Democracy

In other news, Poland faces new EU infringement procedure over #LexTusk; Slovaks show greatest apathy for European elections; and Czech government delegations go dry on official flights after unseemly incident.

In other news, Hungarian troops are attacked in Kosovo as its army chief is accused of torture at home; Slovak political parties trade election conspiracies as campaign begins; and a mob of pensioners storm a Prague courtroom.

"The Kremlin's disinformation and interference in the internal affairs of Eastern European countries is a huge problem for all of Europe. Attempts at destabilization are made by activating local politicians and strengthening autocracy at the expense of democracy. All this is done with a single goal - to make Ukraine's victory more difficult and Europe to weaken".

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis insisted Tuesday that Greece will be able to regain investment grade with a strong New Democracy government and that his "his victory over populism in Greece" serves as a lesson "for other liberal democracies."

"If you deliver real change for people, people will reward you," he told CNN's Christiane Amanpour.

The number of applications to volunteer as observers in the presidential election runoff on May 28 has exceeded 200,000, tripling the figure seen two weeks ago, a volunteer organization of election monitoring has said.

Greece is not Turkey. It is therefore a huge mistake for a party to adopt - even tacitly - outlandish conspiracy theories indicating that Sunday's election may be tampered with. Such issues have been resolved, once and for all, and no one has cast the faintest shadow of a doubt on any electoral contest since 1974.

"It is again confirmed that we do not know ourselves and that we take our fantasies for real," a Turkish friend wrote to me on Monday. It is difficult to feel just how much many Turks hoped that, at last, they would see an end to the slide towards greater autocracy and towards greater distance from the European Union. 

In other news, Polish parties try to outdo each other over child handouts; the media is in the headlines in Czechia; and Slovakia's new technocratic government gets to work.

The US Embassy in Greece and the Delphi Economic Forum, in collaboration with Art in Embassies, on Tuesday announced the Partners in Democracy initiative, scheduled for May 24 and 25 in Athens.

Greek President Katerina Sakellaropoulou will embark on a trip to Iceland on Monday to attend the 4th Summit of Heads of State and Government of the Council of Europe, scheduled to take place in Reykjavik from May 15 to May 17.