Hello, in less than a month now we have Easter, the weather, however unsettled it may be, is beginning to smell like Spring, today in Athens it’s reaching 18 degrees and after Easter the anticipation of summer always arrives, so let’s start with the good news. Now, the bad news is that at this moment the scene in the Middle East does not resemble an express clash, as many internationally initially believed, but now looks like a regular war in which, for the time being—fortunately—only ground operations are missing. Let us therefore hope the good scenario holds true, namely that the Americans will strike for a few more weeks, do whatever damage they want and then leave (or lower the intensity with sporadic operations), the Strait of Hormuz will open and thus the global economy will return to a relative normality.

Us?

-In Athens the government is monitoring the situation, assisting the allied forces in every way (visibly and not) and of course worrying about developments, mainly about how tourist traffic will be affected, which constitutes the driving force of the economy. It has also been going through some rough patches lately with the wiretapping issue, primarily due to its own mistakes and blunders. The basic scenario about what will happen to tourism is not bad, and that’s what the hoteliers say too, although it sounds more like something along the lines of think positive or… warding off evil rather than being based on facts. What they say is that tourists will not go this year to Turkey, to the Gulf countries—that is, mainly Dubai—and to Egypt, they may not even go to Cyprus, but they will come here because we are safer. Do you believe it?

PASOK

-In PASOK now the drama continues and I think that what is happening at the level of individuals and party officials is the usual thing when the ship is sinking, namely… every man for himself. First and foremost Anna Diamantopoulou, who took a position in favor of the leader and against the expelled Konstantinopoulos, since the only thing she cares about is to be elected an MP because otherwise she will have no reason to exist. So she has struck a deal with Androulakis to run her in southern Athens or place her in an electable position on the State ballot, and she says to herself go ahead and say whatever you want, I’m with him. The donkey flies… it flies, my dear Nikos, my great little leader. You will say, is this a stance in life for a politician at 67 and after such a rich career as Mrs. Diamantopoulou’s? Look, everything happens in life and especially when we are talking about politicians and indeed professionals; that is, do you really believe that if three years ago Mitsotakis had made her a minister, she would be saying such things now? The only thing I’m thinking is that the conditions might… change and Androulakis may not be able to keep his word (he’s not exactly a man of iron word, eh?) and Diamantopoulou might find herself out, but again, that’s how these things are. In any case, Konstantinopoulos gained points for handing over his seat and Geroulanos also gained points for not keeping silent over his expulsion, as did Doukas—but he has not been silent for months now.

Airport transfers?

-Meanwhile, my green source tells me that Nikos is preparing for another big pass after the broadening with Pellegrini, the rebetis etc. They say they are talking with Nina Kasimati, Thanos Moraitis and Theodora Tzakri (oleeee)! Especially the last one kills me, very strong and… stable because she keeps moving. I’m not swearing to it, I’m just conveying what the sources tell me, but well, I couldn’t resist and I pass it on to you without commitment.

Fake news (continued)

-I have been reading quite a lot in recent days about the broader issue of fake news on the internet. I see the attack on the government continuing over the conference it organized about it, but I have not seen any reaction from all those who are “on the other side” to the proposal of the government spokesman Marinakis to attempt—by law—the identification of trolls who write anonymously on the internet. Over the weekend the whole of X was full of anonymous posts according to which the prime minister’s daughter Sofia “created” on her own with AI the boarding pass showing that she traveled on a regular extraordinary airline flight from Oman to Athens in order to return from Dubai where she works, together with another 250 passengers. Everyone knows of course that apart from the boarding pass, the passengers are also declared and checked by the local police of the country of departure (Oman) and of course they are on the airline’s list, to which IATA also has access. Therefore, those who write that Mitsotakis’ boarding pass is fake know that this can very easily be proven. Anyway, I think it is known at least to educated people that what matters is “who says it” or in this case who writes it on social media (or elsewhere) and not what is said, but unfortunately this does not apply to the masses and that is more or less how the global mess with fake news, trolls and anonymity began.

Mitsotakis at Takis

-At this time, due to the events, Theodorikakos is very active since he was also the main proponent of the cap on profit margins. In the afternoon the ministry is organizing an event where the results of the plan for the productive transformation of the economy will be made public. Mitsotakis will speak at the event, while according to information present will be, among others, the central banker Yannis Stournaras, the president of SEV Spyros Theodoropoulos and several other figures of the economy.

Keep the cap away from gas

-Today the Union’s Energy ministers are meeting (Papastavrou and Tsafos present) and one of the issues that will of course be raised is the increase in costs due to the rise in the price of natural gas. I asked my good Greek source about the matter and he told me that, despite the fact that the competent European commissioner said a word about a cap, it seems that something like this is not moving forward.

Industrial electricity

-I heard Mitsotakis at the ND pre-conference in Larissa say that soon a regulation will also come regarding the cost of industrial electricity. Although I understand that whatever solution emerges will fall short of what the industrialists have been wanting and asking for months, I learn that today and tomorrow Papastavrou and Tsafos will conduct the final negotiation for the package with the Commission. The solution is considered almost shaped, but the devil is in the details, as is well known in such cases.

Vodafone’s talks with Stathopoulos, PPC, Vardinogiannis

-Let’s move now to market news, starting with an interesting piece of information circulating in the business circles in recent days. Well then, information suggests that a plan is under discussion to split Vodafone’s Greek subsidiary into three. According to the same information, for the mobile telephony segment there are discussions with Nikos Stathopoulos of BC Partners, who as is known controls NOVA. For fiber optics there are advanced discussions underway with PPC, and for ITC Services (technology infrastructure management, communication systems, IT technical support, etc.) discussions are taking place with Real Consulting, the company of Nikos Vardinogiannis which recently expanded its shareholder base with the participation of Motor Oil, Intracom and others. It is noted that these are discussions that fall within Vodafone’s broader strategy, discussions that are not taking place under the best circumstances and therefore many things may change. It is recalled that in the past the market had also heard about negotiations between Vodafone and the private equity Pincus, without the information being denied but also without being confirmed by events. The parent Vodafone under CEO Margherita Della Valle in recent years has adopted a strategy of shrinking its presence in certain European markets. In this context it liquidates non-core activities and subsidiaries in order to reduce debt, return capital to its shareholders and focus on core markets such as Germany, Britain, Turkey and Africa. In particular, in 2024 it completed the sale of Vodafone Spain to the fund Zegona for 5 billion euros. During the same period it agreed and in 2025 completed the sale of Vodafone Italy to Swisscom for approximately 8 billion euros in cash. Also a month ago it decided to sell 50% of the Vodafone Ziggo joint venture in the Netherlands for about 1 billion euros, retaining a 10% stake in the new group being created, the Ziggo Group.

Passenger traffic at Venizelos also increased in March

-With the number of cancellations at the country’s largest airport exceeding 500 flights—if one adds arrivals and departures—from the beginning of the crisis in the Middle East on February 28 until today when flights were cancelled due to the problems at airports, the question concerning the resilience of Greek tourism this year is naturally raised, a sector whose contribution to the country’s balance of payments is well known. In this period of the tourism low season, the first messages come from tourist traffic in the capital, which is the destination that gathers the country’s foreign visitors during these months. The answer was given by the Vice President of the Government Kostis Hatzidakis, who was present last Friday in Crete at the conference of “Proto Thema” and travel.gr. The Athens International Airport, after a very good two-month period in January–February with a double-digit increase in passenger traffic of 10.8% reaching 3.97 million passengers, has continued upward in March as well, according to Mr. Hatzidakis, albeit at lower rates that have moderated to plus 5%–6%. A fact that also confirms the resilience of Greek tourism in this difficult juncture—hence the first estimates, as expressed at the conference, for the continuation of the positive performance of Greek tourism in the wake of developments in the Middle East. Let the column note here that Athens and Thessaloniki are the two destinations that move more during this period of the low season, while in the data of the first two months of 2026 in both cities the figures for international traffic were very good. At Eleftherios Venizelos international passenger traffic “ran” at +11.7%, even higher than the +8.5% of domestic traffic. At “Macedonia”, under the management of Fraport Greece, total passenger traffic reached 920 thousand in the first two months, with an increase of 6.4%. Of this number more than half—almost 537 thousand travelers—correspond to international traffic, with an increase of 5.9% compared with the first two months of 2025, while the rest corresponds to domestic traffic which increased by 7.1%.