Brussels, my love? Greek election fever & Belgium’s secretive diamond sector

In this edition of Brussels, my love?, we discect the outcome of the Greek elections and the reasons Belgium won’t sign off on a Russian diamond import tire.

This week, we were joined by Karel Lannoo from the independent think tank CEPS, Panos Tasiopoulos from the Wilfried Marten Center for European Studies and Alia Papageorgiou, the President of the Brussels Press Club.

Panelists discussed the outcome of the recent Greek elections which saw the centre-right party of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis come out on top. The left-wing Syriza party received only 20.1%.

“It is good that the Greeks realize they need stability, that they need economic stability,” said Karel Lanoo. Panos Tasiopoulous agreed.

Unfortunately, no politicians from the Left party were available to join us for the discussion so their views were not heard

The panel also discussed the UK’s decision to impose a ban on Russian diamonds, and the pressure on the EU to follow suit as, according to EU Council President Charles Michel, ‘diamonds are not forever’.

Watch ‘Brussels, my love?’ in the player above.