.In his campaign speech in Athens on Friday night, Mr. Mitsotakis pointed to his government’s success in increasing growth (now at twice the eurozone average), attracting investment and bolstering the country’s defenses amid a testy period with neighboring Turkey.“This is not the time for experiments that lead nowhere,” he said, adding that achieving an investment grade rating, which would allow Greece to lower its borrowing costs, required a stable government.Mr. Mitsotakis was also unapologetic about Greece’s tough stance on migration, which has included heightened border controls and has led to a 90 percent drop in migrant arrivals since 2015. While his government has come under fire by human rights groups for illegally pushing back migrants at sea and creating camps with prisonlike conditions, many Greeks have welcomed the reduced influx. Migrants overwhelmed Greece’s resources at the peak of Europe’s migration crisis.“Greece has borders, and those borders must be guarded,” Mr. Mitsotakis declared on Friday to a crowd of cheering supporters waving Greek flags.Former Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, leader of the leftist Syriza party, at a polling station in Athens on Sunday.Aris Messinis/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMr. Tsipras, for his part, had campaigned for change. He highlighted a perceived abuse of power by the current administration, including a wiretapping scandal, and drew attention to the rising cost of living, which opinion polls show is most voters’ key concern.Before casting his ballot on Sunday, Mr. Tsipras called on Greeks to “leave behind an arrogant government that doesn’t feel the needs of the many.”His message was convincing to Elisavet Dimou, 17, who voted for the first time on Sunday in a central Athens school. She said she had been swayed by Syriza’s promise of “change” and “justice.”“Syriza made mistakes, too, but they didn’t spy on half the country,” she said, referring to reports that the wiretapping scandal had swept up dozens of politicians, journalists and entrepreneurs.Another factor in her choice of Syriza was the fatal train crash in central Greece in February that killed 57 people, including many students. “They had their whole lives ahead of them, and they died because those in power didn’t care enough to fix the trains,” she said.Public outrage over the crash briefly dented New Democracy’s lead in opinion polls, but that edged back up as supporters were apparently comforted by promises of continued stability and prosperity.One supporter, Sakis Farantakis, a 54-year-old hair salon owner, said: “They’re far from perfect, but it’s the only safe choice. We’ve moved on; why go backwards to uncertainty?”Mr. Mitsotakis has argued that a one-party government would be preferable to a coalition deal to ensure stability and reassure investors. Economic growth has taken hold in Greece after a decade-long financial crisis that ended in 2018.Voters outside a polling station in Athens on Sunday.Petros Giannakouris/Associated PressHe has little choice of partners. The socialist Pasok party had been regarded as the only realistic candidate for a coalition with New Democracy. But Mr. Mitsotakis’s admission last year that Greece’s state surveillance agency had spied on Pasok’s leader, Nikos Androulakis, strained ties between the men and cast a shadow over any prospects for cooperation.A leftist-led administration had been another possibility. Syriza had been courting Pasok for a coalition that would most likely require a third party, probably Mera25. That party, led by Yanis Varoufakis, Mr. Tsipras’s former finance minister, appeared not to have gained a foothold in Parliament with most of the votes counted.Mr. Androulakis had kept his intentions unclear, declaring that both parties were unreliable and that neither Mr. Mitsotakis nor Mr. Tsipras should lead any coalition government. Mr. Androulakis called to congratulate Mr. Mitsotakis late Sunday. More
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As Greece Votes, Leader Says Blocking Migrants Built ‘Good Will’ With Europe
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has taken a tough line on migrants as he turns around the country’s economy. It’s a trade-off that voters and the European Union seem more than willing to abide.Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis of Greece has been accused of illegally pushing asylum seekers back at sea. He has acknowledged that the state’s intelligence service wiretapped an opposition leader. He has consolidated media control as press freedom in Greece has dropped to the lowest in Europe.It is the sort of thing that the guardians of European Union values often scorn in right-wing populist leaders, whether it be Giorgia Meloni of Italy or Viktor Orban of Hungary. But with Greece holding national elections on Sunday, Brussels has instead lauded Mr. Mitsotakis, a pro-Europe conservative, for bringing stability to the Greek economy, for sending military aid to Ukraine and for providing regional stability in a time of potential upheaval in Turkey.Above all, European Union leaders appear to have cut Mr. Mitsotakis slack for doing the continent’s unpleasant work of keeping migrants at bay, a development that shows just how much Europe has shifted, with crackdowns formerly associated with the right wing drifting into the mainstream.“I’m helping Europe on numerous fronts,” Mr. Mitsotakis said in a brief interview on Tuesday in the port city of Piraeus, where, in his trademark blue dress shirt and slacks, the 55-year-old rallied adoring voters on crowded streets. “It’s bought us reasonable good will.”With Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, calling Greece’s border enforcement Europe’s “shield,” Mr. Mitsotakis argued that after the arrival of more than a million migrants and asylum seekers destabilized the continent’s politics by entering through Greece during the refugee crisis of 2015 and 2016, Europe had come around to Greece’s tougher approach.Migrants on a dinghy accompanied by a Frontex vessel at the village of Skala Sikaminias, on the Greek island of Lesbos, after crossing the Aegean Sea from Turkey in 2020.Michael Varaklas/Associated Press“We’ve been able to sort of change, I think, the European approach vis-à-vis migration,” said Mr. Mitsotakis, a self-described progressive, disputing the notion that the policy — which critics say includes illegally pushing asylum seekers back — was hard-right.“Right-wing or a central policy,” said Mr. Mitsotakis, the leader of the nominally center-right New Democracy party, “I don’t know what it is, but I have to protect my borders.”In turn, Europe seems to have protected Mr. Mitsotakis.“It’s the Mitsotakis exception,” said Alberto Alemanno, a professor of European Union law at the HEC Paris business school. Mr. Mitsotakis’ special treatment has derived from his political closeness to Ms. von der Leyen, Mr. Alemanno said, and his willingness to build — with funding from the bloc — a vast network of migrant centers that have proved politically popular in Greece.Mr. Mitsotakis argued that some “leftist Illuminati in Brussels” failed to see that he was saving lives with his policy, something that he said Europe’s leaders appreciated.“We’re no longer sort of the poster child for problems in Europe,” he said, adding that what he had done “offers a lot of people relief.”Greeks included. Before Sunday’s elections, Mr. Mitsotakis held a comfortable lead in the polls against his main rival, Alexis Tsipras, of the left-wing Syriza party, even if the prime minister still appeared to lack enough support to win outright. A second round of elections looks probable in July.Alexis Tsipras, left, and Mr. Mitsotakis taking part in a televised debate at the headquarters of the state broadcaster ERT this month.Alexandros Avramidis/ReutersAround the neighborhood where Mr. Mitsotakis campaigned, people talked about how he had made their native Greek islands that were once overrun with migrants livable again, how he had been the first Greek prime minister invited to speak to a joint session of Congress in Washington, and how he had stood up to Turkey’s strongman president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who himself faces an election runoff next weekend.Greeks around the country appreciate how Mr. Mitsotakis has cut taxes and debt and increased digitization, minimum wages and pensions.For a decade, Greece was Europe’s thumping migraine. The country’s catastrophic 2010 debt crisis nearly sank the European Union. Humiliating bailouts followed, and a decade of stark austerity policies — directed by Germany — cut pensions and public services, shrank economic output by a quarter, inflated unemployment and prompted thousands of young and professional Greeks to flee.In 2015, under the leadership of Mr. Tsipras, Greeks voted to reject Europe’s many-strings-attached aid package, and the country was nearly ejected from the eurozone. Social unrest and talk of “Grexit” mounted, but Mr. Tsipras ended up carrying out the required overhauls and moderated in the following years, arguing that Greece had started on the road to recovery.But in 2019 he lost to Mr. Mitsotakis — the son of a former prime minister, trained at Harvard and Stanford, at ease in Washington — who seemed the personification of the establishment. He promised to right the Greek ship.“This was always my bet,” Mr. Mitsotakis said. “And I think that we delivered.”His government has spurred growth at twice the eurozone average. Big multinational corporations and start-ups have invested. Tourism is skyrocketing.Tourists visiting the Acropolis in Athens in October.Petros Giannakouris/Associated PressThe country is paying back creditors ahead of schedule, and Mr. Mitsotakis expects, if he wins, international rating agencies to lift Greece’s bonds out of junk status. The number of migrant arrivals has dropped off 90 percent since the crisis in 2015, but also significantly since Mr. Mitsotakis took office four years ago.“A European success story,” The Economist called Greece under Mr. Mitsotakis.But he argues that he needs another four years to finish the job. Greece, which still has the European Union’s highest national debt, is also the bloc’s second-poorest nation, after Bulgaria. Tax evasion is still common, and the country’s judicial system is so slow that it scares off investors.Critics of Mr. Mitsotakis say that, apart from the economy, he represents a danger to Greece’s values, and that Europe is diverting its eyes as it focuses on the financials and the declining number of migrants.Humanitarian groups have accused Mr. Mitsotakis of illegally pushing back migrants by land and sea. He has hardly run away from the issue, recently visiting Lesbos, the Greek island that became synonymous with the abominable conditions of its Moria camp, which was crammed with 20,000 refugees before burning down.“Moria is no more,” Mr. Mitsotakis said in the interview. “It simply doesn’t exist. I mean, you have olive groves and we have an ultramodern reception facility that’s been built with European money.” Critics have denounced the new camp’s prisonlike conditions, but Greeks overwhelmingly support his tough line.Mr. Mitsotakis during a campaign event on the island of Lesbos last week.Elias Marcou/ReutersEurope is “less on top of Greece for doing pushbacks and all the sort of things,” said Camino Mortera-Martinez, who heads the Brussels office for the Center for European Reform, a think tank.The latitude given Greece, she said, was in part recognition that the country had lived through a decade of brutal austerity. But it also reflected that Europe as a whole is “basically unable to help” Greece and other nations at the front line of the migration crisis, and therefore lets “these governments do what they do.”Migration aside, there are other more immediate concerns at home. In February, a train crash killed 57 people, exposing Greece’s rickety infrastructure and the limits of Mr. Mitsotakis’ talk of modernization. Reporters Without Borders deemed Greece the worst country in the European Union for press freedom in its 2023 index.Destroyed train cars at the site of a crash where two trains collided near the Greek city of Larissa in March.Angelos Tzortzinis for The New York TimesOver the summer, Mr. Mitsotakis’ top intelligence official got caught wiretapping journalists and politicians, including Nikos Androulakis, the leader of the opposition Pasok party and member of European Parliament. Mr. Mitsotakis denied, to the incredulity of many, knowing anything about it. Some of the people his intelligence services listened in on were also found to have illegal malware on their devices. The government has denied putting it there.But Mr. Mitsotakis, in a televised debate this month, conceded that Mr. Androulakis should not have been wiretapped. The spying was an especially bad idea, it turns out, because Mr. Androulakis’s support may prove pivotal to the election’s ultimate outcome.Yet the scandal is way down on voters’ list of priorities, as is Mr. Mitsotakis’ treatment of migrants.John Vrakas, 66, who was handing out fliers for Mr. Tsipras across from the square where Mr. Mitsotakis was due to speak, shrugged that Europe didn’t seem particularly bothered as long as the prime minister assuaged their concerns on the economy and Ukraine. “It’s a kind of trade,” he said.It is one that Greek voters seem happy to make.As Mr. Mitsotakis walked the streets, a bus driver reached out the window and clasped his hand. “Supporters until the end,” chanted a group of men in front of a cafe. “We trust you,” a woman shouted from her jewelry shop.What “resonates in Europe,” Mr. Mitsotakis said, was that his was an “anti-populist government” that had brought much-appreciated stability back to Greece in a rough region.He got up from the interview in a small and otherwise empty restaurant, and shook more hands on the way to the square, where he launched into a short stump speech interrupted by chiming church bells.“I’m not sure who they are tolling for,” Mr. Mitsotakis exclaimed, “but not for us.”In Athens this month.Orestis Panagiotou/EPA, via ShutterstockNiki Kitsantonis More
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Meta Manager Was Hacked With Spyware and Wiretapped in Greece
Artemis Seaford, a dual U.S.-Greek national, was targeted with a cyberespionage tool while also under a wiretap by the Greek spy agency in a case that shows the spread of illicit snooping in Europe.A U.S. and Greek national who worked on Meta’s security and trust team while based in Greece was placed under a yearlong wiretap by the Greek national intelligence service and hacked with a powerful cyberespionage tool, according to documents obtained by The New York Times and officials with knowledge of the case.The disclosure is the first known case of an American citizen being targeted in a European Union country by the advanced snooping technology, the use of which has been the subject of a widening scandal in Greece. It demonstrates that the illicit use of spyware is spreading beyond use by authoritarian governments against opposition figures and journalists, and has begun to creep into European democracies, even ensnaring a foreign national working for a major global corporation.The simultaneous tapping of the target’s phone by the national intelligence service and the way she was hacked indicate that the spy service and whoever implanted the spyware, known as Predator, were working hand in hand.The latest case comes as elections approach in Greece, which has been rocked by a mounting wiretapping and illegal spyware scandal since last year, raising accusations that the government has abused the powers of its spy agency for illicit purposes.The Predator spyware that infected the device is marketed by an Athens-based company and has been exported from Greece with the government’s blessing, in possible breach of European Union laws that consider such products potential weapons, The New York Times found in December.The Greek government has denied using Predator and has legislated against the use of spyware, which it has called “illegal.”“The Greek authorities and security services have at no time acquired or used the Predator surveillance software. To suggest otherwise is wrong,” Giannis Oikonomou, the government spokesman, said in an email. “The alleged use of this software by nongovernmental parties is under ongoing judicial investigation.”“Greece was among the first countries in Europe that passed legislation banning the sale, use and possession of malware in December 2022, which has the most severe legal consequences and strict penalties for individuals and legal entities involved in such an offense,” Mr. Oikonoumou continued. “The same legislation includes provisions on restructuring of the National Intelligence Service, additional safeguards for legal surveillance and modernizing procedures on confidentiality of communications.”European Union lawmakers have launched their own investigation.Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis of Greece has come under pressure to explain how and why Predator was sold from Greece and used in Greece, supposedly without the government’s knowledge, against members of his own government, opposition politicians and journalists.Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis of Greece, center, during a parliamentary debate in January. He has been under pressure to explain how and why Predator spyware was sold from Greece and used in Greece.Petros Giannakouris/Associated PressHe has insisted that the Greek government had nothing to do with the cyber-surveillance tool, but that opaque actors may have used it behind the authorities’ backs.The latest case centers on Artemis Seaford, a Harvard and Stanford Law graduate, who worked from 2020 to the end of 2022 as a Trust and Security manager at Meta, the parent company of Facebook, while living in Greece.In her role at Meta, Ms. Seaford worked on policy questions relating to cybersecurity and she also maintained working relations with Greek as well as other European officials.After she saw her name on a leaked list of spyware targets in the Greek news media last November, she took her phone to The Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, the world’s foremost forensics experts on spyware.The lab report, which was reviewed by The New York Times, found that Ms. Seaford’s mobile phone had been hacked with the Predator spyware in September 2021 for at least two months.“This does not preclude the possibility of other infections, or of an infection period extending beyond 2021-11-16,” the forensic report by Citizen Lab said.Ms. Seaford on Friday filed a lawsuit in Athens against anyone found responsible for the hack. The suit compels prosecutors to open an investigation.Ms. Seaford also filed a request with the Greek Authority for the Protection of the Privacy of Telecommunications, an independent constitutional watchdog, asking them to determine whether the Greek national intelligence service, known as the EYP, had wiretapped her phone..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}What we consider before using anonymous sources. Do the sources know the information? What’s their motivation for telling us? Have they proved reliable in the past? Can we corroborate the information? Even with these questions satisfied, The Times uses anonymous sources as a last resort. The reporter and at least one editor know the identity of the source.Learn more about our process.Two people with direct knowledge of the case said that Ms. Seaford had in fact been wiretapped by the Greek spy service from August 2021, the month before the spyware hack, and for several months into 2022.They spoke on condition of anonymity because it is illegal for them to publicly comment on EYP operations.It could take a minimum of three years for Ms. Seaford to be informed of the spy agency wiretap under Greek laws that the government has twice changed since a flurry of wiretapping cases have come to light.Ms. Seaford is now is the fourth known person to file suit in Greece involving the spyware, after an investigative reporter and two opposition politicians.In the first case, an investigative reporter, Thanasis Koukakis, in 2020 similarly asked the constitutional watchdog authority to inform him whether he had also been placed under a wiretap.Thanasis Koukakis, an investigative journalist, has taken the Greek government to the European Court of Human Rights over a change in Greece’s surveillance law. Angelos Tzortzinis/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBefore Mr. Koukakis could get a formal answer, the government quickly passed a law in 2021 that drastically curbs citizens’ rights to be informed if they had been under surveillance by the national intelligence service. Mr. Koukakis has taken the Greek government to the European Court of Human Rights over the change in the law.The Greek government has since come under pressure to restore some recourse for citizens to learn about being wiretapped and seek redress if their surveillance had been abusive.Under a law passed last year, a citizen who has been targeted by the spy agency can now be informed — but only if they ask, and subject to the approval of a committee, and no earlier than three years after the end of the wiretap.It is under those new conditions that Ms. Seaford’s surveillance by the Greek national intelligence service may one day be officially confirmed.“Targets of abusive surveillance should have the right to know what happened to them and have means of redress just like every other crime,” Ms. Seaford said in an interview.She maintains that there is no reasonable explanation for her being targeted. Wiretapping in Greece is permitted only for national security reasons or serious criminal investigations.More than a year after her surveillance by the Greek intelligence service and the illegal spyware infection of her mobile device, no charges have been brought against her, and she has not been asked to cooperate with the authorities on any investigation.“In my case, I do not know why I was targeted, but I cannot see any reasonable national security concerns behind it,” Ms. Seaford said. Meta and the U.S. embassy in Athens declined to comment.Ms. Seaford’s targeting by the Greek spy agency and some elements of her case were earlier reported by the Greek newspaper Documento.In Ms. Seaford’s case, it appears that information gleaned from the wiretap may have assisted the ruse used to implant the spyware, according to the timeline established by the forensic analysis and submitted to the Greek prosecutor.Demonstrators in Athens last year protesting revelations of the phone tapping of a political leader and journalists by the Greek National Intelligence Service. The scandal has become an issue in coming elections.Orestis Panagiotou/EPA, via ShutterstockIn September 2021, Ms. Seaford booked an appointment for a booster shot of the Covid-19 vaccine through the official Greek government vaccination platform.She got an automated SMS with her appointment details on Sept. 17, just after midnight. Five hours later, at 05:31 a.m., documents show, she received another SMS asking her to confirm the appointment by clicking on a link.This was the infected link that put Predator in her phone. The details for the vaccination appointment in the infected text message were correct, indicating that someone had reviewed the authentic earlier confirmation and drafted the infected message accordingly.The sender also appeared to be the state vaccine agency, while the infected URL mimicked that of the vaccination platform.Ms. Seaford, who has been reluctant to get dragged into Greek party politics, where the surveillance scandal has become a point of bitter debate, said the question of spyware and surveillance abuse should be a nonpartisan issue.“My hope is that my case and others like mine will not just be instrumentalized, shut down to avoid political cost for some, or, conversely, elevated for the political gain of others,” she said. More
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Your Thursday Briefing: Nigeria’s New ‘Big Boss’
Also, a major tank battle in Ukraine and a deadly train wreck in Greece.Bola Tinubu celebrating at his campaign headquarters in Abuja.Ben Curtis/Associated PressVictory for a Nigerian political ‘big boss’Bola Tinubu was declared the winner of Nigeria’s presidential election on Wednesday, extending the governing All Progressives Congress party’s rule in Africa’s largest nation.Tinubu won about 36 percent of the vote, enough to avoid a runoff. But only 27 percent of voters participated, the lowest turnout in the country’s history.A political insider who ran on the slogan “It’s my turn,” Tinubu is a divisive figure. Some revere him for turning around the fortunes of Lagos during his eight years as governor; others deride him as a corrupt stalwart of the old guard.A multimillionaire, Tinubu made his money in real estate, but has faced questions over his wealth. His supporters call him “big boss,” while many detractors call him “balablu,” a reference to a speech in which he failed to pronounce the word “hullabaloo” and a shorthand to imply that he is too old to lead.The parties representing Tinubu’s two chief rivals, Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi, have already called for a redo of the election after reports of delays and violence at polling sites. Some Nigerians described being unable to vote despite waiting all day.Challenges: When Tinubu takes office in May he will need to work on solving electricity shortages, reviving oil production and improving security, including addressing the threats from extremist groups like Boko Haram in the country’s northeast and separatists in the southeast.Ukraine’s 72nd Brigade near Vuhledar on Saturday.Tyler Hicks/The New York TimesRussia routed in tank battleUkrainian officials said Russian forces were soundly defeated during the biggest tank battle of the war so far.During the fighting, which took place over three weeks near the coal mining town of Vuhledar in southeastern Ukraine, the Russians advanced in columns, while the Ukrainians fired from hiding places as Russian vehicles came into sight. It was the same mistake that cost Moscow hundreds of tanks earlier in the war: advancing into ambushes.The State of the WarRussia’s New Offensive: The Russian military is relying on tens of thousands of inexperienced conscripts to carry out its latest maneuver, which has barely budged over the last month.Deploying High-Powered Aides: President Biden has dispatched Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Secretary of State Antony Blinken in a concerted diplomatic push to show support for Ukraine.A War of Words: Russia and the West have been arguing for months about which side is more willing to negotiate ending the war in Ukraine peacefully.In one skirmish, Ukrainian soldiers seeded the fields around a dirt road with land mines and hid anti-tank teams in the tree line around the fields. Once the trap was sprung the Russian tanks couldn’t turn around without detonating the mines, and blown-up vehicles soon delayed them more.Ukraine’s military said Russia lost at least 130 tanks and armored personnel carriers in the battle, though that figure could not be independently verified. Context: The Russian military has lionized tank warfare since World War II, and Russian military bloggers have posted screeds blaming generals for the failures of the tank assaults.Other news from the war:Ukraine said it had sent reinforcements to the embattled eastern city of Bakhmut.A Ukrainian drone that landed in a field southeast of Moscow this week was carrying explosives, Russian news media outlets reported.Antony Blinken, the U.S. secretary of state, said the Biden administration saw “zero evidence” that President Vladimir Putin was considering peace talks.“Windows were shattering and people were screaming,” one survivor said.Angelos Tzortzinis for The New York TimesDeadly train crash in GreeceA head-on collision in Greece killed at least 38 people and injured dozens more in the country’s deadliest rail accident in memory. The Greek transport minister announced his resignation.The high-speed collision between a freight and passenger train was so forceful that two carriages “basically don’t exist anymore,” a regional governor said. The passenger train was carrying about 350 passengers, many of whom were college students, traveling from Athens to the northern city of Thessaloniki.The cause of the crash remains unclear, but a railway official said that monitoring and warning systems along the track worked only sporadically. The head of the rail workers’ union told Greek television that the two trains raced toward one another for 12 minutes before colliding.Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said that “tragic human error” had led to the crash, but gave no further details. Police arrested the station manager in Larissa, a city about 20 miles south of the crash site. Greek news media reported that the station manager had directed the freight train onto the same track as the passenger train.Context: Greece already had the worst record for rail safety in Europe, with maintenance problems going unaddressed for decades.THE LATEST NEWSAsia PacificAn assembly line at a Wuling Motors factory in Qingdao, China.Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesFactory production in China has surged since the end of lockdowns, bolstering the country’s economic recovery.South Korea’s president called for closer ties with Japan to better counter North Korean nuclear threats, The Associated Press writes.India’s February was its hottest on record and heat waves could follow in March and April, the BBC reported.Around the WorldThe Gemini used to ferry vacationers from Turkey to the Greek islands.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesA cruise ship has become a shelter for more than 1,000 people displaced by the earthquake in Turkey.The police in Tel Aviv used water cannons and stun grenades against thousands of protesters opposed to the Israeli government’s plan to limit the judiciary. Also, a Times video investigation shows how an Israeli raid in the West Bank turned deadly.Eritrean troops massacred hundreds of civilians in Tigray just before the end of Ethiopia’s civil war late last year, according to rights groups, aid workers and news outlets.Other Big StoriesMany undocumented immigrants are leaving the U.S. after decades.Eli Lilly, a major U.S. drug manufacturer, announced it would cap the price of insulin at $35 a month.U.S. intelligence agencies determined that a foreign adversary is “very unlikely” to be responsible for Havana syndrome, the mysterious ailment that spies and diplomats have reported experiencing.In this month’s space news, a rocket made mostly with 3-D printing could slip the surly bonds of Earth. And China’s Mars rover doesn’t appear to have moved since last September.A Morning ReadNicole Solero moved back in with her parents to save money after graduating from college.Todd Anderson for The New York TimesYoung adults in the United States are often encouraged to leave the nest as a rite of passage. But the high cost of living, student debt and family obligations keep some at home, helping them save for the future.ECONOMIC IDEASIndia’s digital payment revolutionTiny QR codes have become ubiquitous across India’s vastness. Roadside barbers, peanut vendors, street performers and beggars all accept money through an instant payment system that connects hundreds of millions of people.The Unified Payments Interface, an initiative of India’s central bank, dwarfs anything in the West. The value of the billions of instant digital transactions in India last year was far more than in the U.S., Britain, Germany and France.At the heart of the payment network is a campaign to deliver every citizen a unique identification number, called the Aadhaar. The government says that more than 1.3 billion IDs have been issued, and that the payment system is now used by close to 300 million individuals and 50 million merchants.“Our digital payments ecosystem has been developed as a free public good,” Narendra Modi, the prime minister, told finance ministers from the Group of 20. Now, India wants to export it as it fashions itself as an incubator of ideas for poorer nations.PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookJulia Gartland for The New York TimesTips from around the world for a great beef stew.What to WatchIn “The Reluctant Traveler,” Eugene Levy discovers the (mild) joys of leaving his comfort zone.What to Listen toFive minutes that will make you love jazz piano.What to WearIntricate enamel pieces from a storied Indian jewelry family keep a dying craft alive.Now Time to PlayPlay the Mini Crossword, and a clue: Singer Simone (4 letters).Here are the Wordle and the Spelling Bee.You can find all our puzzles here.That’s it for today’s briefing. See you next time. — Mariah and DanP.S. Rich Barbieri, a deputy business editor, is heading to Seoul to oversee our business and economic coverage in Asia.“The Daily” is about abortion pills. We’d like your feedback. Please email thoughts and suggestions to briefing@nytimes.com. More
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As Europe Piles Sanctions on Russia, Some Sacred Cows Are Spared
The European Union has been severing economic ties with Moscow to support Ukraine, but some countries have lobbied to protect key sectors.BRUSSELS — Eight months into the war in Ukraine, and eight rounds of frantic negotiations later, Europe’s sanctions against Russia run hundreds of pages long and have in many places cut to the bone.Since February, the European Union has named 1,236 people and 155 companies for sanctions, freezing their assets and blocking their access to the bloc. It has banned the trade of products in nearly 1,000 categories and hundreds of subcategories. It has put in place a near-total embargo on Russian oil. About one-third of the bloc’s exports to Russia by value and two-thirds of imports have been banned.But even now some goods and sectors remain conspicuously exempted. A look at just a few items reveals the intense back-room bargaining and arm-twisting by some nations and by private industry to protect sectors they deem too valuable to give up — as well as the compromises the European Union has made to maintain consensus.The Belgians have shielded trade in Russian diamonds. The Greeks ship Russian oil unimpeded. France and several other nations still import Russian uranium for nuclear power generation.The net impact of these exemptions on the effectiveness of Europe’s penalties against Russia is hard to assess, but politically, they have allowed the 27 members of the bloc to pull together an otherwise vast sanctions regime with exceptional speed and unanimity.“Ultimately, this is the price of unanimity to hold together this coalition, and in the grander scheme of things the sanctions are really working,” said Jacob Kirkegaard, a senior fellow in the Brussels office of the research group the German Marshall Fund, citing Russia’s diminished access to military technology as evidence.A Lukoil gas station in Priolo Gargallo, Italy, last month. The European Union has put in place a near-total embargo on Russian oil, but some sectors of trade remain conspicuously exempt from sanctions.Gianni Cipriano for The New York Times“We would love to have everything included, diamonds and every other special interest hit, but I am of the opinion that, if sparing them is what it takes to keep everyone together, so be it,” he added.The Ukrainian government has criticized some of the exemptions, with President Volodymyr Zelensky chiding European nations for continuing to permit business with Russia, saying they are skirting sacrifices.“There are people for whom the diamonds sold in Antwerp are more important than the battle we are waging. Peace is worth much more than diamonds,” Mr. Zelensky said to the Belgian Parliament during an address by video link in late March.Keeping Diamonds ComingThe continued success of Belgium and the broad diamond sector in keeping the Russian diamond trade flowing exemplifies the sacred cows some E.U. nations refuse to sacrifice, even as their peers accept pain to punish the Kremlin.Exports of rough diamonds are very lucrative for Russia, and they flow to the Belgian port of Antwerp, a historically important diamond hub.The trade, worth 1.8 billion euros a year — about $1.75 billion — has been shielded in consecutive rounds of the bloc’s sanctions, despite being raised as a possible target soon after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in late February.The Belgian government has said that it has never asked the European Commission, the E.U. executive body that drafts the measures, to remove diamonds from any sanctions list and that if diamonds were added, it would go along.Diamonds being sorted in Mirny, Russia, at a facility operated by Alrosa, the Russian state-owned diamond company. Russian diamonds have been shielded in consecutive rounds of European sanctions.Maxim Babenko for The New York TimesTechnically speaking, that may be true. But the latest round of penalties, adopted this month, exposed the intensive interventions when a coordination error occurred among the various services in the bloc that are involved in the technical preparation of sanctions.The incident, described to The New York Times by several diplomats involved as “farcical,” shows how the lobbying works. The diplomats spoke anonymously in order to describe freely what happened.The European Commission over the course of September prepared the latest round of sanctions and left diamonds off that list.But the European External Action Service — the E.U.’s equivalent of a foreign service or state department, which works with the commission to prepare sanctions — did not get the memo that diamonds should remain exempted and included in its own draft listings Alrosa, the Russian state-owned diamonds company.Once Alrosa had been put on the draft document, removing it became difficult. Spotting the error, Poland and other hard-line pro-Ukraine countries in the bloc dragged out the negotiations over the package as much as they could on the basis that Alrosa should indeed face sanctions.In the end, the need for unanimity and speed prevailed, and Alrosa continues to export to the European Union, at least until the next round of sanctions is negotiated. In proposals for a fresh, ninth round of sanctions, presented by Poland and its allies last week, diamonds were again included, but formal talks on the new set of penalties have not yet begun.A spokesman for the European External Action Service declined to comment, saying it does not comment on internal procedures involved in preparing sanctions.The Tricastin nuclear power plant in the Drôme region of southeastern France. France is one of several E.U. countries that depend on Russian uranium to operate civil nuclear power facilities. Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesNuclear PowerMost exemptions have not been as clear-cut as diamonds because they have involved more complex industries or services, or affected more than one country.Uranium exported from Russia for use in civil nuclear power production falls under this category. Nuclear power plants in France, Hungary, Slovakia, Finland and other countries depend on Russian civilian uranium exports.The trade is worth 200 million euros, or about $194 million, according to Greenpeace, which has been lobbying for its ban. Germany and other E.U. countries have supported the calls to ban civilian nuclear imports from Russia, making this another issue likely to come up in the next round of sanctions talks.In August, Mr. Zelensky also highlighted the persistent protection of the Russian nuclear exports to Europe just as Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant came under fire.Some supporters of keeping Russian uranium running say that France and the other countries’ ability to generate electricity by operating their nuclear power plants during an acute energy crisis is more important than the political or financial gains that could come from a ban through E.U. sanctions, at least for now.Tankers in the NightOne of the most complex and important lobbying efforts to protect a European industry from sanctions is the one mounted by Greek diplomats to allow Greek-owned tankers to transport Russian oil to non-European destinations.This has facilitated one of the Kremlin’s biggest revenue streams. More than half of the vessels transporting Russia’s oil are Greek-owned, according to information aggregated from MarineTraffic, a shipping data platform.Supporters of the Greek shipping industry say that if it pulled out of that business, others would step in to deliver Russian oil to places like India and China. Experts say lining up enough tankers to make up for a total Greek pullout would not be simple, considering the sheer size of Greek-interest fleets and their dominance in this trade.According to European diplomats involved in the negotiations, their Greek counterparts were able to exempt Greek shipping companies from the oil embargo in a tough round of talks last May and June.Since then, the E.U. has come around to a United States-led idea to keep facilitating the transport of Russian oil, in order to avert a global oil-market meltdown, but to do so at a capped price to limit Russia’s revenues.The Greeks saw an opening: They would continue to transport Russian oil, but at the capped price. The bloc offered them additional concessions, and Greece agreed that the shipping of Russian oil would be banned if the price cap was not observed.The Greek-flagged oil tanker Minerva Virgo. Greek diplomats have lobbied for Greek-owned tankers to be allowed to transport Russian oil to non-European destinations. Bjoern Kils/ReutersEven if the economic benefits of such exemptions are hard to define, from a political perspective, the continued protection of some goods and industries is creating bad blood among E.U. members.Governments that have readily taken big hits through sanctions to support Ukraine, sacrificing revenues and jobs, are embittered that their partners in the bloc continue to doggedly protect their own interests.The divisions deepen a sense of disconnect between those more hawkish pro-Ukraine E.U. nations nearer Ukraine and those farther away, although geographical proximity is far from the only determinant of countries’ attitudes toward the war.And given that the bloc is a constant negotiating arena on many issues, some warn that what goes around eventually will come around.“This may be a raw calculation of national interests, but it’s going to linger,” Mr. Kirkegaard said. “Whoever doesn’t contribute now through sacrifice, next time there’s a budget or some other debate, it’s going to come back and haunt them.” More
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Elections Approaching, Erdogan Raises the Heat Again With Greece
Turkey’s president suggested that troops “may suddenly arrive one night” in Greece. With inflation rampant and the lira sinking, a manufactured crisis might be just the thing he needs.ISTANBUL — Last week at a closed dinner in Prague, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis of Greece was addressing 44 European leaders when President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey interrupted him and started a shouting match.Before stalking from the room, Mr. Erdogan accused Mr. Mitsotakis of insincerity about settling disputes in the eastern Aegean and blasted the European Union for siding with its members, Greece and Cyprus, according to a European diplomat and two senior European officials who were there.While the others, flabbergasted and annoyed, finished their dinners, Mr. Erdogan fulminated at a news conference against Greece and threatened invasion. “We may suddenly arrive one night,” he said. When a reporter asked if that meant he would attack Greece, the Turkish president said, “Actually you have understood.”The outburst was only the latest from Mr. Erdogan. As he faces mounting political and economic difficulties before elections in the spring, he has been ramping up the threats against his NATO ally since the summer, using language normally left to military hawks and ultranationalists.While few diplomats or analysts are predicting war, there is a growing sense among European diplomats that a politically threatened Mr. Erdogan is an increasingly dangerous one for his neighbors — and that accidents can happen.Mr. Erdogan needs crisis to buoy his shaky standing at home after nearly 20 years in power, a diplomat specializing in Turkey said, requesting anonymity. And if he is not provided one, the diplomat said, he may create one.The rising tensions between Greece and Turkey, both NATO members, now threaten to add a difficult new dimension to Europe’s efforts to maintain its unity in the face of Russia’s war in Ukraine and its accumulating economic fallout.Mr. Erdogan met President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in Kazakhstan on Thursday.Pool photo by Vyacheslav ProkofyevAlready, Mr. Erdogan has made himself a troublesome and unpredictable ally for his NATO partners. His economic challenges and desire to carve out a stable security sphere for Turkey in a tough neighborhood have pushed him ever closer to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.Mr. Erdogan has earned some shelter from open criticism by allies because of his efforts to mediate between Russia and Ukraine, especially in the deal to allow Ukrainian grain exports.But he has refused to impose sanctions on Russia and continues to get Russian gas through the TurkStream pipeline, while asking Moscow to delay payment for energy.On Thursday, Mr. Erdogan met Mr. Putin in Kazakhstan, where they discussed using Turkey as an energy hub to export more Russian gas after the pipelines to Germany under the Baltic Sea have been damaged.But it is the escalating rhetoric against Greece that is now drawing special attention.Sinan Ulgen, the director of EDAM, an Istanbul-based research institution, said that of course there was an electoral aspect to Mr. Erdogan’s actions. But there were also deep-seated problems that foster chronic instability and dangerous tensions.“Turkey and Greece have a set of unresolved bilateral disputes,” he said, “and this creates a favorable environment whenever a politician in Ankara or Athens wants to raise tensions.”The two countries nearly went to war in the 1970s over energy exploration in the Aegean, in 1995-96 over disputed claims over an uninhabited rock formation in the eastern Mediterranean, and in 2020, again over energy exploration in disputed waters. “And now we’re at it again,” Mr. Ulgen said. “And why? Because of elections in Turkey and Greece.”Mr. Mitsotakis is also in campaign mode, with elections expected next summer, damaged by a continuing scandal over spyware planted in the phones of opposition politicians and journalists. As in Turkey, nothing appeals to Greek patriotism more than a good spat with an old foe.A Turkish drill in August off Mersin, Turkey. Turkey and Greece nearly went to war in 2020 over Turkish energy exploration in disputed waters.Adem Altan/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesHe has sought to appear firm without escalating. Confronted at the dinner in Prague, Mr. Mitsotakis retorted that leaders should solve problems and not create new ones, that he was prepared to discuss all issues but could not stay silent while Turkey threatened the sovereignty of Greek islands.“No, Mr. Erdogan — no to bullying,” he said in a recent policy speech. He told reporters that he was open to talks with Mr. Erdogan despite the vitriol, saying he thought military conflict unlikely. “I don’t believe this will ever happen,” he said. “And if, God forbid, it happened, Turkey would receive an absolutely devastating response.”He was referring to Greek military abilities that have been significantly bolstered recently as part of expanded defense agreements with France and the United States.Mr. Mitsotakis has also taken advantage of American annoyance with Mr. Erdogan’s relations with Russia and his delay in approving NATO enlargement to Finland and Sweden to boost ties with Washington. In May, he was the first Greek prime minister to address Congress and urged it to reconsider arms sales to Turkey.He has said Greece will buy F-35s, while Turkey, denied F-35s because of its purchase of a Russian air-defense system, is still pressing to get more F-16s and modernization kits, using NATO enlargement as leverage.But Mr. Erdogan is facing considerable problems at home, making tensions with Greece an easy and traditional way to divert attention and rally support.Mr. Erdogan is presiding over a disastrous economy, with inflation running officially at 83 percent a year — but most likely higher — and the currency depreciating. Turkish gross domestic product per capita, a measure of wealth, has dropped to about $7,500 from more than $12,600 in 2013, based on Turkey’s real population, which now includes some four million Syrian refugees, according to Bilge Yilmaz, a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.Mr. Erdogan is presiding over a disastrous economy, with inflation running officially at 83 percent a year.Yasin Akgul/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMr. Erdogan has kept cutting interest rates against conventional economic advice. “We need to reverse monetary policy,” said Mr. Yilmaz, who is touted as a likely finance minister should Mr. Erdogan lose the election. “A strong adjustment of the economy will not be easy.”There is also growing popular resentment of the continuing cost of the refugees, who were taken in by Mr. Erdogan as a generous gesture to fellow Muslims in difficulty.Still, Mr. Erdogan is thought to have a solid 30 percent of the vote as his base, and government-controlled media dominate, with numerous opposition journalists and politicians jailed or silenced.In a report on Wednesday, the European Union criticized “democratic backsliding” and said that “in the area of democracy, the rule of law and fundamental rights, Turkey needs to reverse the negative trend as a matter of priority with addressing the weakening of effective checks and balances in the political system.”Still, at this point, analysts think Mr. Erdogan could lose his majority in Parliament and might just lose the presidential election itself.That is an analysis firmly rejected by Mr. Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, the AKP, said Volkan Bozkir, a former diplomat and member of Parliament, who says flatly that Mr. Erdogan and his party will be re-elected.Constantinos Filis, the director of the Institute of Global Affairs at the American College of Greece, believes that Mr. Erdogan is trying to keep all options open, “casting Greece as a convenient external threat and creating a dangerous framework within which he could justify a potential move against Greece in advance.”As for Washington, he said, they are telling Mr. Erdogan: “Thank you for what you did in Ukraine, of course you haven’t imposed sanctions on Russia, but OK, you’re in a difficult position, strategically, diplomatically, economically — but don’t dare to do something in the Aegean or the Eastern Mediterranean that will bring trouble to NATO.”Migrants at the border between Turkey and Greece in March 2020. There is growing popular resentment of the continuing cost of the refugees in Turkey, who include four million Syrians.The New York TimesMore likely, Mr. Filis said, Mr. Erdogan would again send migrants toward Europe, or launch another energy exploration in disputed areas off Cyprus or Crete, which produced near clashes in 2020, or intercept a Greek ship transporting military equipment to one of the Aegean Islands.Mr. Ulgen also does not expect armed conflict but would not be surprised. “It could happen; it’s not something we can rule out anymore,” he said. “But if it happens, it will be small-scale.”Niki Kitsantonis More
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'Never give up': Greek asylum fight is gifted student's hardest lesson
Europe’s dreamers
‘Never give up’: Greek asylum fight is gifted student’s hardest lesson
Amadou Diallo arrived in Greece from west African nearly four years ago.
Composite: Enri Canaj/MagnumAmadou Diallo fled child labour in an African gold mine. Only by proving his ability to an elite university has he won the right to a future in Europe
‘We want to build a life’: Europe’s paperless young people speak out
by Fahrinisa CampanaMain image:
Amadou Diallo arrived in Greece from west African nearly four years ago.
Composite: Enri Canaj/MagnumFrom the stack of books Amadou Diallo took with him last summer to the Greek islands, it was a biography of Frederick Douglass that kept finding its way back to the top. One quote from the 19th-century slavery abolitionist particularly resonated: “Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.”
Diallo was on Sifnos, a holiday destination for cultured Athenians and well-heeled foreign families. An asylum seeker from Guinea, he was working long hours in a hotel. At night he would read the life stories of great men, wondering what shape his own freedom might take.
Still just 20, the boy who arrived alone from west Africa nearly four years ago has seized every chance given to him. From boutique hotels on fashionably offbeat islands, to a private school where diplomats send their children, he has seen a vision of what Europe has to offer. He has read voraciously and worked hard to educate himself and to belong. But his place in this new world relies on Greece’s asylum process.
Q&A Who are Europe’s dreamers?
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Dreamers is the US term collectively given to young people without legal immigration status who were brought to the US as children. Some young people living in Europe without legal status now also call themselves ‘dreamers’ because their struggle against hostile European migration and asylum policies echoes the US campaign. Between 3.9 and 4.8 million people in Europe are believed to be living without residency permits, about 65% of whom are under 35 years old, according to the Pew Research Center. In the UK, a recent University of Wolverhampton study commissioned by the mayor of London estimated there are 332,000 children and young people living undocumented in the UK, including 106,000 children born in the country. Estimating numbers of undocumented people necessarily involves guesswork – and the methodologies are often criticised – but it is thought there are millions of dreamers across Europe.Was this helpful?
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Diallo did not grow up with dreams of leaving Guinea. It was only after his father died that his life pitched into something that could have been imagined by a west African Dickens. Along with his younger brother, he was sent to live with his stepmother, who he says was abusive and sold him to the owner of a gold mine.
His life at the mine was essentially one of forced labour. The first time he tried to escape, he was caught and brutally punished.
Unbowed, he tried again. Locked in with other children, he screamed that there was a fire. The guards unlocked the door and in the chaos he managed to slip away.
He crossed the border into Mali and took the route north that would eventually lead him to Turkey. From there, he caught a boat to the Greek island of Lesbos. When the 16-year-old finally reached Athens, two months after leaving Guinea, he was spotted by an aid worker who brought him to a children’s shelter run by the Home Project, a non-profit organisation. It focuses on sheltering lone children who, like Diallo, came in their thousands and ended up surviving on the streets, in camps or detention centres. As an unaccompanied minor he was classed as vulnerable and granted temporary protection.
Through the Home Project he met Anna-Maria Kountouri, an immigration lawyer. She explains that minors have a race against time to gain legal status to remain in Europe, as when they reach 18 it is more difficult.
To secure his future in Europe, Diallo needed the Greek authorities to accept his asylum claim. But the rejection rate in Greece for unaccompanied minors has risen sharply in recent years under new hardline asylum laws. Children whose cases are rejected are not deported but coming of age sweeps away that protection.
Between June 2013 and January 2020 a total of 7,558 asylum applications from unaccompanied minors were processed in Greece, of which 63% were rejected. Of the 186 applications processed in January 2020, 71% were rejected. More
