Today, the AI Act is going down to the wire. The Council, Parliament, and Commission are discussing some of the most controversial points of the dossier. One is the question of how rules for General-Purpose AI (GPAI) and foundation models are to be incorporated into the law. The Spanish Council Presidency recently made a new proposal on this and also asked the member states for feedback. It is reported that the Spanish are entering the negotiations with Parliament with a clear position.
For example, the Council Presidency has proposed that the providers of very capable foundation models must fulfill higher requirements than others. This is not the only reminder of the gradations familiar from the DSA. But also that control over these models should be more centralized at the EU level. In the DSA, the Commission exercises direct control over the VLOPs.
The positions on the issue of remote biometric identification in real-time are perhaps even more divergent. While Parliament wants to rule it out in principle, some member states do not want to do without it, especially for counterterrorism or law enforcement purposes.
Germany is backing out of the deal: In the coalition agreement, the traffic lights rejected the use of biometric recording for surveillance purposes. Against this backdrop, the German government “spoke out in favor of a ban under European law on biometric real-time remote recognition in public spaces”, according to a request from the Federal Ministry of Economics, which is in charge of the dossier. But Germany is probably in the minority here.
There is still much to discuss – including the question of which AI applications should be classified as high-risk and which should not. The German Trade Union Confederation is also once again contributing to the debate with a current proposal. Observers doubt that the negotiators will be able to close the bag at the next trilogue on Dec. 6. But all parties involved are vowing to get there by the end of the year.
Actually, Switzerland and the EU wanted to clear the way for a new start in the stalled bilateral relations before the end of the year. However, after Sunday’s parliamentary elections, which were quite a clear shift to the right by Swiss standards, the chances of a breakthrough have not increased – on the contrary. The right-wing nationalist Swiss People’s Party (SVP) is the undisputed winner with an increase of three percentage points to just under 29 percent and remains by far the strongest force in Bern.
The SVP is likely to set the agenda even more than before and drive the other parties ahead of it, especially in the conservative camp. In the election campaign, the party scored points primarily with slogans against an alleged “asylum chaos” and against immigration in general. But the sovereignists also have their sights set on Switzerland’s relationship with the EU and want to force the government to adopt an orthodox interpretation of neutrality. The party has two popular initiatives in the pipeline.
If adopted, the so-called neutrality initiative would prevent Bern from adopting EU sanctions, for example, such as those recently imposed on Russia. The Swiss government would thus be deprived of any ability to act in foreign policy, and the country would become even more isolated. With the other initiative, the SVP also wants to limit Switzerland’s population to ten million by means of a constitutional article. The government would de facto have to terminate the bilateral agreements with the EU. The popular initiatives are the threatening backdrop that will overshadow the Swiss debate on the relationship with the EU in the coming years.
It goes without saying that stronger ties with the EU are out of the question for Switzerland’s strongest party. The government’s plan in Bern is therefore at cross purposes in the political landscape to sign a joint declaration with Brussels before the end of the year containing the key points for negotiations on a so-called package solution. A further delay until at least early next year is looming. With the European elections on the horizon and the end of the mandate of the current EU Commission, the Federal Council could be counting on a delay until 2025.
Part of the package would be a new basis for the bilateral relationship with clear rules for dispute settlement in the future. This is important for the agreements that regulate Switzerland’s access to the EU’s internal market. Switzerland would also have to commit to dynamically adapting the previously static agreements to the development of EU law in the future.
The package would also include an electricity agreement, in which Switzerland has a growing interest with a view to security of supply and stability of the grids. Experts wonder how Switzerland will manage the energy transition as an electricity island with dwindling connectivity. But it is also possible that the energy turnaround will be watered down, and the SVP will prevail with its call for self-sufficiency to the point of building new nuclear power plants. In addition, the Greens, as winners of the 2019 climate elections, will have to give back a good part of their gains this time and slip below ten percent.
Also on the Swiss wish list is a health agreement so as not to be dependent on Brussels’ goodwill in the next pandemic, as was the case with Corona crisis management. Agreement on the joint declaration with the key points would also be a prerequisite for Switzerland to have any hope of returning to Horizon Europe. After the UK’s return to the EU research program, Switzerland alone remains on the outside. Sunday’s shift to the right is not only bad news for researchers and scientific advancement in general.
Mr. Goebel, you suffered from bureaucracy as an entrepreneur; as head of the Standards Control Council, you see how it is created. How much is the perspective changing?
Minister Buschmann has asked me, together with Minister Lindner, to take over the chair. The advantage is that, compared to politicians of many years standing, I’m not yet used to everything. I’m only just learning how the state actually works. And it has to be said quite clearly: We are far too complicated. Everything takes far too long in our country. And politicians are simply not consistent enough to take countermeasures. But until now, voters have not really rewarded us for reducing bureaucracy. This is changing because the burden on the population, the economy, and the administration has simply become too great.
Chancellor Scholz talks about reducing bureaucracy, as does Minister Habeck or Commission President von der Leyen.
Because the pressure is immense. On the one hand, from the economy – an enormous amount has accumulated. But also from the administration: It can no longer implement the large number of complicated laws, let alone monitor them. The municipalities simply don’t have the personnel. Even in the political parties, the realization is dawning. In the past, some were rather hesitant because debureaucratization could reduce social standards, and others feared for ecological standards. But now everyone recognizes that the entire energy transition will not be possible if we do not systematically reduce bureaucracy.
And yet politicians and administrators are finding it incredibly difficult to cut red tape. The frogs are having a hard time drying up the pond.
The ministries find it extremely difficult to designate which regulation should be dismantled again for a new one according to the one-in-one-out principle. There are many legal experts at work, and there is a culture that does not tolerate mistakes. In some cases, however, there is a lack of expertise and specialists.
Do we need a different error culture?
We entrepreneurs have gotten into the habit of concentrating a lot of competence in the front ranks, with the people in sales or the technicians at the customer. But those responsible in the municipalities, who are in contact with companies or citizens, are terrified of making mistakes because they could be prosecuted for them. That’s why the municipalities are demanding very detailed regulation so that they don’t make any mistakes in the first place. But we can’t work like that. In these incredibly fast-moving times, we need quick decisions.
But how do you take away this fear of making mistakes from administrative staff?
That’s not something that can be done lightly. You would have to start with the fact that people can’t be prosecuted right away unless they act negligently. And they must be able to decide for themselves within a certain framework.
That sounds like a huge issue.
Yes, it is, and it is not the only one. We need state reform. We have too many levels, too many individual responsibilities, and too many problematic interfaces. We need to discuss where which task is best located. For example, we can centralize certain services that are currently provided by the municipalities. That’s how it’s done now with vehicle registrations. It doesn’t make sense for each of the roughly 11,000 municipalities in Germany to do everything themselves.
Do you see the political will to do so?
We recommend to the current federal government that it initiate such a state reform and also put it to the vote in the next federal election. In the end, we may need an amendment to the Basic Law on certain points. We are finding that our state is no longer adequately positioned with a constitution dating from 1948. The coalition should start working out reform modules now.
Do you see the willingness to do this in the coalition?
I have the impression that willingness is growing. I am in dialog on this with Chancellor’s Office Minister Wolfgang Schmidt, who, according to my impression, also sees that something has to be done. I can’t say any more about it yet. But we don’t have quite two years left to set out on this path.
Should local governments be more involved in formulating new federal laws?
Absolutely. The German Federal Ministry of Economics has already started to carry out practice checks. It is looking for bureaucratic obstacles in existing laws, first in photovoltaics and currently in wind turbines and business start-ups. It would be wise to apply this practice at the outset when laws are being formulated. This would mean taking more time for a law and involving practitioners on the ground more intensively. At the present time, practically all laws are being rushed through at enormous speed. Even we as the NKR have hardly any time to examine the plans with the necessary thoroughness.
Because the specifications are too small?
We have to get away from the claim that we get it right in every single case. Take the basic pension, for example: It is only paid if the person has no investment income. We have been able to prove that the cost of carrying out random checks is eight times higher than the benefit of preventing abuse. We have discussed this with the German government. The time-consuming investigation procedure is now to be abolished under the Bureaucracy Relief Act IV.
What do you think of the planned Bureaucracy Relief Act?
The Bureaucracy Relief Act IV and the Growth Opportunities Act are expected to reduce bureaucracy by more than two billion euros. That’s something. But of the 450 proposals submitted in the survey of associations, only eleven were included in the key issues paper for the Bureaucracy Relief Act IV. That can’t be it. Even if some of the proposals relate to the EU level and are now being addressed as part of the Franco-German initiative.
The government is talking about more measures to come.
A number of ministries say they are planning their own projects to reduce bureaucracy. We will be monitoring that. I recommend that all associations ask why only a certain number of the 450 have been adopted. And to check carefully whether the ministries’ arguments for not implementing them are valid.
The coalition also wants to speed up planning and approval procedures. But negotiations between the federal and state governments are proceeding at the old German pace. Do you have hope that something will come soon?
I am confident. As the NKR, we have worked with external experts to develop concrete proposals on this, which have also been sent to the Chancellor’s Office. And we know that a whole series of proposals have been taken up there. The issue is to be discussed at the next Minister Presidents’ Conference at the beginning of November. I hope it will remain there and not be pushed aside by the migration issue that has caught up with the government.
According to your figures, on average 57 percent of the compliance burden in Germany over the past few years came from Brussels, through the implementation of directives and regulations. The Christian Democrats and President Macron are calling for a regulatory pause. Is this correct?
On the one hand, yes. During Ms. von der Leyen’s term in office, the Commission has initiated exactly twice as many laws as the previous Commission. This cannot continue without overburdening us all. We won’t be able to implement even more laws in Germany because we don’t have enough administrative staff. But we can’t forbid politicians to make laws. We just have to raise awareness of the consequences. That the success of an EU Commissioner is not measured by the number of legislative proposals he or she makes.
As the NKR, you have no say at EU level. Do you nevertheless deal with EU legislation?
We were recently in Brussels and had many discussions with the Commission, with the Regulatory Scrutiny Board and in the European Parliament. And we are cooperating with other bureaucracy reduction bodies in other countries, for example in Scandinavia, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and also the UK. Together, we will tell the Commission for the next election period that one of the main topics should be deregulation and cutting red tape.
The principle of one in, one out is to become an important tool against excessive bureaucracy at EU level. How well is it already working?
The Commission has drawn up a positive balance sheet for the first year. However, the calculation of the €7 billion reduction only takes into account bureaucratic costs and thus excludes larger issues such as the Supply Chain Act. The balance sheet is therefore not entirely complete and only reflects reality to a limited extent.
Von der Leyen has promised to abolish 25 percent of companies’ reporting requirements. Is that realistic?
To do that, it would first have to determine how much 100 percent actually is. So it would need a kind of stocktaking. That’s why Brussels has some doubts about the 25 percent figure. But at least something is being done.
Is the Commission lacking effective braking mechanisms?
The Commission has already taken some clever precautions to get the bureaucracy under control. When a bill is proposed, the Regulatory Scrutiny Board is involved at a very early stage: The expert panel then looks at what the cost-benefit ratio is and whether there are less burdensome alternatives. They do not have the right to veto, but the Commission must first override if the RSB votes twice against the proposal. Impact assessments are also done in the EU Parliament, unfortunately not in the Council. That is a mistake. And unfortunately, things sometimes get so heated in Parliament that the end result is a law that no one intended beforehand. The Supply Chain Act is one such case.
Von der Leyen has announced that she will also appoint an SME envoy and introduce competitiveness checks. Are these the right steps?
The position of SME representative is currently being advertised, unfortunately it is still completely unclear who will do it. But it will be a staff position that will be directly attached to the Commission President and will also take part in the RSB hearings. This will give SME concerns more weight in the legislative process. And then there will be a test to see whether a draft law is detrimental to European competitiveness. So that should also have a positive effect, but the actual implementation is still being worked on.
In the past, Germany has tended to over-implement EU requirements, for example in the area of data protection.
This must not happen again in the future. Many things are implemented in a much more complicated way here than elsewhere. In other EU countries, the authorities provide pre-filled forms; here, they start from scratch – the effort is then much higher.
Lutz Goebel is Managing Partner of Henkelhausen GmbH & CO. KG and a member of the Executive Committee of the Family Business Association, of which he was President from 2011 to 2017. In May 2022, he also assumed the chairmanship of the German government’s National Standards Control Council.
Tim Krögel is more than just a true European by nature. He is – as he says himself – a true “Brussels Bubble European”. As the son of an employee in the European Parliament, the now 43-year-old already came into contact with the political peculiarities of the European capital as a child.
“At home, the EU as an institution played a major role in my life from an early age”, says Krögel. It almost goes without saying that he attended the European School in Brussels.
Rather surprisingly, in view of his further career, Krögel finally took over the European policy division management of the German Confederation of Skilled Crafts (ZDH) and its representation at the EU in 2018. After graduating from school, he left Brussels for the time being to study architecture, civil engineering and business administration in England and France.
Nevertheless, he then returned to his hometown on a professional basis. “I quickly realized that I was virtually forced back to Brussels by my biography”, says Krögel.
Even though he has since held various positions at the European representation and the ZDH – the focus of his work for 19 years has been on Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises. In his interaction with them, Krögel sees his main task as a translator – “not in the linguistic sense, however, but rather in the cultural sense”. In concrete terms, that means: “Many German craft enterprises are basically pro-European, but often don’t know exactly what it takes to make a European project work.”
The national leeway for companies is also becoming ever narrower as a result of strong European legislation. In the process, he says, there is often no examination of how individual directives affect the work of craft enterprises. “If we as the ZDH were not here in Brussels, such an investigation would not even take place”, says Krögel.
The importance of the European representation of skilled crafts in Brussels was demonstrated by the discussion of European climate protection measures and emission targets. The climate policy directions, which for Krögel and the skilled trades “have never been a problem in themselves”, often cause difficulties for national companies in implementation, however, which restrict them in their daily work.
The fact that driving bans would be imposed for better air quality based on European policy regulations is problematic for the skilled trades, as businesses would inevitably have to move into cities, says Krögel. “We oppose an ideological determination of measures that does not consider how they can realistically be implemented.”
In discussions with MEPs, Krögel tries to highlight the interests of the craft sector. “We have been calling for greater understanding of small businesses through better SME policy since the last European elections.” In the current legislative period, the demanded structures have been weakened.
Krögel is concerned about the current burden situation for craft businesses – also with a view to the future of the EU after the upcoming European elections. “What will happen next year when people feel they are getting burdens, not solutions, from the EU?” He would like to see company employees seek out discussions with regional candidates before the elections to underscore the needs of the German skilled trades. Jasper Bennink
Today, the AI Act is going down to the wire. The Council, Parliament, and Commission are discussing some of the most controversial points of the dossier. One is the question of how rules for General-Purpose AI (GPAI) and foundation models are to be incorporated into the law. The Spanish Council Presidency recently made a new proposal on this and also asked the member states for feedback. It is reported that the Spanish are entering the negotiations with Parliament with a clear position.
For example, the Council Presidency has proposed that the providers of very capable foundation models must fulfill higher requirements than others. This is not the only reminder of the gradations familiar from the DSA. But also that control over these models should be more centralized at the EU level. In the DSA, the Commission exercises direct control over the VLOPs.
The positions on the issue of remote biometric identification in real-time are perhaps even more divergent. While Parliament wants to rule it out in principle, some member states do not want to do without it, especially for counterterrorism or law enforcement purposes.
Germany is backing out of the deal: In the coalition agreement, the traffic lights rejected the use of biometric recording for surveillance purposes. Against this backdrop, the German government “spoke out in favor of a ban under European law on biometric real-time remote recognition in public spaces”, according to a request from the Federal Ministry of Economics, which is in charge of the dossier. But Germany is probably in the minority here.
There is still much to discuss – including the question of which AI applications should be classified as high-risk and which should not. The German Trade Union Confederation is also once again contributing to the debate with a current proposal. Observers doubt that the negotiators will be able to close the bag at the next trilogue on Dec. 6. But all parties involved are vowing to get there by the end of the year.
Actually, Switzerland and the EU wanted to clear the way for a new start in the stalled bilateral relations before the end of the year. However, after Sunday’s parliamentary elections, which were quite a clear shift to the right by Swiss standards, the chances of a breakthrough have not increased – on the contrary. The right-wing nationalist Swiss People’s Party (SVP) is the undisputed winner with an increase of three percentage points to just under 29 percent and remains by far the strongest force in Bern.
The SVP is likely to set the agenda even more than before and drive the other parties ahead of it, especially in the conservative camp. In the election campaign, the party scored points primarily with slogans against an alleged “asylum chaos” and against immigration in general. But the sovereignists also have their sights set on Switzerland’s relationship with the EU and want to force the government to adopt an orthodox interpretation of neutrality. The party has two popular initiatives in the pipeline.
If adopted, the so-called neutrality initiative would prevent Bern from adopting EU sanctions, for example, such as those recently imposed on Russia. The Swiss government would thus be deprived of any ability to act in foreign policy, and the country would become even more isolated. With the other initiative, the SVP also wants to limit Switzerland’s population to ten million by means of a constitutional article. The government would de facto have to terminate the bilateral agreements with the EU. The popular initiatives are the threatening backdrop that will overshadow the Swiss debate on the relationship with the EU in the coming years.
It goes without saying that stronger ties with the EU are out of the question for Switzerland’s strongest party. The government’s plan in Bern is therefore at cross purposes in the political landscape to sign a joint declaration with Brussels before the end of the year containing the key points for negotiations on a so-called package solution. A further delay until at least early next year is looming. With the European elections on the horizon and the end of the mandate of the current EU Commission, the Federal Council could be counting on a delay until 2025.
Part of the package would be a new basis for the bilateral relationship with clear rules for dispute settlement in the future. This is important for the agreements that regulate Switzerland’s access to the EU’s internal market. Switzerland would also have to commit to dynamically adapting the previously static agreements to the development of EU law in the future.
The package would also include an electricity agreement, in which Switzerland has a growing interest with a view to security of supply and stability of the grids. Experts wonder how Switzerland will manage the energy transition as an electricity island with dwindling connectivity. But it is also possible that the energy turnaround will be watered down, and the SVP will prevail with its call for self-sufficiency to the point of building new nuclear power plants. In addition, the Greens, as winners of the 2019 climate elections, will have to give back a good part of their gains this time and slip below ten percent.
Also on the Swiss wish list is a health agreement so as not to be dependent on Brussels’ goodwill in the next pandemic, as was the case with Corona crisis management. Agreement on the joint declaration with the key points would also be a prerequisite for Switzerland to have any hope of returning to Horizon Europe. After the UK’s return to the EU research program, Switzerland alone remains on the outside. Sunday’s shift to the right is not only bad news for researchers and scientific advancement in general.
Mr. Goebel, you suffered from bureaucracy as an entrepreneur; as head of the Standards Control Council, you see how it is created. How much is the perspective changing?
Minister Buschmann has asked me, together with Minister Lindner, to take over the chair. The advantage is that, compared to politicians of many years standing, I’m not yet used to everything. I’m only just learning how the state actually works. And it has to be said quite clearly: We are far too complicated. Everything takes far too long in our country. And politicians are simply not consistent enough to take countermeasures. But until now, voters have not really rewarded us for reducing bureaucracy. This is changing because the burden on the population, the economy, and the administration has simply become too great.
Chancellor Scholz talks about reducing bureaucracy, as does Minister Habeck or Commission President von der Leyen.
Because the pressure is immense. On the one hand, from the economy – an enormous amount has accumulated. But also from the administration: It can no longer implement the large number of complicated laws, let alone monitor them. The municipalities simply don’t have the personnel. Even in the political parties, the realization is dawning. In the past, some were rather hesitant because debureaucratization could reduce social standards, and others feared for ecological standards. But now everyone recognizes that the entire energy transition will not be possible if we do not systematically reduce bureaucracy.
And yet politicians and administrators are finding it incredibly difficult to cut red tape. The frogs are having a hard time drying up the pond.
The ministries find it extremely difficult to designate which regulation should be dismantled again for a new one according to the one-in-one-out principle. There are many legal experts at work, and there is a culture that does not tolerate mistakes. In some cases, however, there is a lack of expertise and specialists.
Do we need a different error culture?
We entrepreneurs have gotten into the habit of concentrating a lot of competence in the front ranks, with the people in sales or the technicians at the customer. But those responsible in the municipalities, who are in contact with companies or citizens, are terrified of making mistakes because they could be prosecuted for them. That’s why the municipalities are demanding very detailed regulation so that they don’t make any mistakes in the first place. But we can’t work like that. In these incredibly fast-moving times, we need quick decisions.
But how do you take away this fear of making mistakes from administrative staff?
That’s not something that can be done lightly. You would have to start with the fact that people can’t be prosecuted right away unless they act negligently. And they must be able to decide for themselves within a certain framework.
That sounds like a huge issue.
Yes, it is, and it is not the only one. We need state reform. We have too many levels, too many individual responsibilities, and too many problematic interfaces. We need to discuss where which task is best located. For example, we can centralize certain services that are currently provided by the municipalities. That’s how it’s done now with vehicle registrations. It doesn’t make sense for each of the roughly 11,000 municipalities in Germany to do everything themselves.
Do you see the political will to do so?
We recommend to the current federal government that it initiate such a state reform and also put it to the vote in the next federal election. In the end, we may need an amendment to the Basic Law on certain points. We are finding that our state is no longer adequately positioned with a constitution dating from 1948. The coalition should start working out reform modules now.
Do you see the willingness to do this in the coalition?
I have the impression that willingness is growing. I am in dialog on this with Chancellor’s Office Minister Wolfgang Schmidt, who, according to my impression, also sees that something has to be done. I can’t say any more about it yet. But we don’t have quite two years left to set out on this path.
Should local governments be more involved in formulating new federal laws?
Absolutely. The German Federal Ministry of Economics has already started to carry out practice checks. It is looking for bureaucratic obstacles in existing laws, first in photovoltaics and currently in wind turbines and business start-ups. It would be wise to apply this practice at the outset when laws are being formulated. This would mean taking more time for a law and involving practitioners on the ground more intensively. At the present time, practically all laws are being rushed through at enormous speed. Even we as the NKR have hardly any time to examine the plans with the necessary thoroughness.
Because the specifications are too small?
We have to get away from the claim that we get it right in every single case. Take the basic pension, for example: It is only paid if the person has no investment income. We have been able to prove that the cost of carrying out random checks is eight times higher than the benefit of preventing abuse. We have discussed this with the German government. The time-consuming investigation procedure is now to be abolished under the Bureaucracy Relief Act IV.
What do you think of the planned Bureaucracy Relief Act?
The Bureaucracy Relief Act IV and the Growth Opportunities Act are expected to reduce bureaucracy by more than two billion euros. That’s something. But of the 450 proposals submitted in the survey of associations, only eleven were included in the key issues paper for the Bureaucracy Relief Act IV. That can’t be it. Even if some of the proposals relate to the EU level and are now being addressed as part of the Franco-German initiative.
The government is talking about more measures to come.
A number of ministries say they are planning their own projects to reduce bureaucracy. We will be monitoring that. I recommend that all associations ask why only a certain number of the 450 have been adopted. And to check carefully whether the ministries’ arguments for not implementing them are valid.
The coalition also wants to speed up planning and approval procedures. But negotiations between the federal and state governments are proceeding at the old German pace. Do you have hope that something will come soon?
I am confident. As the NKR, we have worked with external experts to develop concrete proposals on this, which have also been sent to the Chancellor’s Office. And we know that a whole series of proposals have been taken up there. The issue is to be discussed at the next Minister Presidents’ Conference at the beginning of November. I hope it will remain there and not be pushed aside by the migration issue that has caught up with the government.
According to your figures, on average 57 percent of the compliance burden in Germany over the past few years came from Brussels, through the implementation of directives and regulations. The Christian Democrats and President Macron are calling for a regulatory pause. Is this correct?
On the one hand, yes. During Ms. von der Leyen’s term in office, the Commission has initiated exactly twice as many laws as the previous Commission. This cannot continue without overburdening us all. We won’t be able to implement even more laws in Germany because we don’t have enough administrative staff. But we can’t forbid politicians to make laws. We just have to raise awareness of the consequences. That the success of an EU Commissioner is not measured by the number of legislative proposals he or she makes.
As the NKR, you have no say at EU level. Do you nevertheless deal with EU legislation?
We were recently in Brussels and had many discussions with the Commission, with the Regulatory Scrutiny Board and in the European Parliament. And we are cooperating with other bureaucracy reduction bodies in other countries, for example in Scandinavia, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and also the UK. Together, we will tell the Commission for the next election period that one of the main topics should be deregulation and cutting red tape.
The principle of one in, one out is to become an important tool against excessive bureaucracy at EU level. How well is it already working?
The Commission has drawn up a positive balance sheet for the first year. However, the calculation of the €7 billion reduction only takes into account bureaucratic costs and thus excludes larger issues such as the Supply Chain Act. The balance sheet is therefore not entirely complete and only reflects reality to a limited extent.
Von der Leyen has promised to abolish 25 percent of companies’ reporting requirements. Is that realistic?
To do that, it would first have to determine how much 100 percent actually is. So it would need a kind of stocktaking. That’s why Brussels has some doubts about the 25 percent figure. But at least something is being done.
Is the Commission lacking effective braking mechanisms?
The Commission has already taken some clever precautions to get the bureaucracy under control. When a bill is proposed, the Regulatory Scrutiny Board is involved at a very early stage: The expert panel then looks at what the cost-benefit ratio is and whether there are less burdensome alternatives. They do not have the right to veto, but the Commission must first override if the RSB votes twice against the proposal. Impact assessments are also done in the EU Parliament, unfortunately not in the Council. That is a mistake. And unfortunately, things sometimes get so heated in Parliament that the end result is a law that no one intended beforehand. The Supply Chain Act is one such case.
Von der Leyen has announced that she will also appoint an SME envoy and introduce competitiveness checks. Are these the right steps?
The position of SME representative is currently being advertised, unfortunately it is still completely unclear who will do it. But it will be a staff position that will be directly attached to the Commission President and will also take part in the RSB hearings. This will give SME concerns more weight in the legislative process. And then there will be a test to see whether a draft law is detrimental to European competitiveness. So that should also have a positive effect, but the actual implementation is still being worked on.
In the past, Germany has tended to over-implement EU requirements, for example in the area of data protection.
This must not happen again in the future. Many things are implemented in a much more complicated way here than elsewhere. In other EU countries, the authorities provide pre-filled forms; here, they start from scratch – the effort is then much higher.
Lutz Goebel is Managing Partner of Henkelhausen GmbH & CO. KG and a member of the Executive Committee of the Family Business Association, of which he was President from 2011 to 2017. In May 2022, he also assumed the chairmanship of the German government’s National Standards Control Council.
Tim Krögel is more than just a true European by nature. He is – as he says himself – a true “Brussels Bubble European”. As the son of an employee in the European Parliament, the now 43-year-old already came into contact with the political peculiarities of the European capital as a child.
“At home, the EU as an institution played a major role in my life from an early age”, says Krögel. It almost goes without saying that he attended the European School in Brussels.
Rather surprisingly, in view of his further career, Krögel finally took over the European policy division management of the German Confederation of Skilled Crafts (ZDH) and its representation at the EU in 2018. After graduating from school, he left Brussels for the time being to study architecture, civil engineering and business administration in England and France.
Nevertheless, he then returned to his hometown on a professional basis. “I quickly realized that I was virtually forced back to Brussels by my biography”, says Krögel.
Even though he has since held various positions at the European representation and the ZDH – the focus of his work for 19 years has been on Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises. In his interaction with them, Krögel sees his main task as a translator – “not in the linguistic sense, however, but rather in the cultural sense”. In concrete terms, that means: “Many German craft enterprises are basically pro-European, but often don’t know exactly what it takes to make a European project work.”
The national leeway for companies is also becoming ever narrower as a result of strong European legislation. In the process, he says, there is often no examination of how individual directives affect the work of craft enterprises. “If we as the ZDH were not here in Brussels, such an investigation would not even take place”, says Krögel.
The importance of the European representation of skilled crafts in Brussels was demonstrated by the discussion of European climate protection measures and emission targets. The climate policy directions, which for Krögel and the skilled trades “have never been a problem in themselves”, often cause difficulties for national companies in implementation, however, which restrict them in their daily work.
The fact that driving bans would be imposed for better air quality based on European policy regulations is problematic for the skilled trades, as businesses would inevitably have to move into cities, says Krögel. “We oppose an ideological determination of measures that does not consider how they can realistically be implemented.”
In discussions with MEPs, Krögel tries to highlight the interests of the craft sector. “We have been calling for greater understanding of small businesses through better SME policy since the last European elections.” In the current legislative period, the demanded structures have been weakened.
Krögel is concerned about the current burden situation for craft businesses – also with a view to the future of the EU after the upcoming European elections. “What will happen next year when people feel they are getting burdens, not solutions, from the EU?” He would like to see company employees seek out discussions with regional candidates before the elections to underscore the needs of the German skilled trades. Jasper Bennink
