Ola Källenius (Mercedes), Oliver Blume (Volkswagen), Oliver Zipse (BMW), and Karin Rådström (Daimler Truck) are having a new experience today. At the opening session of the Strategic Auto Dialogue from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the Berlaymont building of the EU Commission, they will have to take notes themselves. It is a round of “CEOs only”. Sherpas are not admitted, and the heads of the industry associations ACEA (manufacturers) and Clepa (suppliers) are also excluded.
Even the participants have only known for a few days who will be sitting at the table when Ursula von der Leyen opens the “Tour de table” after a family photo and five minutes of introductory words: In addition to the heads of the manufacturers and Tier 1 suppliers, there will be consumer advocates (BEUC), trade unions (ETF), representatives of the charging infrastructure and the NGO T&E. A total of 22 participants will be able to present their positions. 165 minutes are reserved for this. Getting to the point quickly is the order of the day, with everyone having an average of 450 seconds to make their contribution before von der Leyen gives her farewell speech in ten minutes and outlines the next steps.
Manufacturers and suppliers are likely to try to avoid mixed messages so that they cannot be played off against each other. Their aim is to bring about a change of heart from the Commission President: no penalties for 2025, technology openness, i.e. a window for e-fuels, and a relaxation of the CO2 fleet legislation. To get through with this, massive support from the member states will probably still be needed.
Have a good day!
For the first time, the EU Commission has put a concrete figure on how much it wants to reduce bureaucracy for companies: the aim is to reduce annual compliance costs by EUR 37.5 billion within five years, according to a draft communication on reducing bureaucracy, which is available to Table.Briefings. The document is to be presented at the end of February together with initial concrete proposals to reduce the burden on companies and is part of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s new competitiveness agenda.
The CDU politician has issued the maxim of reducing reporting obligations by 25 percent for all companies and reducing the burden on small and medium-sized companies by 35 percent. However, the starting point has so far remained unclear. Now the Commission is referring to an estimate by Eurostat, which puts the annual compliance costs of EU bureaucracy at EUR 150 billion. 25 percent of this corresponds to the EUR 37.5 billion by which von der Leyen will have to be measured in the future. As the bureaucratic burdens are defined more comprehensively than the pure reporting obligations that von der Leyen has used as a benchmark to date, the already ambitious target is even higher.
According to the authority’s own calculations, the Commission’s proposals submitted in spring 2023 already promise to reduce the burden by five billion euros per year. At that time, von der Leyen had formulated the 25 percent target for the first time. The Commission had decided on simplifications for farmers, such as fewer inspections for small farms.
CSU MEP Markus Ferber praised the fact that “the Commission is finally getting serious about cutting red tape“. However, the question must be allowed as to what had gone wrong in recent years that unnecessary bureaucratic costs of such dimensions could arise in the first place. Something must therefore change structurally.
The Commission itself says in its communication that the EU needs a “cultural change“. The entire body of EU law should be screened in order to identify and facilitate the cumulative impact of directives and regulations on companies. Following the example of the practical checks in Germany, the authority wants to work together with practitioners from companies to look for concrete simplifications, for example in approval procedures.
Before proposing new laws, the Commission wants to subject them to an SME and competitiveness check. Among other things, it wants to take into account how the plans will affect the price competition situation of the companies concerned and their ability to innovate. The Commission wants to monitor the implementation of adopted laws more closely than before, through “implementation roadmaps” for the member states and regular implementation dialogs with stakeholders. In the event of breaches of the adopted rules, the authority intends to take “resolute” action.
The EU Commission is currently working on proposals to facilitate the implementation of the Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), the CSDDD, and the taxonomy for affected companies. According to Economic Affairs Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis, other laws could also be included in the so-called omnibus law, which is scheduled for Feb. 26.
Von der Leyen’s ambitious plans to cut red tape are already meeting with resistance in the Commission and the European Parliament. The chairman of the SPD MEPs, René Repasi, is insisting that the EU Supply Chain Directive (CSDDD) be excluded from the planned omnibus legislation. “I am totally in favor of creating clarity when it comes to reporting obligations, but not giving in when it comes to obligations to act,” he told Table.Briefings. The CSDDD defines due diligence obligations for companies and not reporting obligations. If this “would be left out of the omnibus, then I am ready to talk“.
The Supply Chain Directive was already highly controversial in the last legislature and is now once again the focus of political debate. Liberal Commission Vice-President Stéphane Séjourné demanded in Handelsblatt: “Either we simplify the directive considerably or we scrap it altogether.” The French government had previously spoken out in favor of postponing the entry into force of the CSDDD indefinitely.
However, there is growing concern among social democrats, the Greens, the left, and some liberals that the Christian democrats are working hand in hand with business associations to tighten unwelcome rules under the guise of reducing bureaucracy. This is why the omnibus is becoming a “symbol of the battle between proper regulation and deregulation”, said Repasi.
The left-wing forces in the European Parliament are therefore particularly opposed to reopening the Supply Chain Directive adopted last year. They fear that the EPP, in alliance with the liberals and the far-right groups, will then try to gut the project. For this reason, according to Repasi, Socialist Commission Vice-President Teresa Ribera also rejects the idea of opening up the laws passed as part of the Omnibus Directive.
Fears of a close alliance between the EPP and political groups on the right-wing spectrum have been fueled by a letter that the leader of the Patriots group, Jordan Bardella, has now written to the EPP, ECR, and ESN groups. He offers them a “coalition to suspend the Green Deal”.
Repasi also warns the Commission against a rush job: “If the Commission knits something together with a hot needle within a few weeks, (…) then it is very unlikely that anything good will come of it,” said the lawyer. He could imagine a protracted procedure in which the entry into force of the affected laws is postponed by two years. The Commission could then take its time to present fully developed proposals.
The EPP leadership had previously called for the CSRD, CSDDD, and taxonomy to be suspended for at least two years and for proposals for simplification to be drawn up during this time.
On Wednesday, the EU Commission presented its Competitiveness Compass, which sets out its economic policy strategy. The Compass, the contents of which were presented to Table.Briefings on Monday, focuses on reducing bureaucracy. However, it shies away from difficult decisions that would give direction to European industrial policy.
Many politicians and associations are welcoming the plans. Business associations are pleased about the focus on competitiveness and cutting red tape, as is the EPP. “The direction is right,” says MEP Daniel Caspary (CDU). He hopes that the reorientation will create a “new economic dynamic”.
Neil Makaroff, Director of the Strategic Perspectives think tank, is pleased with the positive signal. “Decarbonization is still a key priority for the EU,” he told Table.Briefings after the publication of the compass. In comparison to developments in the USA, the EU has not made deregulation a priority.
Green MEP Anna Cavazzini is less enthusiastic. “You expect a compass to point the way,” she said. The Commission had repackaged the Draghi report, “but without the bold Europeanization push and the investment offensive that Draghi had rightly called for”, explained the Chair of the Internal Market Committee in the EU Parliament.
Makaroff also criticized: “What is missing from the Compass are short-term answers and investments.” For example, a Commission proposal to reform procurement rules, which according to the Compass is intended to introduce a “European preference in strategically important sectors”, is not planned until 2026. It will be several years before the proposal is dealt with by the Council and Parliament and ultimately transposed into national law.
The savings and investment union that the Commission intends to propose will also take several years before it can have an impact on real investment. The Commission intends to propose a competitiveness fund for the new Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF). However, the new MFF will only apply from 2028. By then, the state of European industry will be even more critical, Makaroff assumed.
The industrial policy part of the compass is not yet well formulated. VDMA Managing Director Thilo Brodtmann stated that the compass tends to treat symptoms and threatens to “get bogged down in a multitude of individual measures and industry aids“.
While the Draghi report provided a methodology for differentiating between economic sectors, the compass that has now been presented does not specify which sectors the EU should support and how. “The Commission lists a bouquet of possibilities without making it clear what it specifically wants to do,” said Nils Redeker, Deputy Director of the Jacques Delors Centre.
The EU actually has all the instruments it needs to shape industrial policy. “The question is whether it wants to use these instruments strategically for its industrial policy. And this question is not answered in the Compass,” says Redeker. If the EU wanted a serious industrial policy, it would have to decide where it wanted to apply itself and where not.
In the Compass, the Commission announces a coordination instrument to help coordinate the industrial policies of the member states. However, experts who spoke to Table.Briefings compared the instrument to the less effective European Semester, which is supposed to coordinate the economic policies of the member states.
“The EU should not introduce new, vague coordination instruments, this puts the process ahead of real decisions,” said Sander Tordoir, Chief Economist at the Centre for European Reform. Instead, the EU must agree on which sectors it wants to save and then use the many instruments it has in a targeted manner.
A senior EU official defended the coordination instrument on Wednesday. The Competitiveness Fund, which is planned in the next MFF, would also give the Commission a certain amount of leverage over the member states. This would simplify more effective coordination, the official said.
The Commission will have its next opportunity to hammer in industrial policy stakes in just one month. On Feb. 26, it will present the Clean Industrial Deal.
The nationalist surprise winner of the first round of the Romanian presidential election, Călin Georgescu, has been rejected by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) with his application for an injunction against the annulment of the Romanian presidential election. However, he scored points with another European institution. In an urgent report, the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe set out conditions “on the basis of which a constitutional court can declare elections invalid”. According to this, the annulment of elections is “only permissible in exceptional circumstances (in accordance with the ultima ratio principle)”.
The pro-Russian right-wing extremist Georgescu surprisingly won the election on Nov. 24. The Romanian Constitutional Court ordered a re-run of the election because the entire election process had been irregular. Among other things, it argued that voters had been manipulated in the election by unlawfully giving preferential treatment to one candidate on social media. Georgescu, who was relatively unknown in the run-up to the election, had mainly campaigned for himself on TikTok. The Romanian government complained that the online platform had failed to label Georgescu as a politician and his posts as election advertising. The right-wing politician had filed a lawsuit against the government’s annulment and re-run of the election.
As the Venice Commission has now explained, the proof of legal violations by online campaigns and social media “must not be based exclusively on classified information (which can only be used as contextual information)“, as this “would not ensure the necessary transparency”.
The Venice Commission expressly emphasizes that it has no right to evaluate the decisions of national constitutional courts. However, this passage in particular can be seen as a criticism of the Romanian Constitutional Court’s annulment of the election, as this was essentially based on intelligence information.
It is still uncertain whether Călin Georgescu will be able to take part in the repeat presidential election scheduled for May 2025. It cannot be ruled out that he will be denied participation, just as a candidate from the nationalist SOS Romania party was previously denied. In this case, Georgescu has announced his intention to seek the office of Prime Minister for a coalition of nationalist parties. Talks to this effect are already underway, he explained.
Two surveys conducted in December 2024 and January 2025 by the opinion research institutes Avantgarde and INSCORP Research reveal a complex, sometimes seemingly paradoxical picture of political sentiment in the Carpathian country. According to Avantgarde, 49% of Romanians consider the annulment of the presidential election to be wrong, while a minority of 42% consider it to be right. At the same time, INSCORP data shows that a majority of 54% believe the election was manipulated by foreign countries (i.e. Russia).
However, both surveys show that the controversial sovereigntist Georgescu is considered the strongest political personality in Romania today. 38 percent of respondents mentioned his name when asked by INSCORP who they would vote for in the presidential elections. A quarter named Crin Antonescu, the candidate of the ruling coalition of the post-communist Social Democrats of the PDS and the National Liberals of the PNL. Only six percent named Elena Lasconi, the candidate of the Union for the Salvation of Romania (URS), who was expected to face Georgescu in the run-off at the beginning of December 2024.
According to the Sunday poll conducted by Avantgarde, the nationalist Alliance for the Unification of Romanians (AUR) would become the strongest political force in the Romanian Chamber of Deputies for the first time in parliamentary elections with 29% of the vote. This is ahead of the social democratic PSD with 22%, the liberal parties PNL and URS with 13% each and the nationalist formations SOS Romania with 8%, and the Party of Young People (POT) with 5%. The Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR) would miss out on a place in parliament with four percent.
In a peculiar contrast to the nationalist tendencies in Romania, INSCORP has identified growing trust in the EU and NATO. According to the study, the majority of Romanians are more supportive of both organizations than ever before. Almost three-quarters of them see advantages in EU membership for the economic and social life of their families. In 2022, the figure was just over half. The vast majority also reject their country’s withdrawal from NATO. At the same time, around 57% of respondents expressed the view that their country should defend its national interests, even if this leads to conflicts with the EU and NATO.
However, according to the survey results, more than half of the population distrusts the national media and feels misinformed and disinformed by them. Many citizens have lost confidence in their political elite due to the economic and social problems in the country and doubt their integrity and professionalism. This is probably the main reason why, according to Avantgarde, 51% of them put their trust in the nationalist Georgescu, although according to INSCORP they have a predominantly positive attitude towards the EU and NATO.
If you’ve been following the political headlines in recent weeks – from Trump’s inauguration to the cracking of the “firewall” in Germany – far-right parties seem to be on the rise everywhere. However, if you look at the European election polls, their record has been mixed at best. At the beginning of December, the “Patriots for Europe” (PfE), the largest far-right group in the European Parliament, reached a new record high in the European election seat projection. Now, however, the PfE is falling back significantly, which is only partially offset by gains made by the other right-wing groups. The biggest winner at the start of the year, however, is the Left, and the Greens are also in a better position than two months ago.
The three parliamentary groups of the grand coalition “platform”, on the other hand, are all experiencing slight losses. In the case of the European People’s Party (EPP), this is due in particular to Germany, where the CDU/CSU, although clearly leading in the Bundestag election campaign, has been gradually losing support for several weeks. (Most of the polls included in the seat projection were conducted before Friedrich Merz’s latest asylum policy initiative).
With regard to Austria, the ÖVP also lost a lot of support following the announcement of coalition talks with the FPÖ (PfE). By contrast, the Hungarian Tisza party has made significant gains and is well ahead of Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz (PfE) in individual polls. All in all, the EPP still has 185 seats in the base scenario of the projection (-1).
The situation for European social democrats is similarly mixed. They have made slight gains, particularly in Germany. In several other countries (such as Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, and Lithuania), their slow decline continues. With a total of 130 seats (-1), the S&D Group achieves its worst result since fall 2022 in the projection.
The polls for the liberal Renew group are themselves ambivalent. Slight gains in some states are offset by losses in others. Something else is reflected more strongly in the seat projection than these fluctuations: following the split of the Bulgarian Renew member party DPS last summer, the parliamentary group excluded the larger of the two successor parties, DPS-NN, led by media magnate Deljan Peevski, who is suspected of corruption. The parliamentary group thus fell back to 81 seats (-2).
In the Left Group, five member parties are making gains again after a long dry spell – from Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, and Greece. The gains are small in each case and it remains to be seen whether they will stabilize in the coming weeks. For now, however, the left-wing group’s seat projection is at its best level since spring 2023 (48 seats/+5). The Greens have also seen a slight increase and now have 43 seats (+2). In both Germany and Austria, they are benefiting from the end of the coalitions with the FDP (Renew) and ÖVP (EPP), which were unpopular with their voters.
On the right side of parliament, the EKR parliamentary group gained more seats (77 seats/+4), partly due to the inclusion of the previously non-attached right-wing populist party SALF from Spain. The small far-right parliamentary group ESN has also seen an increase since December, mainly thanks to the rise of the German AfD in the Bundestag election campaign (29 seats/+2).
The biggest loser in recent weeks, however, is the PfE group (93 seats/-7). The Dutch PVV in particular, but also the Hungarian Fidesz and the Czech ANO, have recently fallen in voter favor. In addition, the alliance between the two PfE parties Přísaha and Motoristé has broken down in the Czech Republic, and each would be too weak on its own to win seats in the European Parliament again.
Among the non-attached parties (24 seats/±0), the German BSW and the Slovakian Hlas fell slightly, while the Czech Stačilo gained – all three represent left-wing conservative Eurosceptic positions. The “other” parties, which are not represented in the European Parliament and cannot be clearly assigned to a political group, have 10 seats (-2).
As there are no pan-European election polls, the seat projection is based on aggregated national polls and election results from all member states. In the baseline scenario presented here, all national parties are assigned to their current parliamentary group (or the parliamentary group of their European umbrella party); parties without a clear assignment are shown as “others”.
The dynamic scenario assigns all “other” parties to a parliamentary group that they could plausibly join and also takes into account possible future changes in parliamentary groups of parties already represented in parliament. A more detailed breakdown of the projection as well as information on the data basis and methodology can be found on the blog “The (European) Federalist“.
Ola Källenius (Mercedes), Oliver Blume (Volkswagen), Oliver Zipse (BMW), and Karin Rådström (Daimler Truck) are having a new experience today. At the opening session of the Strategic Auto Dialogue from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the Berlaymont building of the EU Commission, they will have to take notes themselves. It is a round of “CEOs only”. Sherpas are not admitted, and the heads of the industry associations ACEA (manufacturers) and Clepa (suppliers) are also excluded.
Even the participants have only known for a few days who will be sitting at the table when Ursula von der Leyen opens the “Tour de table” after a family photo and five minutes of introductory words: In addition to the heads of the manufacturers and Tier 1 suppliers, there will be consumer advocates (BEUC), trade unions (ETF), representatives of the charging infrastructure and the NGO T&E. A total of 22 participants will be able to present their positions. 165 minutes are reserved for this. Getting to the point quickly is the order of the day, with everyone having an average of 450 seconds to make their contribution before von der Leyen gives her farewell speech in ten minutes and outlines the next steps.
Manufacturers and suppliers are likely to try to avoid mixed messages so that they cannot be played off against each other. Their aim is to bring about a change of heart from the Commission President: no penalties for 2025, technology openness, i.e. a window for e-fuels, and a relaxation of the CO2 fleet legislation. To get through with this, massive support from the member states will probably still be needed.
Have a good day!
For the first time, the EU Commission has put a concrete figure on how much it wants to reduce bureaucracy for companies: the aim is to reduce annual compliance costs by EUR 37.5 billion within five years, according to a draft communication on reducing bureaucracy, which is available to Table.Briefings. The document is to be presented at the end of February together with initial concrete proposals to reduce the burden on companies and is part of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s new competitiveness agenda.
The CDU politician has issued the maxim of reducing reporting obligations by 25 percent for all companies and reducing the burden on small and medium-sized companies by 35 percent. However, the starting point has so far remained unclear. Now the Commission is referring to an estimate by Eurostat, which puts the annual compliance costs of EU bureaucracy at EUR 150 billion. 25 percent of this corresponds to the EUR 37.5 billion by which von der Leyen will have to be measured in the future. As the bureaucratic burdens are defined more comprehensively than the pure reporting obligations that von der Leyen has used as a benchmark to date, the already ambitious target is even higher.
According to the authority’s own calculations, the Commission’s proposals submitted in spring 2023 already promise to reduce the burden by five billion euros per year. At that time, von der Leyen had formulated the 25 percent target for the first time. The Commission had decided on simplifications for farmers, such as fewer inspections for small farms.
CSU MEP Markus Ferber praised the fact that “the Commission is finally getting serious about cutting red tape“. However, the question must be allowed as to what had gone wrong in recent years that unnecessary bureaucratic costs of such dimensions could arise in the first place. Something must therefore change structurally.
The Commission itself says in its communication that the EU needs a “cultural change“. The entire body of EU law should be screened in order to identify and facilitate the cumulative impact of directives and regulations on companies. Following the example of the practical checks in Germany, the authority wants to work together with practitioners from companies to look for concrete simplifications, for example in approval procedures.
Before proposing new laws, the Commission wants to subject them to an SME and competitiveness check. Among other things, it wants to take into account how the plans will affect the price competition situation of the companies concerned and their ability to innovate. The Commission wants to monitor the implementation of adopted laws more closely than before, through “implementation roadmaps” for the member states and regular implementation dialogs with stakeholders. In the event of breaches of the adopted rules, the authority intends to take “resolute” action.
The EU Commission is currently working on proposals to facilitate the implementation of the Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), the CSDDD, and the taxonomy for affected companies. According to Economic Affairs Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis, other laws could also be included in the so-called omnibus law, which is scheduled for Feb. 26.
Von der Leyen’s ambitious plans to cut red tape are already meeting with resistance in the Commission and the European Parliament. The chairman of the SPD MEPs, René Repasi, is insisting that the EU Supply Chain Directive (CSDDD) be excluded from the planned omnibus legislation. “I am totally in favor of creating clarity when it comes to reporting obligations, but not giving in when it comes to obligations to act,” he told Table.Briefings. The CSDDD defines due diligence obligations for companies and not reporting obligations. If this “would be left out of the omnibus, then I am ready to talk“.
The Supply Chain Directive was already highly controversial in the last legislature and is now once again the focus of political debate. Liberal Commission Vice-President Stéphane Séjourné demanded in Handelsblatt: “Either we simplify the directive considerably or we scrap it altogether.” The French government had previously spoken out in favor of postponing the entry into force of the CSDDD indefinitely.
However, there is growing concern among social democrats, the Greens, the left, and some liberals that the Christian democrats are working hand in hand with business associations to tighten unwelcome rules under the guise of reducing bureaucracy. This is why the omnibus is becoming a “symbol of the battle between proper regulation and deregulation”, said Repasi.
The left-wing forces in the European Parliament are therefore particularly opposed to reopening the Supply Chain Directive adopted last year. They fear that the EPP, in alliance with the liberals and the far-right groups, will then try to gut the project. For this reason, according to Repasi, Socialist Commission Vice-President Teresa Ribera also rejects the idea of opening up the laws passed as part of the Omnibus Directive.
Fears of a close alliance between the EPP and political groups on the right-wing spectrum have been fueled by a letter that the leader of the Patriots group, Jordan Bardella, has now written to the EPP, ECR, and ESN groups. He offers them a “coalition to suspend the Green Deal”.
Repasi also warns the Commission against a rush job: “If the Commission knits something together with a hot needle within a few weeks, (…) then it is very unlikely that anything good will come of it,” said the lawyer. He could imagine a protracted procedure in which the entry into force of the affected laws is postponed by two years. The Commission could then take its time to present fully developed proposals.
The EPP leadership had previously called for the CSRD, CSDDD, and taxonomy to be suspended for at least two years and for proposals for simplification to be drawn up during this time.
On Wednesday, the EU Commission presented its Competitiveness Compass, which sets out its economic policy strategy. The Compass, the contents of which were presented to Table.Briefings on Monday, focuses on reducing bureaucracy. However, it shies away from difficult decisions that would give direction to European industrial policy.
Many politicians and associations are welcoming the plans. Business associations are pleased about the focus on competitiveness and cutting red tape, as is the EPP. “The direction is right,” says MEP Daniel Caspary (CDU). He hopes that the reorientation will create a “new economic dynamic”.
Neil Makaroff, Director of the Strategic Perspectives think tank, is pleased with the positive signal. “Decarbonization is still a key priority for the EU,” he told Table.Briefings after the publication of the compass. In comparison to developments in the USA, the EU has not made deregulation a priority.
Green MEP Anna Cavazzini is less enthusiastic. “You expect a compass to point the way,” she said. The Commission had repackaged the Draghi report, “but without the bold Europeanization push and the investment offensive that Draghi had rightly called for”, explained the Chair of the Internal Market Committee in the EU Parliament.
Makaroff also criticized: “What is missing from the Compass are short-term answers and investments.” For example, a Commission proposal to reform procurement rules, which according to the Compass is intended to introduce a “European preference in strategically important sectors”, is not planned until 2026. It will be several years before the proposal is dealt with by the Council and Parliament and ultimately transposed into national law.
The savings and investment union that the Commission intends to propose will also take several years before it can have an impact on real investment. The Commission intends to propose a competitiveness fund for the new Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF). However, the new MFF will only apply from 2028. By then, the state of European industry will be even more critical, Makaroff assumed.
The industrial policy part of the compass is not yet well formulated. VDMA Managing Director Thilo Brodtmann stated that the compass tends to treat symptoms and threatens to “get bogged down in a multitude of individual measures and industry aids“.
While the Draghi report provided a methodology for differentiating between economic sectors, the compass that has now been presented does not specify which sectors the EU should support and how. “The Commission lists a bouquet of possibilities without making it clear what it specifically wants to do,” said Nils Redeker, Deputy Director of the Jacques Delors Centre.
The EU actually has all the instruments it needs to shape industrial policy. “The question is whether it wants to use these instruments strategically for its industrial policy. And this question is not answered in the Compass,” says Redeker. If the EU wanted a serious industrial policy, it would have to decide where it wanted to apply itself and where not.
In the Compass, the Commission announces a coordination instrument to help coordinate the industrial policies of the member states. However, experts who spoke to Table.Briefings compared the instrument to the less effective European Semester, which is supposed to coordinate the economic policies of the member states.
“The EU should not introduce new, vague coordination instruments, this puts the process ahead of real decisions,” said Sander Tordoir, Chief Economist at the Centre for European Reform. Instead, the EU must agree on which sectors it wants to save and then use the many instruments it has in a targeted manner.
A senior EU official defended the coordination instrument on Wednesday. The Competitiveness Fund, which is planned in the next MFF, would also give the Commission a certain amount of leverage over the member states. This would simplify more effective coordination, the official said.
The Commission will have its next opportunity to hammer in industrial policy stakes in just one month. On Feb. 26, it will present the Clean Industrial Deal.
The nationalist surprise winner of the first round of the Romanian presidential election, Călin Georgescu, has been rejected by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) with his application for an injunction against the annulment of the Romanian presidential election. However, he scored points with another European institution. In an urgent report, the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe set out conditions “on the basis of which a constitutional court can declare elections invalid”. According to this, the annulment of elections is “only permissible in exceptional circumstances (in accordance with the ultima ratio principle)”.
The pro-Russian right-wing extremist Georgescu surprisingly won the election on Nov. 24. The Romanian Constitutional Court ordered a re-run of the election because the entire election process had been irregular. Among other things, it argued that voters had been manipulated in the election by unlawfully giving preferential treatment to one candidate on social media. Georgescu, who was relatively unknown in the run-up to the election, had mainly campaigned for himself on TikTok. The Romanian government complained that the online platform had failed to label Georgescu as a politician and his posts as election advertising. The right-wing politician had filed a lawsuit against the government’s annulment and re-run of the election.
As the Venice Commission has now explained, the proof of legal violations by online campaigns and social media “must not be based exclusively on classified information (which can only be used as contextual information)“, as this “would not ensure the necessary transparency”.
The Venice Commission expressly emphasizes that it has no right to evaluate the decisions of national constitutional courts. However, this passage in particular can be seen as a criticism of the Romanian Constitutional Court’s annulment of the election, as this was essentially based on intelligence information.
It is still uncertain whether Călin Georgescu will be able to take part in the repeat presidential election scheduled for May 2025. It cannot be ruled out that he will be denied participation, just as a candidate from the nationalist SOS Romania party was previously denied. In this case, Georgescu has announced his intention to seek the office of Prime Minister for a coalition of nationalist parties. Talks to this effect are already underway, he explained.
Two surveys conducted in December 2024 and January 2025 by the opinion research institutes Avantgarde and INSCORP Research reveal a complex, sometimes seemingly paradoxical picture of political sentiment in the Carpathian country. According to Avantgarde, 49% of Romanians consider the annulment of the presidential election to be wrong, while a minority of 42% consider it to be right. At the same time, INSCORP data shows that a majority of 54% believe the election was manipulated by foreign countries (i.e. Russia).
However, both surveys show that the controversial sovereigntist Georgescu is considered the strongest political personality in Romania today. 38 percent of respondents mentioned his name when asked by INSCORP who they would vote for in the presidential elections. A quarter named Crin Antonescu, the candidate of the ruling coalition of the post-communist Social Democrats of the PDS and the National Liberals of the PNL. Only six percent named Elena Lasconi, the candidate of the Union for the Salvation of Romania (URS), who was expected to face Georgescu in the run-off at the beginning of December 2024.
According to the Sunday poll conducted by Avantgarde, the nationalist Alliance for the Unification of Romanians (AUR) would become the strongest political force in the Romanian Chamber of Deputies for the first time in parliamentary elections with 29% of the vote. This is ahead of the social democratic PSD with 22%, the liberal parties PNL and URS with 13% each and the nationalist formations SOS Romania with 8%, and the Party of Young People (POT) with 5%. The Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR) would miss out on a place in parliament with four percent.
In a peculiar contrast to the nationalist tendencies in Romania, INSCORP has identified growing trust in the EU and NATO. According to the study, the majority of Romanians are more supportive of both organizations than ever before. Almost three-quarters of them see advantages in EU membership for the economic and social life of their families. In 2022, the figure was just over half. The vast majority also reject their country’s withdrawal from NATO. At the same time, around 57% of respondents expressed the view that their country should defend its national interests, even if this leads to conflicts with the EU and NATO.
However, according to the survey results, more than half of the population distrusts the national media and feels misinformed and disinformed by them. Many citizens have lost confidence in their political elite due to the economic and social problems in the country and doubt their integrity and professionalism. This is probably the main reason why, according to Avantgarde, 51% of them put their trust in the nationalist Georgescu, although according to INSCORP they have a predominantly positive attitude towards the EU and NATO.
If you’ve been following the political headlines in recent weeks – from Trump’s inauguration to the cracking of the “firewall” in Germany – far-right parties seem to be on the rise everywhere. However, if you look at the European election polls, their record has been mixed at best. At the beginning of December, the “Patriots for Europe” (PfE), the largest far-right group in the European Parliament, reached a new record high in the European election seat projection. Now, however, the PfE is falling back significantly, which is only partially offset by gains made by the other right-wing groups. The biggest winner at the start of the year, however, is the Left, and the Greens are also in a better position than two months ago.
The three parliamentary groups of the grand coalition “platform”, on the other hand, are all experiencing slight losses. In the case of the European People’s Party (EPP), this is due in particular to Germany, where the CDU/CSU, although clearly leading in the Bundestag election campaign, has been gradually losing support for several weeks. (Most of the polls included in the seat projection were conducted before Friedrich Merz’s latest asylum policy initiative).
With regard to Austria, the ÖVP also lost a lot of support following the announcement of coalition talks with the FPÖ (PfE). By contrast, the Hungarian Tisza party has made significant gains and is well ahead of Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz (PfE) in individual polls. All in all, the EPP still has 185 seats in the base scenario of the projection (-1).
The situation for European social democrats is similarly mixed. They have made slight gains, particularly in Germany. In several other countries (such as Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, and Lithuania), their slow decline continues. With a total of 130 seats (-1), the S&D Group achieves its worst result since fall 2022 in the projection.
The polls for the liberal Renew group are themselves ambivalent. Slight gains in some states are offset by losses in others. Something else is reflected more strongly in the seat projection than these fluctuations: following the split of the Bulgarian Renew member party DPS last summer, the parliamentary group excluded the larger of the two successor parties, DPS-NN, led by media magnate Deljan Peevski, who is suspected of corruption. The parliamentary group thus fell back to 81 seats (-2).
In the Left Group, five member parties are making gains again after a long dry spell – from Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, and Greece. The gains are small in each case and it remains to be seen whether they will stabilize in the coming weeks. For now, however, the left-wing group’s seat projection is at its best level since spring 2023 (48 seats/+5). The Greens have also seen a slight increase and now have 43 seats (+2). In both Germany and Austria, they are benefiting from the end of the coalitions with the FDP (Renew) and ÖVP (EPP), which were unpopular with their voters.
On the right side of parliament, the EKR parliamentary group gained more seats (77 seats/+4), partly due to the inclusion of the previously non-attached right-wing populist party SALF from Spain. The small far-right parliamentary group ESN has also seen an increase since December, mainly thanks to the rise of the German AfD in the Bundestag election campaign (29 seats/+2).
The biggest loser in recent weeks, however, is the PfE group (93 seats/-7). The Dutch PVV in particular, but also the Hungarian Fidesz and the Czech ANO, have recently fallen in voter favor. In addition, the alliance between the two PfE parties Přísaha and Motoristé has broken down in the Czech Republic, and each would be too weak on its own to win seats in the European Parliament again.
Among the non-attached parties (24 seats/±0), the German BSW and the Slovakian Hlas fell slightly, while the Czech Stačilo gained – all three represent left-wing conservative Eurosceptic positions. The “other” parties, which are not represented in the European Parliament and cannot be clearly assigned to a political group, have 10 seats (-2).
As there are no pan-European election polls, the seat projection is based on aggregated national polls and election results from all member states. In the baseline scenario presented here, all national parties are assigned to their current parliamentary group (or the parliamentary group of their European umbrella party); parties without a clear assignment are shown as “others”.
The dynamic scenario assigns all “other” parties to a parliamentary group that they could plausibly join and also takes into account possible future changes in parliamentary groups of parties already represented in parliament. A more detailed breakdown of the projection as well as information on the data basis and methodology can be found on the blog “The (European) Federalist“.
