The easing of the burden on European farmers continues. At today’s Agriculture Council in Brussels, the EU agriculture ministers are expected to vote in favor of the European Commission’s proposals to relax environmental requirements in the Common Agricultural Policy until 2027 without any changes. Informally, the majority of ambassadors have already spoken out in favor of the CAP loosening. By foregoing amendments, the Belgian Council Presidency wants to save time and enable the dossier to be adopted before the European elections.
However, Germany is likely to abstain from the vote. The German government has not yet finalized its position, but will “not stand in the way of the accelerated procedure for dealing with the CAP legislative package”, according to a spokesperson for the Federal Ministry of Agriculture. According to this, the traffic light will only come to a final agreement once the parliamentary vote has been cast. By then, however, it will probably be too late to effectively lobby for any changes.
Also at the Agriculture Council today: Ukrainian Agriculture Minister Mykola Solskyi. This is particularly piquant because the trilogue agreement on free trade with Ukraine still has to be confirmed by member states. The EU ambassadors were actually supposed to vote on it on Monday. However, the vote was postponed until Wednesday. There is also likely to be an increased need for discussion among the agriculture ministers.
Mr. Güllner, artificial intelligence has been used to influence people for some time now. What role will artificial intelligence play in the 2024 European elections?
Actors use AI as a means of manipulating information or disinformation. This is nothing new. Automated bots are also increasingly working with large language models, LLMs. We should take this danger very, very seriously. We can assume that the further development of technology will lead to these tools becoming faster, cheaper and probably also much easier to use.
… and thus also bring new problems.
We are observing that it is not only highly specialized and tech-savvy structures that are using these techniques. They are being used much more widely. We expect the quantity and speed of disinformation and information manipulation to increase. The big question is whether the quality will also change.
What does quality mean in this context?
Firstly, the technical approach. The error rate will probably decrease. On the other hand, the question is whether we will see a paradigm shift, i.e. completely new instruments such as deepfakes. We currently have a few small indications of this. But I emphasize the word “currently”. We are not yet seeing this leap in quality in application. But that doesn’t mean that the risk doesn’t exist.
Which actors pose the risks?
This question is always very difficult because you have to work with attribution in order to clearly identify an actor. This is particularly true when it comes to state actors. We know that Russia, for example, works according to the principle of the ecosystem: The majority of activities are carried out by networks, structures or actors that we cannot directly attribute to the state actor at all. As the application becomes simpler, this tendency will continue to increase. In the past, we were actually able to identify structures of the Russian security apparatus, for example secret services, which were involved in operations.
Will this be more difficult to recognize in the future?
That is my assumption. We are seeing a commercialization here. More and more paid actors are doing the work, the “dirty work”. In the future, we need to look at the links between these different players in terms of financial dependencies.
When we talk about disinformation and manipulation, it’s usually about Russia. Shouldn’t we be more worried about China, especially when it comes to the use of AI?
We don’t just look at one player, we look at all the dangers. But we have to keep a close eye on the most active player. That is and remains Russia. However, we are also concerned about the increasing activities of Chinese actors. We are seeing an overlap in geopolitical narratives. Take the example of the biological weapons laboratories allegedly found in Ukraine. There is still no evidence for this, but there are many claims, many of which come from Chinese actors. However, I warn against comparing apples with oranges, the tactics are different.
If even players with less expertise use more and more AI, will the quantity alone make a big difference, or are only highly professional attacks really dangerous?
The more actors we have who look authentic, the more difficult it will be to detect them, of course. And the more the line becomes blurred between domestic, legitimate actors and external actors who use these means as a state instrument for tactical or strategic goals, the more difficult our work will become.
Can you give an example?
Take the farmers’ protests, an issue of social relevance. The concerns can be perceived as right or wrong, but it is an important political issue. There are two types of disinformation actors: domestic political actors who use the dispute to exaggerate, to make themselves heard, perhaps even using inauthentic means. The discussion we need to have: How legitimate or illegitimate is this? And there are external actors who try to exploit such social discussions opportunistically. It is easier to identify illegitimacy here.
Political parties also use AI in election campaigns. Would you recommend that parties stay away from AI in general because there is this dangerous gray area?
We need a debate on the legitimacy of the means that make it possible to manipulate the information space. There are commercial services with which you can, for example, increase your reach incredibly, like a megaphone. According to today’s rules, this is not explicitly illegal. From a moral point of view, however, it remains questionable. If we want to protect freedom of expression and public discourse, we have to make sure that the voices are authentic.
What is the problem?
If you amplify voices hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of times with inauthentic means, you take up much more space than in a genuine debate. This applies to all players. In 2012, we were still looking at Barack Obama’s campaign with great admiration: what an interesting campaign with micro-targeting and amplification techniques! Now we can see how quickly this can become a problem. Therefore, we need a debate on whether it is okay to buy huge amplification of votes for money via bots, trolls and other means.
Have you observed that attackers who want to disrupt the election campaign are already making preparations or are already active?
We are preparing ourselves for the fact that we will have to fend off attempts at disruption and manipulation. However, this does not mean that we will definitely see a huge wave of disinformation. We have to be careful not to fall into the attackers’ trap. They are stirring up fears about the security of the process. In doing so, they have already achieved their goal of delegitimizing the entire process. If people think, “oh, there will be so much manipulation, the elections can’t be trusted anyway”, they won’t vote at all. That’s why it’s important for me to say: the elections are safe, the elections are legitimate, but there is a risk. Our task is to assess this risk and react accordingly.
What defenses do you have?
The first is situational awareness. We have the tools in place to detect and uncover attacks quickly. The second is to strengthen not only our own ability to respond, in terms of communication, but also in the way we work with platforms and regulatory authorities. We now have the Digital Services Act (DSA) for this. It gives us new tools to demand transparency and accountability from platforms in specific cases. The third pillar is the strengthening of civil society structures, such as fact-checking initiatives.
The DSA is still fresh. The Commission has announced guidelines on how the platforms should deal with the systemic risks of disinformation and election manipulation. What do you expect from the DSA?
I expect a lot from the DSA, but I can’t expect more from the instrument than what it was created for. The exchange with the platforms is important. We will see a gradual increase in incidents. All stakeholders – platforms, civil society and government agencies – need to work closely together to understand the phenomenon: Who is doing what, why, by what means? And then draw the consequences.
One relief measure for farmers after another has recently come from the European Commission. They all had one thing in common: the concessions were presented by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. This is unusual, as specialist topics such as changes to the Common Agricultural Policy are normally the responsibility of the Commissioner in charge.
But Agriculture Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski is increasingly being sidelined. One reason: In view of farmers’ protests in many European countries and a European election campaign in which von der Leyen is once again running for the Commission leadership, the CDU politician has made agriculture a top priority. There is hardly any room left for Wojciechowski to make her mark.
Von der Leyen and Wojciechowski have become rivals when it comes to who takes the credit for easing the burden – a competition that the more powerful and tactically clever von der Leyen usually wins. “The measures were presented on my initiative – I am the Commissioner for Agriculture”, Wojciechowski assured MEPs last week with regard to the proposed CAP easing. However, the easing measures were actually announced by the Commission President, while none of Wojciechowski’s original ideas made it into the draft.
This internal competition had also led to curious scenes when the proposals were presented a few days earlier: Instead of presenting the proposals in Brussels as the responsible Commissioner, Wojciechowski was in Poland on the day of publication and had scheduled his own press conference there in the afternoon. However, he was ultimately unable to present anything: contrary to the plan, the Commission did not publish the proposals in the morning, but only in the evening.
It is likely that final changes to the draft were responsible for the delay. Nevertheless, the postponement played into von der Leyen’s hands. After all, it was she who was able to announce the measures to reduce bureaucracy following a phone call with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
The fact that the head of the Commission spoke to the Polish prime minister of all people is also highly symbolic. Since Tusk and his alliance of former opposition parties have formed the government in Poland, PiS man Wojciechowski no longer has the backing of his home country.
Von der Leyen therefore no longer has any incentive to get on good terms with Wojciechowski. The Commissioners are appointed by the respective national government. After the European elections, Wojciechowski therefore has no chance of becoming Commissioner again. Even more important for von der Leyen: in order to secure Poland’s support for a second term in office, she no longer has to keep the right-wing conservative PiS – and therefore Wojciechowski – happy, but her party colleague Tusk.
Since then, von der Leyen has no longer had to tolerate Wojciechowski’s repeated and blatant departure from the Commission’s line in order to represent the interests of Polish farmers. At the end of February, the Agriculture Commissioner had to publicly back down – apparently under pressure from the Commission.
In a letter to the Chairman of the EU Committee on Agriculture, Norbert Lins, which is available to Table.Briefings, Wojciechowski repeated the protest slogan “Stop imports – No Green Deal“, among other things. This did not reflect his own opinion. He had merely quoted a demand of the farmers’ protests and “lacked the necessary care” in his choice of words, he later admitted in a public statement.
The episode also shows how clumsy Wojciechowski often seems in his political actions. The more vehemently he tries to push through the interests of his Polish party and its rural electorate, the more he seems to be sidelining himself in Brussels. This is because, in his role as EU Commissioner, who is supposed to have the interests of the entire Union in mind, he is being taken less and less seriously.
Paradoxically, Wojciechowski has also lost the trust of his own camp. Not only voices from the new Tusk government, but also his own party leader, PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński, demanded Wojciechowski’s resignation as Commissioner in February after Polish farmers once again took to the barricades against EU free trade with Ukraine.
The Commissioner for Agriculture has not only managed to lose support in Brussels because he is all too obviously pursuing his own agenda, but also in Poland because he does not have the necessary influence at EU level to do so effectively.
The EU Parliament and the member states are currently discussing the final version of the PSD3 Payment Services Directive. The new rules for online commerce are intended to ensure greater harmonization of regulations in the EU, create a level playing field for payment service providers and improve fraud protection.
The design of PSD3 offers an opportunity to build on the success of its predecessor PSD2 and drive innovation in payment transactions. However, it should also make up for its shortcomings. The current regulation is strongly tailored to end consumers. However, to ensure that companies and businesses can also process their payment transactions more securely and smoothly, the regulations should be better tailored to them.
One of the most successful elements of PSD2 has been the introduction of Strong Customer Authentication (SCA), which has given millions of European consumers greater consumer protection through two-factor authentication. Not only has SCA increased trust in e-commerce and online payments, but the requirements have also helped create the single European market for payments, which has led to a veritable fintech boom. Growth that we in Europe, and Germany in particular, could do with.
However, the provisions on strong customer authentication are so broad that they also apply to business transactions. As a result, employees of European companies currently have to follow exactly the same security standards when making online payments as they do when banking online at home. Most companies already use trustworthy security solutions that promise better protection than SCA alone.
When people think of digital payment, online shopping usually comes to mind. However, the vast majority of all transactions are made between companies. The global B2B payment volume amounts to more than 120 trillion US dollars annually, six times higher than the sum of all consumer payments. Adapting the regulations is therefore more urgent than ever if we want to avoid huge friction losses for companies.
Even before the adoption of PSD2, companies in Europe regularly relied on tried and tested methods such as single sign-on solutions, hardware tokens or laptop certificates for authentication when logging into their payment software. Adding SCA is like forcing the European Space Agency (ESA) to fit road traffic-compliant rear-view mirrors to their rockets. Larger companies should have the flexibility to decide for themselves, based on their own risk assessment, whether or not enabling certain aspects of strong customer authentication makes sense for them.
A good example of where SCA requirements tend to hinder business activity is the requirement for company employees to re-authenticate after a few minutes of inactivity. Unlike consumers, they spend a large part of their day managing payments, sending invoices and monitoring business metrics. It also regularly happens that employees or board members present key business figures or processes live to customers or investors using the payment software.
In both scenarios, company employees often have to authenticate themselves several times – without any recognizable security advantage. This is because both activities take place in well-protected environments with additional security requirements that remain secure even if the activity is briefly interrupted. The risk of fraud is lower than in comparable scenarios for consumers.
Against this backdrop, the requirements for strong customer authentication under PSD3 should be differentiated and revised. Above all, there is a need for proportionality in relation to the size of the paying company and the different risks of fraud that arise from the mere administration of business activities compared to the initiation of a payment.
In the negotiations on PSD3, the European Parliament is calling for a mandate for the European Banking Authority (EBA) to develop targeted accompanying technical regulatory standards for SCA for corporate customers. Germany and other member states should join the demands in their coordinated position and thus contribute to more security, innovation and growth for Europe’s 27 million companies.
Julia Kowalski is Payments Policy Expert for the EMEA region and Head of Public Policy Germany at the US payment service provider Stripe. Among other things, she is responsible for Stripe’s work on European legislative projects in the payments and finance sector.
The easing of the burden on European farmers continues. At today’s Agriculture Council in Brussels, the EU agriculture ministers are expected to vote in favor of the European Commission’s proposals to relax environmental requirements in the Common Agricultural Policy until 2027 without any changes. Informally, the majority of ambassadors have already spoken out in favor of the CAP loosening. By foregoing amendments, the Belgian Council Presidency wants to save time and enable the dossier to be adopted before the European elections.
However, Germany is likely to abstain from the vote. The German government has not yet finalized its position, but will “not stand in the way of the accelerated procedure for dealing with the CAP legislative package”, according to a spokesperson for the Federal Ministry of Agriculture. According to this, the traffic light will only come to a final agreement once the parliamentary vote has been cast. By then, however, it will probably be too late to effectively lobby for any changes.
Also at the Agriculture Council today: Ukrainian Agriculture Minister Mykola Solskyi. This is particularly piquant because the trilogue agreement on free trade with Ukraine still has to be confirmed by member states. The EU ambassadors were actually supposed to vote on it on Monday. However, the vote was postponed until Wednesday. There is also likely to be an increased need for discussion among the agriculture ministers.
Mr. Güllner, artificial intelligence has been used to influence people for some time now. What role will artificial intelligence play in the 2024 European elections?
Actors use AI as a means of manipulating information or disinformation. This is nothing new. Automated bots are also increasingly working with large language models, LLMs. We should take this danger very, very seriously. We can assume that the further development of technology will lead to these tools becoming faster, cheaper and probably also much easier to use.
… and thus also bring new problems.
We are observing that it is not only highly specialized and tech-savvy structures that are using these techniques. They are being used much more widely. We expect the quantity and speed of disinformation and information manipulation to increase. The big question is whether the quality will also change.
What does quality mean in this context?
Firstly, the technical approach. The error rate will probably decrease. On the other hand, the question is whether we will see a paradigm shift, i.e. completely new instruments such as deepfakes. We currently have a few small indications of this. But I emphasize the word “currently”. We are not yet seeing this leap in quality in application. But that doesn’t mean that the risk doesn’t exist.
Which actors pose the risks?
This question is always very difficult because you have to work with attribution in order to clearly identify an actor. This is particularly true when it comes to state actors. We know that Russia, for example, works according to the principle of the ecosystem: The majority of activities are carried out by networks, structures or actors that we cannot directly attribute to the state actor at all. As the application becomes simpler, this tendency will continue to increase. In the past, we were actually able to identify structures of the Russian security apparatus, for example secret services, which were involved in operations.
Will this be more difficult to recognize in the future?
That is my assumption. We are seeing a commercialization here. More and more paid actors are doing the work, the “dirty work”. In the future, we need to look at the links between these different players in terms of financial dependencies.
When we talk about disinformation and manipulation, it’s usually about Russia. Shouldn’t we be more worried about China, especially when it comes to the use of AI?
We don’t just look at one player, we look at all the dangers. But we have to keep a close eye on the most active player. That is and remains Russia. However, we are also concerned about the increasing activities of Chinese actors. We are seeing an overlap in geopolitical narratives. Take the example of the biological weapons laboratories allegedly found in Ukraine. There is still no evidence for this, but there are many claims, many of which come from Chinese actors. However, I warn against comparing apples with oranges, the tactics are different.
If even players with less expertise use more and more AI, will the quantity alone make a big difference, or are only highly professional attacks really dangerous?
The more actors we have who look authentic, the more difficult it will be to detect them, of course. And the more the line becomes blurred between domestic, legitimate actors and external actors who use these means as a state instrument for tactical or strategic goals, the more difficult our work will become.
Can you give an example?
Take the farmers’ protests, an issue of social relevance. The concerns can be perceived as right or wrong, but it is an important political issue. There are two types of disinformation actors: domestic political actors who use the dispute to exaggerate, to make themselves heard, perhaps even using inauthentic means. The discussion we need to have: How legitimate or illegitimate is this? And there are external actors who try to exploit such social discussions opportunistically. It is easier to identify illegitimacy here.
Political parties also use AI in election campaigns. Would you recommend that parties stay away from AI in general because there is this dangerous gray area?
We need a debate on the legitimacy of the means that make it possible to manipulate the information space. There are commercial services with which you can, for example, increase your reach incredibly, like a megaphone. According to today’s rules, this is not explicitly illegal. From a moral point of view, however, it remains questionable. If we want to protect freedom of expression and public discourse, we have to make sure that the voices are authentic.
What is the problem?
If you amplify voices hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of times with inauthentic means, you take up much more space than in a genuine debate. This applies to all players. In 2012, we were still looking at Barack Obama’s campaign with great admiration: what an interesting campaign with micro-targeting and amplification techniques! Now we can see how quickly this can become a problem. Therefore, we need a debate on whether it is okay to buy huge amplification of votes for money via bots, trolls and other means.
Have you observed that attackers who want to disrupt the election campaign are already making preparations or are already active?
We are preparing ourselves for the fact that we will have to fend off attempts at disruption and manipulation. However, this does not mean that we will definitely see a huge wave of disinformation. We have to be careful not to fall into the attackers’ trap. They are stirring up fears about the security of the process. In doing so, they have already achieved their goal of delegitimizing the entire process. If people think, “oh, there will be so much manipulation, the elections can’t be trusted anyway”, they won’t vote at all. That’s why it’s important for me to say: the elections are safe, the elections are legitimate, but there is a risk. Our task is to assess this risk and react accordingly.
What defenses do you have?
The first is situational awareness. We have the tools in place to detect and uncover attacks quickly. The second is to strengthen not only our own ability to respond, in terms of communication, but also in the way we work with platforms and regulatory authorities. We now have the Digital Services Act (DSA) for this. It gives us new tools to demand transparency and accountability from platforms in specific cases. The third pillar is the strengthening of civil society structures, such as fact-checking initiatives.
The DSA is still fresh. The Commission has announced guidelines on how the platforms should deal with the systemic risks of disinformation and election manipulation. What do you expect from the DSA?
I expect a lot from the DSA, but I can’t expect more from the instrument than what it was created for. The exchange with the platforms is important. We will see a gradual increase in incidents. All stakeholders – platforms, civil society and government agencies – need to work closely together to understand the phenomenon: Who is doing what, why, by what means? And then draw the consequences.
One relief measure for farmers after another has recently come from the European Commission. They all had one thing in common: the concessions were presented by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. This is unusual, as specialist topics such as changes to the Common Agricultural Policy are normally the responsibility of the Commissioner in charge.
But Agriculture Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski is increasingly being sidelined. One reason: In view of farmers’ protests in many European countries and a European election campaign in which von der Leyen is once again running for the Commission leadership, the CDU politician has made agriculture a top priority. There is hardly any room left for Wojciechowski to make her mark.
Von der Leyen and Wojciechowski have become rivals when it comes to who takes the credit for easing the burden – a competition that the more powerful and tactically clever von der Leyen usually wins. “The measures were presented on my initiative – I am the Commissioner for Agriculture”, Wojciechowski assured MEPs last week with regard to the proposed CAP easing. However, the easing measures were actually announced by the Commission President, while none of Wojciechowski’s original ideas made it into the draft.
This internal competition had also led to curious scenes when the proposals were presented a few days earlier: Instead of presenting the proposals in Brussels as the responsible Commissioner, Wojciechowski was in Poland on the day of publication and had scheduled his own press conference there in the afternoon. However, he was ultimately unable to present anything: contrary to the plan, the Commission did not publish the proposals in the morning, but only in the evening.
It is likely that final changes to the draft were responsible for the delay. Nevertheless, the postponement played into von der Leyen’s hands. After all, it was she who was able to announce the measures to reduce bureaucracy following a phone call with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
The fact that the head of the Commission spoke to the Polish prime minister of all people is also highly symbolic. Since Tusk and his alliance of former opposition parties have formed the government in Poland, PiS man Wojciechowski no longer has the backing of his home country.
Von der Leyen therefore no longer has any incentive to get on good terms with Wojciechowski. The Commissioners are appointed by the respective national government. After the European elections, Wojciechowski therefore has no chance of becoming Commissioner again. Even more important for von der Leyen: in order to secure Poland’s support for a second term in office, she no longer has to keep the right-wing conservative PiS – and therefore Wojciechowski – happy, but her party colleague Tusk.
Since then, von der Leyen has no longer had to tolerate Wojciechowski’s repeated and blatant departure from the Commission’s line in order to represent the interests of Polish farmers. At the end of February, the Agriculture Commissioner had to publicly back down – apparently under pressure from the Commission.
In a letter to the Chairman of the EU Committee on Agriculture, Norbert Lins, which is available to Table.Briefings, Wojciechowski repeated the protest slogan “Stop imports – No Green Deal“, among other things. This did not reflect his own opinion. He had merely quoted a demand of the farmers’ protests and “lacked the necessary care” in his choice of words, he later admitted in a public statement.
The episode also shows how clumsy Wojciechowski often seems in his political actions. The more vehemently he tries to push through the interests of his Polish party and its rural electorate, the more he seems to be sidelining himself in Brussels. This is because, in his role as EU Commissioner, who is supposed to have the interests of the entire Union in mind, he is being taken less and less seriously.
Paradoxically, Wojciechowski has also lost the trust of his own camp. Not only voices from the new Tusk government, but also his own party leader, PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński, demanded Wojciechowski’s resignation as Commissioner in February after Polish farmers once again took to the barricades against EU free trade with Ukraine.
The Commissioner for Agriculture has not only managed to lose support in Brussels because he is all too obviously pursuing his own agenda, but also in Poland because he does not have the necessary influence at EU level to do so effectively.
The EU Parliament and the member states are currently discussing the final version of the PSD3 Payment Services Directive. The new rules for online commerce are intended to ensure greater harmonization of regulations in the EU, create a level playing field for payment service providers and improve fraud protection.
The design of PSD3 offers an opportunity to build on the success of its predecessor PSD2 and drive innovation in payment transactions. However, it should also make up for its shortcomings. The current regulation is strongly tailored to end consumers. However, to ensure that companies and businesses can also process their payment transactions more securely and smoothly, the regulations should be better tailored to them.
One of the most successful elements of PSD2 has been the introduction of Strong Customer Authentication (SCA), which has given millions of European consumers greater consumer protection through two-factor authentication. Not only has SCA increased trust in e-commerce and online payments, but the requirements have also helped create the single European market for payments, which has led to a veritable fintech boom. Growth that we in Europe, and Germany in particular, could do with.
However, the provisions on strong customer authentication are so broad that they also apply to business transactions. As a result, employees of European companies currently have to follow exactly the same security standards when making online payments as they do when banking online at home. Most companies already use trustworthy security solutions that promise better protection than SCA alone.
When people think of digital payment, online shopping usually comes to mind. However, the vast majority of all transactions are made between companies. The global B2B payment volume amounts to more than 120 trillion US dollars annually, six times higher than the sum of all consumer payments. Adapting the regulations is therefore more urgent than ever if we want to avoid huge friction losses for companies.
Even before the adoption of PSD2, companies in Europe regularly relied on tried and tested methods such as single sign-on solutions, hardware tokens or laptop certificates for authentication when logging into their payment software. Adding SCA is like forcing the European Space Agency (ESA) to fit road traffic-compliant rear-view mirrors to their rockets. Larger companies should have the flexibility to decide for themselves, based on their own risk assessment, whether or not enabling certain aspects of strong customer authentication makes sense for them.
A good example of where SCA requirements tend to hinder business activity is the requirement for company employees to re-authenticate after a few minutes of inactivity. Unlike consumers, they spend a large part of their day managing payments, sending invoices and monitoring business metrics. It also regularly happens that employees or board members present key business figures or processes live to customers or investors using the payment software.
In both scenarios, company employees often have to authenticate themselves several times – without any recognizable security advantage. This is because both activities take place in well-protected environments with additional security requirements that remain secure even if the activity is briefly interrupted. The risk of fraud is lower than in comparable scenarios for consumers.
Against this backdrop, the requirements for strong customer authentication under PSD3 should be differentiated and revised. Above all, there is a need for proportionality in relation to the size of the paying company and the different risks of fraud that arise from the mere administration of business activities compared to the initiation of a payment.
In the negotiations on PSD3, the European Parliament is calling for a mandate for the European Banking Authority (EBA) to develop targeted accompanying technical regulatory standards for SCA for corporate customers. Germany and other member states should join the demands in their coordinated position and thus contribute to more security, innovation and growth for Europe’s 27 million companies.
Julia Kowalski is Payments Policy Expert for the EMEA region and Head of Public Policy Germany at the US payment service provider Stripe. Among other things, she is responsible for Stripe’s work on European legislative projects in the payments and finance sector.
