The first plenary session of the newly elected parliament starts tomorrow in Strasbourg. At the same time, the eurozone finance ministers will meet in Brussels for the Eurogroup meeting. One of the first items on their agenda is to decide on the work program until March.
The focus is once again on the Capital Markets Union. However, as the new Commission will not be formed until fall, the focus will be on measures that do not require Commission proposals, said an EU official. Instead, the aim is to see which measures the member states can implement unilaterally in order to simplify capital mobility within the EU.
Later in the afternoon, the Eurogroup meeting for all EU finance ministers will open. Enrico Letta is also expected in Brussels. He will speak about his internal market report and how European competitiveness should be financed. In addition to his appeal for more public investment and subsidies at the European level, he will promote the idea of the “savings and investment union” – as he calls the capital markets union hoping to market it better – but no concrete progress is expected.
Everyone is talking about the Capital Markets Union, and for the time being it will not go beyond this. Talks on the concrete legislative proposals are proceeding slowly. But now the political future of one of the biggest driving forces behind the idea is also uncertain. Depending on how the formation of a government in France progresses, the finance ministers’ meetings today and tomorrow could be Bruno Le Maire’s last after seven years in office. It remains to be seen whether his successor will have the same enthusiasm for the Capital Markets Union.
Get the week off to a good start!
Traders and producers of products such as coffee, cocoa, soy and wood still have just under six months to prepare. In order to sell these products on the EU market, they will have to ensure from 2025 that they do not originate from areas deforested after 2020.
The tight schedule for implementing the EU regulation for deforestation-free supply chains (EUDR) is a challenge for many. The law already came into force a year ago. However, companies and administrations have to set up teams, develop processes, find digital tools for application and solutions for the complex documentation – and the EU Commission has not yet published some of the key information on implementation, such as the country benchmarking and certain guidelines.
With the regulation, the EU wants to take action against global deforestation, caused for the most part by the expansion of agricultural land. The main import in this context is soy, which is grown on deforested rainforest areas in South America, for example, and is mainly used as animal feed in Europe. However, the consumption of palm oil, coffee and chocolate also contributes to deforestation. However, forests play an important role in biodiversity and climate change mitigation.
Many companies are affected by the law more than once – if they bring several of these products onto the market. For example, Tchibo and Melitta, which sell both coffee and coffee filters. The latter are usually made from wood-based pulp. Tchibo also sells furniture.
In future, producers will have to provide buyers in the EU with precise GPS data on their cultivation area via a digital interface, as well as a due diligence declaration. This must also prove that local laws have been complied with. If this data is missing, customs may not allow the delivery onto the EU market.
This can be very difficult in small-scale supply chains such as coffee, explains Pablo von Waldenfels, Director of Corporate Responsibility at Tchibo. Behind Tchibo’s purchasing volume is the production volume of 75,000 coffee farmers, usually small farmers. Larger farms, such as in Brazil, are operated on an industrial scale and already have experience in complying with certain requirements and documentation. “However, 70 to 80 percent of the farms are very small, perhaps the size of a soccer pitch, half the size of a soccer pitch, or even just the size of a garden,” explains von Waldenfels. “If they don’t manage to obtain the necessary documentation, they will be excluded from the European coffee market in the long term – not because they are cutting down trees, but simply because they can’t provide the data.”
The requirements also lead to multiple controls within the same company, criticizes Stefan Dierks, Head of Sustainability Strategy at the Melitta Group. The farmers’ data is checked before the delivery arrives, and each delivery is given an EU reference number in the “Traces” digital system. If different types of coffee are later blended, this process is repeated: the blend also needs its own reference number. If this is then sold by the subsidiary Melitta Professional, for example, this division has to check all the data again. “This is pure bureaucracy and neither expedient nor useful,” says Dierks.
Dierks coordinates a company-wide project team at Melitta for the application of the EUDR. This team works closely with the German Coffee Association, among others. On their behalf, a digital tool was developed for the coffee sector, with which the data can be recorded and checked with regard to the risk of deforestation. An interface to the EU “Traces” system, which generates the reference numbers, is also to be created. “Automated tools are needed here, it can’t be done with just human resources,” says Dierks.
He understands the calls for the implementation deadline to be postponed. “The time to prepare is too short in many parts of the supply chain, especially in some coffee-growing regions,” explains Dierks. “It would actually help to postpone the application by six months.”
In each member state, a national authority checks the application of the new rules. In Germany, this is the Federal Office for Agriculture and Food (BLE). Annerose Lichtenstein has headed the “Deforestation-free products, timber trade” group there since the beginning of June. The team, which currently consists of six people, is to be expanded to a total of 36 positions this year. The tenders and recruitment are currently underway. However, this is still far from enough. “There are different estimates of how many inspections we need to carry out – in any case, it will be a very high number,” she explains. “Even if we carry out these inspections with a high degree of automation, it is a lot of work and requires staff.”
According to a customs analysis, there are an estimated total of 150,000 German processors and retailers affected by the law, says Lichtenstein. The federal states will probably be responsible for domestic primary producers.
According to estimates, this will result in around 20 million reports on individual products per year in “Traces.” The team at the BLE has to select individual market participants from these. The authority is currently developing an automated process with which certain points are awarded depending on the risk of deforestation. The higher the score, the more likely an inspection is. Certain risk factors are taken into account: “Where producers are at least close to deforestation areas and where there are large areas of forest, the risk is naturally higher,” she explains. Her team then reviews the due diligence declaration and the risk assessment of the market participants and their measures to minimize the risk of deforestation in a three-stage process.
What is also still missing is a German law to regulate national application. The Federal Ministry of Agriculture (BMEL) is currently working on this. According to information from Table.Briefings, it will deal with the responsibilities of the federal and state governments, the powers of the control authorities and provisions on penalties and fines. It will also repeal the Timber Trade Security Act (Holzhandels-Sicherungs-Gesetz – HolzSiG). To date, this has implemented the EU Timber Trade Regulation, which will also be repealed with the EU Regulation on deforestation-free products.
According to the BMEL, the German law should come into force by December 30 – the date from which the EU regulation must be applied.
In this European election, there were no newcomers who made such a striking start as five years ago. In 2019, the Renaissance list around Emmanuel Macron’s party entered the European Parliament for the first time and won 21 seats. This year, there are new alliances that have been extremely successful. For example, that the GroenLinks/Partij van de Arbeid alliance with lead candidate Frans Timmermans won the European elections in the Netherlands. However, this is a merger of long-established parties.
“The new parties are spread across the political spectrum in Parliament,” says political scientist Manuel Müller. And even if some remain non-attached, such as the German BSW, numerous new parties have joined parliamentary groups. The most successful new party in the European Parliament, Tisza from Hungary, has joined the EPP with its seven MEPs. “It’s not the new parties that are causing unrest,” says Müller. Instead, it is mainly established parties on the far right that are disrupting post-election processes with the late formation of new political groups.
Who are the newcomers in Parliament? We introduce some of the parties and MPs.
Due to the overall high losses of the Greens – especially in the Green core countries of Germany and France – little attention was paid to the fact that Green parties celebrated smaller successes in some member states, also thanks to a few newcomers. In Latvia, Slovenia and Croatia, left-green parties that had previously not been represented in Parliament won one seat each.
The former mayor of Riga, Mārtiņš Staķis, is entering the European Parliament for the Latvian Progressives. The main motivation for his candidacy was to prevent Russian and anti-European influence from Latvia on the Parliament. The progressives’ priorities at the EU level include closer cooperation in the area of security and the fight against economic inequality.
Thanks to the growth from the eastern EU countries, the Green Group is now much more diverse and geographically broader, says political scientist Müller. “This gives them a foundation they can build on again.”
The center-left party Union of Democrats “For Lithuania” (DSVL), founded in 2022, is also newly represented in the European Parliament with one seat – but with a familiar face: Virginijus Sinkevičius, former Commissioner for the Environment. Sinkevičius previously belonged to the Lithuanian Farmers and Greens Union (LVŽS), which switched from the Greens/EFA to the right-wing ECR group after the election.
Alleanza Verdi e Sinistra (AVS) has won six seats in Italy. The alliance between the Greens and the left has existed since 2022. Among the elected MPs is Ilaria Salis, who was remanded in custody in Hungary. The Hungarian public prosecutor’s office accuses the teacher of being involved in an assault on right-wing extremists. She faces up to eleven years in prison.
As a member of Parliament, Salis enjoys immunity and was released from house arrest in Hungary after the election. However, the municipal court in Budapest has asked the European Parliament to lift her immunity. The Legal Affairs Committee is responsible for such proceedings. But even if the immunity is lifted, a Member of Parliament retains his seat.
The four Green members of the AVS have joined the Greens/EFA group, while Salis has joined the Left group together with Mimmo Lucano. The latter called the release of Salis a “victory for justice and a defeat for repressive far-right leaders like Viktor Orbán.” Salis, who describes herself as an anti-fascist, announced that as a member of Parliament, she would campaign for better conditions in prisons and deportation centers, among other things. Lucano, former mayor of the small town of Riace, is known beyond Italy for his ambitious refugee policy.
In these elections, far-right positions have become increasingly popular. It is therefore not surprising that some far-right parties have made it into Parliament for the first time.
In Romania, the nationalist and Eurosceptic Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) became the second strongest party and joined the ECR with its six MPs. The party advocates a union between Romania and the Republic of Moldova and emphasizes its core values: “family, homeland, country, faith and freedom.” Even further to the right is SOS România, which has two MEPs in the European Parliament. “Shouting and conspiracy theories characterize the party’s political style,” according to an analysis by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation.
In Poland, the radical right-wing and extremely Eurosceptic Konfederacja came third in the elections after Donald Tusk’s Citizens’ Coalition and PiS. Among the six elected MPs is Grzegorz Braun, who caused horror last year when he attacked a Hanukkah ceremony in the Polish Sejm with a fire extinguisher. Three members of the Konfederacja have joined the newly founded “Europe of Sovereign Nations” (ESN) group around the AfD.
“The party is over, politicians” reads the website of the far-right Spanish protest movement Se Acabó La Fiesta (SALF). Since 2019, they have been hunting down “corrupt people, paedophiles and criminals.” The man behind SALF is Luis Alvise Pérez, who is primarily known in Spain for his strong social media presence. Back in 2020, the magazine “eldiario.es” described Pérez as an “alt-right agitator” and “influencer of the extreme right.”
SALF won three seats in the elections and initially wanted to join the new ESN parliamentary group, but later backed out. The group was probably also elected by people for whom the right-wing populist Vox is too moderate.
The Independent Ireland party, which was founded in 2023 and won a seat in the European Parliament, is described by observers and political opponents as a right-wing and Eurosceptic party. However, its MEP, journalist Ciaran Mullooly, places himself in the political center and is neither “anti-green” nor a “climate change denier,” he told Irish broadcaster RTÉ. Mullooly spoke to the European Free Alliance, among others, about joining, but then did not join the Greens/EFA, instead opting for the European Democratic Party and thus Renew. He announced that he wants to focus on the issue of agriculture.
The situation in Gaza is at the top of his agenda. Before deciding whether to vote for another term of office for Ursula von der Leyen, he wants to know from the incumbent Commission President what she intends to do for the people in Gaza after her re-election, he said.
Mullooly is not the only Irish MEP to have joined Renew: Four MEPs from the liberal-conservative Fianna Fáil are members of the group, as is former Labour and now independent politician McNamara, who has also entered the European Parliament for the first time.
The Security and Defense Subcommittee (SEDE) may not be upgraded to a full committee until September. This is according to Renew circles. Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann is set to become chairwoman after the FDP politician prevailed internally against Nathalie Loiseau from France. The defense politician had made her claim early on in the event of an upgrade, but alternatively showed interest in one of the vice-presidential positions in the EU Parliament.
The SEDE upgrade has not been confirmed by other political groups. Discussions are still ongoing and the upgrade is part of a package that will also be discussed this Monday evening in Strasbourg. Tensions over the exact structure caused a delay, as other committees would have had to relinquish responsibilities according to Renew’s proposal. The Social Democrats are also calling for the human rights subcommittee (DROI) to be upgraded. The decision on SEDE in autumn is likely to depend mainly on whether Ursula von der Leyen will create the new portfolio of a Defense Commissioner following her re-election, as she announced. sti
The first plenary session of the newly elected parliament starts tomorrow in Strasbourg. At the same time, the eurozone finance ministers will meet in Brussels for the Eurogroup meeting. One of the first items on their agenda is to decide on the work program until March.
The focus is once again on the Capital Markets Union. However, as the new Commission will not be formed until fall, the focus will be on measures that do not require Commission proposals, said an EU official. Instead, the aim is to see which measures the member states can implement unilaterally in order to simplify capital mobility within the EU.
Later in the afternoon, the Eurogroup meeting for all EU finance ministers will open. Enrico Letta is also expected in Brussels. He will speak about his internal market report and how European competitiveness should be financed. In addition to his appeal for more public investment and subsidies at the European level, he will promote the idea of the “savings and investment union” – as he calls the capital markets union hoping to market it better – but no concrete progress is expected.
Everyone is talking about the Capital Markets Union, and for the time being it will not go beyond this. Talks on the concrete legislative proposals are proceeding slowly. But now the political future of one of the biggest driving forces behind the idea is also uncertain. Depending on how the formation of a government in France progresses, the finance ministers’ meetings today and tomorrow could be Bruno Le Maire’s last after seven years in office. It remains to be seen whether his successor will have the same enthusiasm for the Capital Markets Union.
Get the week off to a good start!
Traders and producers of products such as coffee, cocoa, soy and wood still have just under six months to prepare. In order to sell these products on the EU market, they will have to ensure from 2025 that they do not originate from areas deforested after 2020.
The tight schedule for implementing the EU regulation for deforestation-free supply chains (EUDR) is a challenge for many. The law already came into force a year ago. However, companies and administrations have to set up teams, develop processes, find digital tools for application and solutions for the complex documentation – and the EU Commission has not yet published some of the key information on implementation, such as the country benchmarking and certain guidelines.
With the regulation, the EU wants to take action against global deforestation, caused for the most part by the expansion of agricultural land. The main import in this context is soy, which is grown on deforested rainforest areas in South America, for example, and is mainly used as animal feed in Europe. However, the consumption of palm oil, coffee and chocolate also contributes to deforestation. However, forests play an important role in biodiversity and climate change mitigation.
Many companies are affected by the law more than once – if they bring several of these products onto the market. For example, Tchibo and Melitta, which sell both coffee and coffee filters. The latter are usually made from wood-based pulp. Tchibo also sells furniture.
In future, producers will have to provide buyers in the EU with precise GPS data on their cultivation area via a digital interface, as well as a due diligence declaration. This must also prove that local laws have been complied with. If this data is missing, customs may not allow the delivery onto the EU market.
This can be very difficult in small-scale supply chains such as coffee, explains Pablo von Waldenfels, Director of Corporate Responsibility at Tchibo. Behind Tchibo’s purchasing volume is the production volume of 75,000 coffee farmers, usually small farmers. Larger farms, such as in Brazil, are operated on an industrial scale and already have experience in complying with certain requirements and documentation. “However, 70 to 80 percent of the farms are very small, perhaps the size of a soccer pitch, half the size of a soccer pitch, or even just the size of a garden,” explains von Waldenfels. “If they don’t manage to obtain the necessary documentation, they will be excluded from the European coffee market in the long term – not because they are cutting down trees, but simply because they can’t provide the data.”
The requirements also lead to multiple controls within the same company, criticizes Stefan Dierks, Head of Sustainability Strategy at the Melitta Group. The farmers’ data is checked before the delivery arrives, and each delivery is given an EU reference number in the “Traces” digital system. If different types of coffee are later blended, this process is repeated: the blend also needs its own reference number. If this is then sold by the subsidiary Melitta Professional, for example, this division has to check all the data again. “This is pure bureaucracy and neither expedient nor useful,” says Dierks.
Dierks coordinates a company-wide project team at Melitta for the application of the EUDR. This team works closely with the German Coffee Association, among others. On their behalf, a digital tool was developed for the coffee sector, with which the data can be recorded and checked with regard to the risk of deforestation. An interface to the EU “Traces” system, which generates the reference numbers, is also to be created. “Automated tools are needed here, it can’t be done with just human resources,” says Dierks.
He understands the calls for the implementation deadline to be postponed. “The time to prepare is too short in many parts of the supply chain, especially in some coffee-growing regions,” explains Dierks. “It would actually help to postpone the application by six months.”
In each member state, a national authority checks the application of the new rules. In Germany, this is the Federal Office for Agriculture and Food (BLE). Annerose Lichtenstein has headed the “Deforestation-free products, timber trade” group there since the beginning of June. The team, which currently consists of six people, is to be expanded to a total of 36 positions this year. The tenders and recruitment are currently underway. However, this is still far from enough. “There are different estimates of how many inspections we need to carry out – in any case, it will be a very high number,” she explains. “Even if we carry out these inspections with a high degree of automation, it is a lot of work and requires staff.”
According to a customs analysis, there are an estimated total of 150,000 German processors and retailers affected by the law, says Lichtenstein. The federal states will probably be responsible for domestic primary producers.
According to estimates, this will result in around 20 million reports on individual products per year in “Traces.” The team at the BLE has to select individual market participants from these. The authority is currently developing an automated process with which certain points are awarded depending on the risk of deforestation. The higher the score, the more likely an inspection is. Certain risk factors are taken into account: “Where producers are at least close to deforestation areas and where there are large areas of forest, the risk is naturally higher,” she explains. Her team then reviews the due diligence declaration and the risk assessment of the market participants and their measures to minimize the risk of deforestation in a three-stage process.
What is also still missing is a German law to regulate national application. The Federal Ministry of Agriculture (BMEL) is currently working on this. According to information from Table.Briefings, it will deal with the responsibilities of the federal and state governments, the powers of the control authorities and provisions on penalties and fines. It will also repeal the Timber Trade Security Act (Holzhandels-Sicherungs-Gesetz – HolzSiG). To date, this has implemented the EU Timber Trade Regulation, which will also be repealed with the EU Regulation on deforestation-free products.
According to the BMEL, the German law should come into force by December 30 – the date from which the EU regulation must be applied.
In this European election, there were no newcomers who made such a striking start as five years ago. In 2019, the Renaissance list around Emmanuel Macron’s party entered the European Parliament for the first time and won 21 seats. This year, there are new alliances that have been extremely successful. For example, that the GroenLinks/Partij van de Arbeid alliance with lead candidate Frans Timmermans won the European elections in the Netherlands. However, this is a merger of long-established parties.
“The new parties are spread across the political spectrum in Parliament,” says political scientist Manuel Müller. And even if some remain non-attached, such as the German BSW, numerous new parties have joined parliamentary groups. The most successful new party in the European Parliament, Tisza from Hungary, has joined the EPP with its seven MEPs. “It’s not the new parties that are causing unrest,” says Müller. Instead, it is mainly established parties on the far right that are disrupting post-election processes with the late formation of new political groups.
Who are the newcomers in Parliament? We introduce some of the parties and MPs.
Due to the overall high losses of the Greens – especially in the Green core countries of Germany and France – little attention was paid to the fact that Green parties celebrated smaller successes in some member states, also thanks to a few newcomers. In Latvia, Slovenia and Croatia, left-green parties that had previously not been represented in Parliament won one seat each.
The former mayor of Riga, Mārtiņš Staķis, is entering the European Parliament for the Latvian Progressives. The main motivation for his candidacy was to prevent Russian and anti-European influence from Latvia on the Parliament. The progressives’ priorities at the EU level include closer cooperation in the area of security and the fight against economic inequality.
Thanks to the growth from the eastern EU countries, the Green Group is now much more diverse and geographically broader, says political scientist Müller. “This gives them a foundation they can build on again.”
The center-left party Union of Democrats “For Lithuania” (DSVL), founded in 2022, is also newly represented in the European Parliament with one seat – but with a familiar face: Virginijus Sinkevičius, former Commissioner for the Environment. Sinkevičius previously belonged to the Lithuanian Farmers and Greens Union (LVŽS), which switched from the Greens/EFA to the right-wing ECR group after the election.
Alleanza Verdi e Sinistra (AVS) has won six seats in Italy. The alliance between the Greens and the left has existed since 2022. Among the elected MPs is Ilaria Salis, who was remanded in custody in Hungary. The Hungarian public prosecutor’s office accuses the teacher of being involved in an assault on right-wing extremists. She faces up to eleven years in prison.
As a member of Parliament, Salis enjoys immunity and was released from house arrest in Hungary after the election. However, the municipal court in Budapest has asked the European Parliament to lift her immunity. The Legal Affairs Committee is responsible for such proceedings. But even if the immunity is lifted, a Member of Parliament retains his seat.
The four Green members of the AVS have joined the Greens/EFA group, while Salis has joined the Left group together with Mimmo Lucano. The latter called the release of Salis a “victory for justice and a defeat for repressive far-right leaders like Viktor Orbán.” Salis, who describes herself as an anti-fascist, announced that as a member of Parliament, she would campaign for better conditions in prisons and deportation centers, among other things. Lucano, former mayor of the small town of Riace, is known beyond Italy for his ambitious refugee policy.
In these elections, far-right positions have become increasingly popular. It is therefore not surprising that some far-right parties have made it into Parliament for the first time.
In Romania, the nationalist and Eurosceptic Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) became the second strongest party and joined the ECR with its six MPs. The party advocates a union between Romania and the Republic of Moldova and emphasizes its core values: “family, homeland, country, faith and freedom.” Even further to the right is SOS România, which has two MEPs in the European Parliament. “Shouting and conspiracy theories characterize the party’s political style,” according to an analysis by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation.
In Poland, the radical right-wing and extremely Eurosceptic Konfederacja came third in the elections after Donald Tusk’s Citizens’ Coalition and PiS. Among the six elected MPs is Grzegorz Braun, who caused horror last year when he attacked a Hanukkah ceremony in the Polish Sejm with a fire extinguisher. Three members of the Konfederacja have joined the newly founded “Europe of Sovereign Nations” (ESN) group around the AfD.
“The party is over, politicians” reads the website of the far-right Spanish protest movement Se Acabó La Fiesta (SALF). Since 2019, they have been hunting down “corrupt people, paedophiles and criminals.” The man behind SALF is Luis Alvise Pérez, who is primarily known in Spain for his strong social media presence. Back in 2020, the magazine “eldiario.es” described Pérez as an “alt-right agitator” and “influencer of the extreme right.”
SALF won three seats in the elections and initially wanted to join the new ESN parliamentary group, but later backed out. The group was probably also elected by people for whom the right-wing populist Vox is too moderate.
The Independent Ireland party, which was founded in 2023 and won a seat in the European Parliament, is described by observers and political opponents as a right-wing and Eurosceptic party. However, its MEP, journalist Ciaran Mullooly, places himself in the political center and is neither “anti-green” nor a “climate change denier,” he told Irish broadcaster RTÉ. Mullooly spoke to the European Free Alliance, among others, about joining, but then did not join the Greens/EFA, instead opting for the European Democratic Party and thus Renew. He announced that he wants to focus on the issue of agriculture.
The situation in Gaza is at the top of his agenda. Before deciding whether to vote for another term of office for Ursula von der Leyen, he wants to know from the incumbent Commission President what she intends to do for the people in Gaza after her re-election, he said.
Mullooly is not the only Irish MEP to have joined Renew: Four MEPs from the liberal-conservative Fianna Fáil are members of the group, as is former Labour and now independent politician McNamara, who has also entered the European Parliament for the first time.
The Security and Defense Subcommittee (SEDE) may not be upgraded to a full committee until September. This is according to Renew circles. Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann is set to become chairwoman after the FDP politician prevailed internally against Nathalie Loiseau from France. The defense politician had made her claim early on in the event of an upgrade, but alternatively showed interest in one of the vice-presidential positions in the EU Parliament.
The SEDE upgrade has not been confirmed by other political groups. Discussions are still ongoing and the upgrade is part of a package that will also be discussed this Monday evening in Strasbourg. Tensions over the exact structure caused a delay, as other committees would have had to relinquish responsibilities according to Renew’s proposal. The Social Democrats are also calling for the human rights subcommittee (DROI) to be upgraded. The decision on SEDE in autumn is likely to depend mainly on whether Ursula von der Leyen will create the new portfolio of a Defense Commissioner following her re-election, as she announced. sti
