China’s role in climate diplomacy is of crucial importance to many Western countries in two respects. On the one hand, Beijing is one of the most important partners in the global energy transition and emissions reduction. On the other hand, China is neither participating significantly in international climate financing nor is it prepared to pay into the Loss & Damage Fund created at COP28 in Dubai.
Europe has long been urging Beijing to correct the latter and take responsibility as one of the world’s largest carbon emitters. This will presumably also be at the center of talks when Europe’s climate diplomats visit Beijing this week. Climate envoys from Germany, France, Denmark, the Netherlands and the EU Commission have been in talks since today with, among others, the new Chinese climate envoy Liu Zhenmin, the successor to the long-standing climate tsar from Beijing, Xie Zhenhua.
Little is known about the details of the visit and the content of the talks. According to the Commission, the trip is part of the regular climate and environmental dialog between the EU and China. However, Climate Commissioner Hoekstra is not part of the tour group. The Federal Foreign Office, responsible for German climate diplomacy, informed Table.Briefings that climate envoy Jennifer Morgan is also not taking part in the trip. The next talks at the very highest level could therefore take place in Berlin at the Petersberg Climate Dialogue at the end of April at the earliest.
Have a good start to the week!
Björn Seibert is leading Ursula von der Leyen’s election campaign as the lead candidate of the Christian Democratic party family EPP in the European elections. The 43-year-old civil servant, who has been Head of Cabinet of the Commission President since 2019, is taking unpaid leave for the election campaign. His hiatus as Head of Cabinet ends on election night on June 9. He will then immediately resume his position in the Berlaymont building.
EU official Alexander Winterstein will accompany von der Leyen’s campaign as spokesperson. Winterstein was deputy spokesman for the Commission under Jean-Claude Juncker. Most recently, the Austrian Winterstein was Director of Political Communication in the Directorate-General for Communication. Winterstein is also taking a break as an EU official.
Seibert joined the Commission with von der Leyen in 2019. He was already one of her closest collaborators in the Federal Ministry of Defense as head of the planning staff. He quickly familiarized himself with the Commission, where he had no network. He swiftly assumed his leading position among the cabinet heads. All of the Commission President’s decisions passed over his desk.
Jens Flosdorff, who coordinates the President’s media work and has also been her close confidant for years, will remain on the Commission during the campaign. Anthony Whelan, the President’s advisor for digital affairs, will take over from Seibert.
Seibert and Winterstein no longer have access to their workstations in the Commission and have handed in their official laptops and cell phones. The time-out is in line with the guidelines on ethical standards for the participation of Members of the Commission in the European elections, which the Commission revised in January. According to these guidelines, Commissioners who are candidates or lead candidates for the European Parliament are not allowed to use Commission resources.
“Members (of the Commission) may not make use of staff from the Commission or from the cabinets and use them for the campaign…”, it says. The guidelines only refer to the campaign for the European elections. They no longer apply from the first day after the end of the elections, in this case, June 10.
Ursula von der Leyen is not running for a seat in the European Parliament. She is the EPP’s lead candidate and wants to become Commission President again. As a first step, she aims for the EPP to become the strongest party again in the election. To become Commission President, she must have the support of the European Council.
In light of the results of the European elections, the body of Member States is to propose a candidate to the European Parliament for election as Commission President. The election of the new Commission President will take place at the earliest at the July plenary session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, but probably not until September.
This means that Ursula von der Leyen, whose EPP is likely to be the strongest force again in the election according to seat projections, will continue her campaign for re-election as Commission President at least until mid-July and probably even until the session week in September. There are no guidelines for this phase of the campaign.
The lead candidate of the socialist party family is Social Affairs Commissioner Nicolas Schmit. During the election campaign, von der Leyen and Schmit will retain their roles as Commission President and Commissioner. When they are on the campaign trail for the European party families, they will be accompanied by a member of their cabinet. This will ensure that the members of the Commission can also fulfill their official duties during election campaign activities.
Frans Timmermans, who was the lead candidate of the socialist party family in 2019, had hired EU official Tim McPhie for his election campaign. McPhie had also taken a break from the Commission at the time and returned to the Commission after the European elections.
Martin Schulz, who was the lead candidate of the socialist party family in 2014, is calling on von der Leyen to leave her office during the election campaign. If she runs for office, she should “not remain in office, visit the G7 summit and meet the heads of state and government,” explained the former President of the European Parliament. This was a matter of fairness.
The Green Daniel Freund: “The rules are clear: no EU resources are allowed to flow into von der Leyen’s election campaign – including personnel. It is absolutely right that her team is now going on unpaid campaign leave. The separation must be strictly enforced.”
All texts on the 2024 European elections can be found here.
The most important thing about the EU-US Trade and Technology Council (EU-US TTC) is that it exists at all, says Bernd Lange (SPD). The Chairman of the Trade Committee in the European Parliament remembers Donald Trump’s time in office when there was a standstill and no official contacts. “I had to meet secretly with my acquaintance from the US Department of Commerce,” says Lange.
According to Laura von Daniels, Head of the Americas Research Group at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, the TTC has at least brought the two sides closer together after the difficult years under Trump. From the outset, the Biden administration’s “main goal was clearly to talk about technology. The European side wanted to talk about trade,” says Daniels.
“We haven’t seen much progress in the area of trade. But there have at least been temporary solutions, such as the suspension of tariffs on aluminum and steel,” Daniels recalls. In the late phase of Trump’s administration, the course had already been set for tariffs on individual European countries due to their digital legislation, Daniels recalls. President Joe Biden had also paused this. “This is often forgotten, the tariffs can come back at any time.” The same applies to the subsidy dispute at Airbus and Boeing.
From the perspective of the German economy, the mere existence of this committee is also a success, as is the fact that both sides have once again made a high-level commitment to continue this format. “We need a body to discuss the things that will shape our lives in the future – especially in the digital sphere,” says Lange. However, the chances of this happening depend on the outcome of the elections in Europe and the USA.
In any case, the outcome of the EU-US TTC is more positive than one might expect, with few concrete results and many declarations of intent in the final declaration. “In the USA, it is currently not possible to get a treaty through Congress, there is no willingness to enter into a commitment,” explains Lange.
While in Europe all parties in Parliament are at the table, the TTC in the USA is purely a government project. Nevertheless, it proved its worth, especially when the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine began, explains Lange. “When it came to the issue of export controls and the implementation of sanctions, we were able to coordinate and agree. Without the TTC, this would not have worked because there were no more wires.” Market access and market opening, as the Europeans would like to see, are not currently the focus of US policy, but rather industrial policy considerations.
“In light of the numerous global challenges and increasing economic decoupling, it is highly relevant that the transatlantic partnership in particular works,” says Melanie Vogelbach, Head of International Economic Policy at the DIHK. As there is no free trade agreement with the USA, it is all the more important “that we achieve improvements in many technical details for trade and investment.”
German industry also wants close cooperation with the USA in terms of industrial policy. The TTC can play an important role here. Examples include
“It is particularly important to coordinate with partners on future topics such as the 6G generation of mobile communications, the raw material security of critical minerals or artificial intelligence,” says Vogelbach. This is because different standards could lead to challenges for companies in trade and investment. “It is therefore an important outcome of this meeting that we want to continue to work together in a structured way.”
Unfortunately, no agreement has yet been reached on the Critical Raw Materials Agreement. “This would actually have been a ‘small’ trade agreement that would have given German and European companies certain advantages on the US market via the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA),” explains Vogelbach. The background: countries that have a free trade agreement with the USA are partially exempt from the localization requirements of the IRA, meaning that companies from these countries benefit from tax credits. This would be important for manufacturers of batteries for EVs, for example, if they use raw materials from Europe.
“Of course, on the German side, we would also have liked to see a reduction in customs duties, greater market access and other simplifications for companies,” says Vogelbach. But it is just as important for German companies that non-tariff trade barriers are dismantled. For example, an agreement has been reached on harmonization in the area of electronic invoicing. “The fact that there is harmonization in such matters can mean simplification for companies on both sides of the Atlantic,” explains Vogelbach.
Machine and plant manufacturers would also like to see simplification and harmonization. But: “There are not so many concrete positive results for our industry,” says Niels Karssen from the European office of the VDMA in Brussels. The machine manufacturers would have liked an agreement on conformity assessment. However, the declarations of intent have not become more concrete since 2022. “We had really hoped that an agreement on conformity assessment could be reached this year. There have been many discussions on the subject, but the Americans are not interested at all.” One reason is that Europe exports significantly more machines and systems to the USA than vice versa.
This means that a product that has already been tested in Europe by the European safety authorities and deemed OK must be tested again in the USA and possibly completely rebuilt. “This is one of the main reasons why a machine that we export to the USA costs between five and 18 percent more than a machine for the European domestic market,” explains Karssen.
DIHK and VDMA hope that the work in the TTC will continue. The fact that more and more countries now also want a Trade and Technology Council shows that this is definitely a successful model. “From the point of view of the German economy, it is important that the TTC continues to exist after the elections in the USA and the EU, regardless of their outcome,” says Vogelbach. Against the backdrop of geopolitical crises, a continuation of this dialog is highly relevant. “A comprehensive transatlantic trade agreement would be desirable from the perspective of large parts of the German economy,” adds Vogelbach. “However, it doesn’t seem realistic in the next few years, regardless of who wins the elections in the USA.” Cooperation on green technologies for the transformation is particularly important to avoid creating new trade barriers.
“Negotiations are good, but we need free trade agreements that come into force,” notes Karssen from VDMA with regard to the negotiations with Mercosur and Mexico. “We must not overload the agreements with goals that have nothing to do with trade,” he demands.
However, the EU was able to assert itself in one important matter relating to trade. China is only mentioned three times in the final document, twice in connection with medical devices alone. Both sides shared the concern “about China’s non-market-compliant policies and practices in the area of medical devices.” A much more far-reaching isolation of China, as desired by the USA, did not find its way into the document. The EU has ensured that the TTC “does not become an anti-China forum,” says Daniels from the SWP.
For possible further cooperation in the TTC, the Chairman of the Trade Committee hopes that the dynamic of the dialog between the EU and the US will continue. “In the beginning, we were a little overambitious with a declaration of 100 pages,” says Lange. “The lesson from this would be to focus on a few important topics and achieve more concrete results.” And in order to maintain the willingness for dialog on the American side, both political camps must be included in the talks.
The camp of the liberal presidential candidate Ivan Korčok could have guessed it: Voter polls are useless in Slovakia. They tend to be completely off the mark. When the polling stations in the small country under the High Tatras closed on Saturday evening, a TV channel published a prediction on the outcome of the election: Korčok would win the race against the current Social Democratic parliamentary President Peter Pellegrini. Only by a wafer-thin margin, but still.
However, as the results of the actual count gradually became known, the faces of former Foreign Minister Korčok’s loyal supporters at his campaign headquarters grew darker and darker. At some point, it became clear that Pellegrini’s lead could no longer be made up by the liberal bastions of Bratislava and Košice. In the end, Pellegrini received 53 percent of the vote and Korčok 47 percent.
When Korčok stood in front of the crowd, however, the sadness and frustration of his supporters was once again mixed with a sense of pride and dauntlessness. “This is a defeat that weighs all the more heavily because we had such high expectations. But we also had to deal with an extremely dirty campaign,” was heard again and again.
Two weeks ago, Korčok had won the first round by a huge margin. However, the former diplomat had exhausted his potential, as has now become clear. The almost ten percent higher voter turnout in the run-off election was only aiding Pellegrini. He also benefited from the voters of the Hungarian minority, who listened to the head of government in Budapest. Viktor Orbán had campaigned strongly for Pellegrini.
Korčok was very annoyed by the dirty campaign. Pellegrini had denigrated him as a “candidate of war” who, as president, wanted to drag Slovakia directly into the war in Ukraine. He – Pellegrini – wanted “peace” and warned against ever-new arms deliveries to the Ukrainians. He also explicitly referred to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Pellegrini’s Social Democrats are part of a European family of parties together with the SPD.
Despite his reservations on the Ukraine issue, Pellegrini emphasized that Slovakia would remain firmly within the Western structures of the EU and NATO. “However, the interests of Slovakia and its citizens are paramount.” War is not in their interests. What Pellegrini said in the last TV duel was also remarkable. When asked about the NATO alliance case – i.e. the case of an attack by Putin on a NATO ally – Pellegrini said that Slovakia would not be able to lend a helping hand. “We don’t even have the weapons for that at the moment.”
This remark has so far gone unanswered by the allies. A year ago, during the Czech presidential election campaign, Andrej Babiš denied the question of whether, as head of state, he would help Poland or the Baltic states if the worst came to the worst. Warsaw was very surprised and audibly annoyed by this.
What does Pellegrini’s victory mean for Slovakia? With the 49-year-old in the presidential palace, Prime Minister Robert Fico now has a guarantee that he will be able to rule. However, their personal relationship is not unclouded by the past. Pellegrini once left the joint party of party leader Fico and founded Hlas as a competition.
Fico also kept a conspicuous distance from Pellegrini’s election campaign. However, he did attend the victory party, where he heard the future president’s hoped-for pledge of allegiance: “I will not be an uncritical admirer of the government. But I will certainly not turn the presidential palace into a bastion of opposition to the government.” He will support the government in its efforts to improve the lives of people in Slovakia.
It can be assumed that Pellegrini will not put any obstacles in the way of the changes that have been initiated or the corresponding plans in the justice and media sectors. Fico’s role model in this respect is Hungary’s Prime Minister Orbán.
This marks the beginning of challenging times for the opposition in Slovakia. However, Peter Bárdy, editor-in-chief of the largest internet portal Aktuality.sk, assured all subscribers in a letter. “Democracy and the rule of law will be the target of permanent efforts by the government to establish an autocratic state.” Democracy has suffered a defeat, but the election result does not mean the end of Slovakia. It still has a strong civil society, which is now more important than ever. By Hans-Jörg Schmidt
The European Union was originally conceived as a project with a long-term vision. But just at the end of another term, its structures seem to be preventing it from living up to this long-term goal. Now is the time to think creatively about the next five-year cycle.
Former Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti often referred to the EU as the “trade union” that represents the interests of future generations. Yet despite its decades of work for integration and its forward-looking goal of being climate neutral by 2050, the EU lacks an institutional framework to adequately consider long-term perspectives. EU strategies and policy planning often end in the middle of the century, neglecting the needs of future generations.
A glance at the dwindling support for environmental policy is enough to make you wonder whether the EU has the right institutional basis for genuine forward thinking. The European Green Deal, for example, was presented as a groundbreaking “man-on-the-moon” moment for the future of Europe – now it is increasingly becoming a scapegoat for social ills. Political short-sightedness had already undermined some key aspects of the Green Deal before it was further stalled by the premature departure of the main man responsible for its implementation, Frans Timmermans.
This led to the EU Commission having to appoint Wopke Hoekstra, a newcomer with questionable environmental credentials, as Green Deal manager at a crucial stage. This short-term appointment at a time when environmental and climate protection is facing resistance shows an uncomfortable truth: neither political decision-makers nor leaders will be held accountable if they do not think and act for the long term.
The European Union and its 27 Member States are no exception when it comes to neglecting long-term perspectives. What we need now is an institutional representation that is authentically committed to the future. The EU needs a Commissioner for Future Generations in its next Commission.
Every day, measures and investments are decided that will shape the future of generations to come. But in today’s EU decision-making processes, future generations have neither rights nor representation. This is likely to worsen in an aging Europe.
Youth movements have played an important role in bringing the voice of future generations into the mainstream on climate. But future-oriented thinking needs to be institutionalized in all policy areas and aspects of politics.
Social cohesion remains a pan-European challenge. This is because intergenerational socio-economic disadvantages exist at both, the national and regional levels. Studies show that child poverty increases the risk of poverty in adulthood – and at the same time, the IMF shows that child poverty in the EU has risen by almost 20 percent since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
This is just one of many examples – a long-term perspective is needed on climate investment, social services and intergenerational poverty to truly tackle our current challenges.
What exactly would a Commissioner for Future Generations (or even better, a Vice-President) do?
Firstly, this person would ensure that future-oriented strategies are firmly anchored in policy. Since 2019, the Commission has developed a lot, with an internal network and annual strategic foresight reports. A Commissioner for Future Generations would firmly establish such strategies in the EU’s decision-making processes. It could, for example, become part of the body that reviews new initiatives for sustainability.
Secondly, it would communicate and safeguard the interests of future generations throughout the Union. As a direct point of contact for citizens and organizations concerned about the long-term consequences of European actions, it would use citizen participation processes, citizens’ assemblies or other methods of future planning to ensure a targeted transition to this future.
There are many examples from which the EU can learn: Finland, Wales, Canada and Uruguay have their own institutions for future generations. Such a mandate is also being discussed at the UN level. Even at the EU level, Commissioner Šefčovič has already convened a first meeting of the “Ministers of the Future.” The foundations for a new Commission portfolio are already being laid.
It is time to create the institutional structure to realize the ‘union’ for future generations. It is time for a Commissioner for Future Generations.
Alberto Alemanno is Jean Monnet Professor of European Law at HEC Paris and founder of The Good Lobby, a non-profit organization that advocates equal access to decision-making power.
Elizabeth Dirth is Executive Director at the ZOE Institute for Sustainable Economies, a non-profit think & do tank that promotes long-term thinking for present and future generations.
China’s role in climate diplomacy is of crucial importance to many Western countries in two respects. On the one hand, Beijing is one of the most important partners in the global energy transition and emissions reduction. On the other hand, China is neither participating significantly in international climate financing nor is it prepared to pay into the Loss & Damage Fund created at COP28 in Dubai.
Europe has long been urging Beijing to correct the latter and take responsibility as one of the world’s largest carbon emitters. This will presumably also be at the center of talks when Europe’s climate diplomats visit Beijing this week. Climate envoys from Germany, France, Denmark, the Netherlands and the EU Commission have been in talks since today with, among others, the new Chinese climate envoy Liu Zhenmin, the successor to the long-standing climate tsar from Beijing, Xie Zhenhua.
Little is known about the details of the visit and the content of the talks. According to the Commission, the trip is part of the regular climate and environmental dialog between the EU and China. However, Climate Commissioner Hoekstra is not part of the tour group. The Federal Foreign Office, responsible for German climate diplomacy, informed Table.Briefings that climate envoy Jennifer Morgan is also not taking part in the trip. The next talks at the very highest level could therefore take place in Berlin at the Petersberg Climate Dialogue at the end of April at the earliest.
Have a good start to the week!
Björn Seibert is leading Ursula von der Leyen’s election campaign as the lead candidate of the Christian Democratic party family EPP in the European elections. The 43-year-old civil servant, who has been Head of Cabinet of the Commission President since 2019, is taking unpaid leave for the election campaign. His hiatus as Head of Cabinet ends on election night on June 9. He will then immediately resume his position in the Berlaymont building.
EU official Alexander Winterstein will accompany von der Leyen’s campaign as spokesperson. Winterstein was deputy spokesman for the Commission under Jean-Claude Juncker. Most recently, the Austrian Winterstein was Director of Political Communication in the Directorate-General for Communication. Winterstein is also taking a break as an EU official.
Seibert joined the Commission with von der Leyen in 2019. He was already one of her closest collaborators in the Federal Ministry of Defense as head of the planning staff. He quickly familiarized himself with the Commission, where he had no network. He swiftly assumed his leading position among the cabinet heads. All of the Commission President’s decisions passed over his desk.
Jens Flosdorff, who coordinates the President’s media work and has also been her close confidant for years, will remain on the Commission during the campaign. Anthony Whelan, the President’s advisor for digital affairs, will take over from Seibert.
Seibert and Winterstein no longer have access to their workstations in the Commission and have handed in their official laptops and cell phones. The time-out is in line with the guidelines on ethical standards for the participation of Members of the Commission in the European elections, which the Commission revised in January. According to these guidelines, Commissioners who are candidates or lead candidates for the European Parliament are not allowed to use Commission resources.
“Members (of the Commission) may not make use of staff from the Commission or from the cabinets and use them for the campaign…”, it says. The guidelines only refer to the campaign for the European elections. They no longer apply from the first day after the end of the elections, in this case, June 10.
Ursula von der Leyen is not running for a seat in the European Parliament. She is the EPP’s lead candidate and wants to become Commission President again. As a first step, she aims for the EPP to become the strongest party again in the election. To become Commission President, she must have the support of the European Council.
In light of the results of the European elections, the body of Member States is to propose a candidate to the European Parliament for election as Commission President. The election of the new Commission President will take place at the earliest at the July plenary session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, but probably not until September.
This means that Ursula von der Leyen, whose EPP is likely to be the strongest force again in the election according to seat projections, will continue her campaign for re-election as Commission President at least until mid-July and probably even until the session week in September. There are no guidelines for this phase of the campaign.
The lead candidate of the socialist party family is Social Affairs Commissioner Nicolas Schmit. During the election campaign, von der Leyen and Schmit will retain their roles as Commission President and Commissioner. When they are on the campaign trail for the European party families, they will be accompanied by a member of their cabinet. This will ensure that the members of the Commission can also fulfill their official duties during election campaign activities.
Frans Timmermans, who was the lead candidate of the socialist party family in 2019, had hired EU official Tim McPhie for his election campaign. McPhie had also taken a break from the Commission at the time and returned to the Commission after the European elections.
Martin Schulz, who was the lead candidate of the socialist party family in 2014, is calling on von der Leyen to leave her office during the election campaign. If she runs for office, she should “not remain in office, visit the G7 summit and meet the heads of state and government,” explained the former President of the European Parliament. This was a matter of fairness.
The Green Daniel Freund: “The rules are clear: no EU resources are allowed to flow into von der Leyen’s election campaign – including personnel. It is absolutely right that her team is now going on unpaid campaign leave. The separation must be strictly enforced.”
All texts on the 2024 European elections can be found here.
The most important thing about the EU-US Trade and Technology Council (EU-US TTC) is that it exists at all, says Bernd Lange (SPD). The Chairman of the Trade Committee in the European Parliament remembers Donald Trump’s time in office when there was a standstill and no official contacts. “I had to meet secretly with my acquaintance from the US Department of Commerce,” says Lange.
According to Laura von Daniels, Head of the Americas Research Group at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, the TTC has at least brought the two sides closer together after the difficult years under Trump. From the outset, the Biden administration’s “main goal was clearly to talk about technology. The European side wanted to talk about trade,” says Daniels.
“We haven’t seen much progress in the area of trade. But there have at least been temporary solutions, such as the suspension of tariffs on aluminum and steel,” Daniels recalls. In the late phase of Trump’s administration, the course had already been set for tariffs on individual European countries due to their digital legislation, Daniels recalls. President Joe Biden had also paused this. “This is often forgotten, the tariffs can come back at any time.” The same applies to the subsidy dispute at Airbus and Boeing.
From the perspective of the German economy, the mere existence of this committee is also a success, as is the fact that both sides have once again made a high-level commitment to continue this format. “We need a body to discuss the things that will shape our lives in the future – especially in the digital sphere,” says Lange. However, the chances of this happening depend on the outcome of the elections in Europe and the USA.
In any case, the outcome of the EU-US TTC is more positive than one might expect, with few concrete results and many declarations of intent in the final declaration. “In the USA, it is currently not possible to get a treaty through Congress, there is no willingness to enter into a commitment,” explains Lange.
While in Europe all parties in Parliament are at the table, the TTC in the USA is purely a government project. Nevertheless, it proved its worth, especially when the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine began, explains Lange. “When it came to the issue of export controls and the implementation of sanctions, we were able to coordinate and agree. Without the TTC, this would not have worked because there were no more wires.” Market access and market opening, as the Europeans would like to see, are not currently the focus of US policy, but rather industrial policy considerations.
“In light of the numerous global challenges and increasing economic decoupling, it is highly relevant that the transatlantic partnership in particular works,” says Melanie Vogelbach, Head of International Economic Policy at the DIHK. As there is no free trade agreement with the USA, it is all the more important “that we achieve improvements in many technical details for trade and investment.”
German industry also wants close cooperation with the USA in terms of industrial policy. The TTC can play an important role here. Examples include
“It is particularly important to coordinate with partners on future topics such as the 6G generation of mobile communications, the raw material security of critical minerals or artificial intelligence,” says Vogelbach. This is because different standards could lead to challenges for companies in trade and investment. “It is therefore an important outcome of this meeting that we want to continue to work together in a structured way.”
Unfortunately, no agreement has yet been reached on the Critical Raw Materials Agreement. “This would actually have been a ‘small’ trade agreement that would have given German and European companies certain advantages on the US market via the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA),” explains Vogelbach. The background: countries that have a free trade agreement with the USA are partially exempt from the localization requirements of the IRA, meaning that companies from these countries benefit from tax credits. This would be important for manufacturers of batteries for EVs, for example, if they use raw materials from Europe.
“Of course, on the German side, we would also have liked to see a reduction in customs duties, greater market access and other simplifications for companies,” says Vogelbach. But it is just as important for German companies that non-tariff trade barriers are dismantled. For example, an agreement has been reached on harmonization in the area of electronic invoicing. “The fact that there is harmonization in such matters can mean simplification for companies on both sides of the Atlantic,” explains Vogelbach.
Machine and plant manufacturers would also like to see simplification and harmonization. But: “There are not so many concrete positive results for our industry,” says Niels Karssen from the European office of the VDMA in Brussels. The machine manufacturers would have liked an agreement on conformity assessment. However, the declarations of intent have not become more concrete since 2022. “We had really hoped that an agreement on conformity assessment could be reached this year. There have been many discussions on the subject, but the Americans are not interested at all.” One reason is that Europe exports significantly more machines and systems to the USA than vice versa.
This means that a product that has already been tested in Europe by the European safety authorities and deemed OK must be tested again in the USA and possibly completely rebuilt. “This is one of the main reasons why a machine that we export to the USA costs between five and 18 percent more than a machine for the European domestic market,” explains Karssen.
DIHK and VDMA hope that the work in the TTC will continue. The fact that more and more countries now also want a Trade and Technology Council shows that this is definitely a successful model. “From the point of view of the German economy, it is important that the TTC continues to exist after the elections in the USA and the EU, regardless of their outcome,” says Vogelbach. Against the backdrop of geopolitical crises, a continuation of this dialog is highly relevant. “A comprehensive transatlantic trade agreement would be desirable from the perspective of large parts of the German economy,” adds Vogelbach. “However, it doesn’t seem realistic in the next few years, regardless of who wins the elections in the USA.” Cooperation on green technologies for the transformation is particularly important to avoid creating new trade barriers.
“Negotiations are good, but we need free trade agreements that come into force,” notes Karssen from VDMA with regard to the negotiations with Mercosur and Mexico. “We must not overload the agreements with goals that have nothing to do with trade,” he demands.
However, the EU was able to assert itself in one important matter relating to trade. China is only mentioned three times in the final document, twice in connection with medical devices alone. Both sides shared the concern “about China’s non-market-compliant policies and practices in the area of medical devices.” A much more far-reaching isolation of China, as desired by the USA, did not find its way into the document. The EU has ensured that the TTC “does not become an anti-China forum,” says Daniels from the SWP.
For possible further cooperation in the TTC, the Chairman of the Trade Committee hopes that the dynamic of the dialog between the EU and the US will continue. “In the beginning, we were a little overambitious with a declaration of 100 pages,” says Lange. “The lesson from this would be to focus on a few important topics and achieve more concrete results.” And in order to maintain the willingness for dialog on the American side, both political camps must be included in the talks.
The camp of the liberal presidential candidate Ivan Korčok could have guessed it: Voter polls are useless in Slovakia. They tend to be completely off the mark. When the polling stations in the small country under the High Tatras closed on Saturday evening, a TV channel published a prediction on the outcome of the election: Korčok would win the race against the current Social Democratic parliamentary President Peter Pellegrini. Only by a wafer-thin margin, but still.
However, as the results of the actual count gradually became known, the faces of former Foreign Minister Korčok’s loyal supporters at his campaign headquarters grew darker and darker. At some point, it became clear that Pellegrini’s lead could no longer be made up by the liberal bastions of Bratislava and Košice. In the end, Pellegrini received 53 percent of the vote and Korčok 47 percent.
When Korčok stood in front of the crowd, however, the sadness and frustration of his supporters was once again mixed with a sense of pride and dauntlessness. “This is a defeat that weighs all the more heavily because we had such high expectations. But we also had to deal with an extremely dirty campaign,” was heard again and again.
Two weeks ago, Korčok had won the first round by a huge margin. However, the former diplomat had exhausted his potential, as has now become clear. The almost ten percent higher voter turnout in the run-off election was only aiding Pellegrini. He also benefited from the voters of the Hungarian minority, who listened to the head of government in Budapest. Viktor Orbán had campaigned strongly for Pellegrini.
Korčok was very annoyed by the dirty campaign. Pellegrini had denigrated him as a “candidate of war” who, as president, wanted to drag Slovakia directly into the war in Ukraine. He – Pellegrini – wanted “peace” and warned against ever-new arms deliveries to the Ukrainians. He also explicitly referred to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Pellegrini’s Social Democrats are part of a European family of parties together with the SPD.
Despite his reservations on the Ukraine issue, Pellegrini emphasized that Slovakia would remain firmly within the Western structures of the EU and NATO. “However, the interests of Slovakia and its citizens are paramount.” War is not in their interests. What Pellegrini said in the last TV duel was also remarkable. When asked about the NATO alliance case – i.e. the case of an attack by Putin on a NATO ally – Pellegrini said that Slovakia would not be able to lend a helping hand. “We don’t even have the weapons for that at the moment.”
This remark has so far gone unanswered by the allies. A year ago, during the Czech presidential election campaign, Andrej Babiš denied the question of whether, as head of state, he would help Poland or the Baltic states if the worst came to the worst. Warsaw was very surprised and audibly annoyed by this.
What does Pellegrini’s victory mean for Slovakia? With the 49-year-old in the presidential palace, Prime Minister Robert Fico now has a guarantee that he will be able to rule. However, their personal relationship is not unclouded by the past. Pellegrini once left the joint party of party leader Fico and founded Hlas as a competition.
Fico also kept a conspicuous distance from Pellegrini’s election campaign. However, he did attend the victory party, where he heard the future president’s hoped-for pledge of allegiance: “I will not be an uncritical admirer of the government. But I will certainly not turn the presidential palace into a bastion of opposition to the government.” He will support the government in its efforts to improve the lives of people in Slovakia.
It can be assumed that Pellegrini will not put any obstacles in the way of the changes that have been initiated or the corresponding plans in the justice and media sectors. Fico’s role model in this respect is Hungary’s Prime Minister Orbán.
This marks the beginning of challenging times for the opposition in Slovakia. However, Peter Bárdy, editor-in-chief of the largest internet portal Aktuality.sk, assured all subscribers in a letter. “Democracy and the rule of law will be the target of permanent efforts by the government to establish an autocratic state.” Democracy has suffered a defeat, but the election result does not mean the end of Slovakia. It still has a strong civil society, which is now more important than ever. By Hans-Jörg Schmidt
The European Union was originally conceived as a project with a long-term vision. But just at the end of another term, its structures seem to be preventing it from living up to this long-term goal. Now is the time to think creatively about the next five-year cycle.
Former Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti often referred to the EU as the “trade union” that represents the interests of future generations. Yet despite its decades of work for integration and its forward-looking goal of being climate neutral by 2050, the EU lacks an institutional framework to adequately consider long-term perspectives. EU strategies and policy planning often end in the middle of the century, neglecting the needs of future generations.
A glance at the dwindling support for environmental policy is enough to make you wonder whether the EU has the right institutional basis for genuine forward thinking. The European Green Deal, for example, was presented as a groundbreaking “man-on-the-moon” moment for the future of Europe – now it is increasingly becoming a scapegoat for social ills. Political short-sightedness had already undermined some key aspects of the Green Deal before it was further stalled by the premature departure of the main man responsible for its implementation, Frans Timmermans.
This led to the EU Commission having to appoint Wopke Hoekstra, a newcomer with questionable environmental credentials, as Green Deal manager at a crucial stage. This short-term appointment at a time when environmental and climate protection is facing resistance shows an uncomfortable truth: neither political decision-makers nor leaders will be held accountable if they do not think and act for the long term.
The European Union and its 27 Member States are no exception when it comes to neglecting long-term perspectives. What we need now is an institutional representation that is authentically committed to the future. The EU needs a Commissioner for Future Generations in its next Commission.
Every day, measures and investments are decided that will shape the future of generations to come. But in today’s EU decision-making processes, future generations have neither rights nor representation. This is likely to worsen in an aging Europe.
Youth movements have played an important role in bringing the voice of future generations into the mainstream on climate. But future-oriented thinking needs to be institutionalized in all policy areas and aspects of politics.
Social cohesion remains a pan-European challenge. This is because intergenerational socio-economic disadvantages exist at both, the national and regional levels. Studies show that child poverty increases the risk of poverty in adulthood – and at the same time, the IMF shows that child poverty in the EU has risen by almost 20 percent since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
This is just one of many examples – a long-term perspective is needed on climate investment, social services and intergenerational poverty to truly tackle our current challenges.
What exactly would a Commissioner for Future Generations (or even better, a Vice-President) do?
Firstly, this person would ensure that future-oriented strategies are firmly anchored in policy. Since 2019, the Commission has developed a lot, with an internal network and annual strategic foresight reports. A Commissioner for Future Generations would firmly establish such strategies in the EU’s decision-making processes. It could, for example, become part of the body that reviews new initiatives for sustainability.
Secondly, it would communicate and safeguard the interests of future generations throughout the Union. As a direct point of contact for citizens and organizations concerned about the long-term consequences of European actions, it would use citizen participation processes, citizens’ assemblies or other methods of future planning to ensure a targeted transition to this future.
There are many examples from which the EU can learn: Finland, Wales, Canada and Uruguay have their own institutions for future generations. Such a mandate is also being discussed at the UN level. Even at the EU level, Commissioner Šefčovič has already convened a first meeting of the “Ministers of the Future.” The foundations for a new Commission portfolio are already being laid.
It is time to create the institutional structure to realize the ‘union’ for future generations. It is time for a Commissioner for Future Generations.
Alberto Alemanno is Jean Monnet Professor of European Law at HEC Paris and founder of The Good Lobby, a non-profit organization that advocates equal access to decision-making power.
Elizabeth Dirth is Executive Director at the ZOE Institute for Sustainable Economies, a non-profit think & do tank that promotes long-term thinking for present and future generations.
