Difficult discussions on aid for Ukraine and also on the situation in North Africa are guaranteed: The defense and foreign ministers are meeting informally in Toledo today and tomorrow, respectively, under the Spanish presidency. The talks will focus on Josep Borrell’s plan to put future support for Ukraine on a stable footing.
The EU’s foreign policy chief is proposing to guarantee Ukraine a total of €20 billion for the next four years, i.e. funds of five billion each year. So far, the EU has secured military aid for Kyiv through the so-called Peace Facility. However, an eighth tranche of €500 million has been blocked by Hungary for months.
With the new aid basis, Borrell wants to prevent similar blackmail maneuvers in the future. Viktor Orbán’s government, however, fundamentally questions continued aid to Ukraine.
However, there are also reservations about Borrell’s plan from some net contributors in the EU. This is against the background that the EU Commission is pushing for an additional €66 billion for the financial period from 2021 to 2027, among other things because of additional migration tasks and high inflation. Germany and the Netherlands have signaled they want to discuss military aid for Ukraine in the context of EU budget negotiations.
In Toledo, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, prevented from attending due to the cabinet meeting at Schloss Meseberg, will be represented by State Secretary Siemtje Möller. On Thursday, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock will take part at the Gymnich.
The German government wants to join forces with France to push for increased efforts to cut bureaucracy at the EU level. It is calling on the EU Commission to “draw up an ambitious action plan for acceleration and relief measures that can be implemented in the short term,” according to a discussion paper for the cabinet meeting in Meseberg. In addition, an ambitious agenda is needed for the coming years on how important investment projects can be accelerated and how companies and administrations can be relieved.
The paper was penned by Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) and Justice Minister Marco Buschmann (FDP) and is to be adopted in Meseberg on Wednesday. There, the traffic light coalition also wants to adopt the key points of another national bureaucracy relief law. “Over the decades, a veritable bureaucracy thicket has developed in Germany that is difficult to penetrate,” reads a yesterday presented ten-point paper for Germany as a business location.
However, the coalition partners believe that many regulations originate in Brussels. For this reason, they want to take up corresponding statements by President Emmanuel Macron and “launch a Franco-German initiative to reduce bureaucracy in the EU.” This could boost Europe’s competitiveness in the world and is also of geostrategic interest. The German government said it was in contact with Paris on this issue.
In May, Macron spoke in favor of a regulatory pause so as not to overburden the industry. Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo sounded the same horn a little later. The EPP, and the CDU/CSU, in particular, have been pushing for a moratorium on burdens for some time. However, the paper Habeck helped to draft does not go that far: “We want to accelerate and ease the burden without waiving necessary protection standards,” it says.
Instead, Habeck wants to facilitate the switch to climate-friendly and digital technologies while simultaneously countering growing criticism from the business community of crippling regulations. Recent moves by the EU Commission, such as the Net-Zero Industry Act, which aims to speed up planning and approval procedures for green investments in member states, have a similar direction of impact.
In addition, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has announced in the Competitiveness Strategy that she wants to eliminate a quarter of the reporting obligations for companies caused by EU requirements. A Commission spokesperson said upon request that the first proposals in the fall would target the Green Deal, digital and economic areas.
Von der Leyen had also enshrined a “one-in-one-out” rule. It states that additional burdens from new Commission proposals should be offset by relief in the same policy area. The agency will report on this for the first time in its Annual Burden Survey, the spokesman said. The Commission also plans to present a relief package for small and medium-sized businesses in mid-September. And it has instructed the new Green Deal coordinator Maroš Šefčovič to seek dialogue with stakeholders.
However, the CDU/CSU doubts that Habeck and Buschmann are serious. “The two federal ministers are to be congratulated on the fact that they seem to have finally understood that the bureaucratic burdens on our economy have, in the meantime, reached partly unbearable levels,” Daniel Caspary, the Chairman of the CDU/CSU members of the European Parliament, causticized.
EPP Group economic policy spokesman Markus Ferber commented, “The traffic light parties have raised their hands in Brussels every time new bureaucracy monsters like a European supply chain law or completely sprawling sustainability reporting were voted on.” Moreover, EU laws in Germany are regularly implemented in such a way that they cause more effort than necessary for companies, he added.
Freya Lemcke, head of the DIHK representation at the EU, pointed out that a large number of regulations such as the REACH Regulation, the Packaging Directive or the Medical Devices Regulation could be freed from unnecessary bureaucracy. In addition, she said, the “one-in-one-out” rule at the European level should be applied consistently by all institutions involved in legislation. “SMEs, in particular, have thus high hopes for the current initiatives of the German government and the EU Commission,” she said.
Specifically, Buschmann and Habeck propose several measures:
In Germany, obtaining citizenship has long been regarded as the end of the integration process. In times of labor shortages and demographic change, however, it is increasingly seen as a factor of attractiveness. Only those who offer a realistic prospect of naturalization are really attractive target countries for the talent they are looking for.
“A modern citizenship law is a decisive key to Germany’s competitiveness as a business location,” said Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) when presenting the cabinet draft a week ago. And Faeser also referred to the situation within Europe: “In a European comparison, we are clearly behind our neighbors in terms of naturalizations.”
In fact, some states in Europe grant significantly more citizenship. In the latest available European statistics for 2021, Spain (138,083), France (114,898) and Italy (109,552) are clearly ahead of the Federal Republic. And this is despite lower population figures. Sweden (70,713) and the Netherlands (57,782) are directly behind fourth-placed Germany (94,675) in absolute terms, although these two countries also have significantly fewer inhabitants. However, there are also states where naturalizations are virtually non-existent. Lithuania, for example, had only 102 naturalizations in 2021, while Estonia had 375.
Who is naturalized in the respective countries varies greatly. The only discernable pattern across the EU: there is no clear pattern, only temporal, geographical and historical references.
Almost everywhere, for example, in the 2021 figures, a small group of new EU citizens can be found who previously held British passports but sought EU citizenship in the wake of Brexit. In Luxembourg, for example, this group was among the largest three.
The relatively large number of Russian citizens naturalized in 2021 in the Republic of Cyprus (352) and Malta (116) is striking. People born in China were also among the largest three groups of new citizens in the two states. This is not least due to the highly controversial so-called “ius pecuniae” – the granting of citizenship in return for investment. But even in these two countries, citizens from the United Kingdom were the largest group, in each case in 2021 as a result of Brexit: an effect that is likely to be only temporary, given low overall numbers.
In the European high-tech melting pot of Ireland, for example, there are traces of naturalizations, which are probably primarily due to the attractiveness for skilled workers also intended by Nancy Faeser. As many as 746 Indian citizens were granted Irish citizenship there in 2021. Like Denmark, Sweden, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Hungary and a few other countries, Ireland is one of the EU members that largely permit multiple citizenships.
The Netherlands and Austria have the most restrictive rules on dual or multiple citizenship in the EU. As a rule, this is not possible in these countries. Spain restricts the possibility to Portuguese and French citizens as well as passport holders from former Spanish colonies. The cabinet proposal would move Germany from the intermediate group of states with many restrictions to the group of states with multiple citizenship.
But there are already many of them in Germany today. The naturalization figures for 2022 have been available since May. The largest group is people who have immigrated from Syria: of 168,500 naturalized last year in total, 48,300 were Syrian citizens. A consequence of immigration from the civil war country after 2014, who now increasingly meet the criteria of the previously applicable citizenship law.
After eight years of permanent residence, foreigners who have already been permanent residents can also become Germans. If there are special integration achievements, this is also possible after six years, which was the case for more than a quarter of this group. For the large group of Syrians, dual citizenship is almost automatic: Assad’s torture state formally releases its citizens from their citizenship only in a few cases.
The second largest group in Germany (14,235) previously held a Turkish passport. What is particularly striking about this group is that the average length of residence was enormously long, at more than 24 years before naturalization. The remainder is distributed among smaller groups of new Germans from various countries – for example, Ukrainian women, who accounted for two-thirds of the 5,665 new citizens from this country.
What does this reality mean in the competition for the most attractive conditions as a passport location proclaimed by the Minister of the Interior? The effect will probably be much smaller than hoped for. Instead, a completely different value is likely to be relevant for attractiveness, one that is not centrally recorded statistically in Europe: the length of the procedure. In Sweden, for example, 75 percent of naturalization procedures are decided in a good two and a half years; in Ireland, according to the Immigration Department, the procedure currently takes an average of about 19 months from the complete application.
In Germany, on the other hand, the duration depends primarily on the capacities of the responsible local authority. The duration is not recorded centrally for statistical purposes. However, the fact that it is currently very long in many municipalities is confirmed unambiguously. Some procedures take several years, even in simple cases.
What the German government’s draft law does not provide, however – despite corresponding demands: a clear legal time frame to which the German offices would also have to adhere. The “integration into German living conditions,” as the Nationality Act puts it, begins with long waiting periods.
Özlem Demirel’s favorite quote is “He who does not fight has lost already.” Whenever the left-wing politician sees injustice, she fights for her conviction: social justice. Throughout her career, Demirel’s fighting locations have changed a few times.
Since 2019, her central arena has been the Brussels “EU bubble.” Demirel is a Member of the European Parliament and a member of the Group of the Left (GUE/NGL). Just recently, she was again nominated by her party for the upcoming 2024 European election. In the top team with Martin Schirdewan and the non-party Carola Rackete and Gerhard Trabert, she is in third place.
Actually, the 39-year-old Demirel had never wanted to become a professional politician. Born in Turkey in 1984, she moved to Germany with her family at the age of five. “My father was a leftist and a Kurd. He was arrested several times during the military coup in Turkey,” Demirel recalls. Fleeing the Turkish government, her family applied for political asylum in Germany.
“When I was a child, my father always told me I had to stand up for my convictions,” Demirel says. “Even if it takes strength and leisure.” Following her father’s advice, she became politically involved as a student on the board of North Rhine-Westphalia’s state student council. In this role, she organized demonstrations in the early 2000s – against the Afghanistan war and against tuition fees. After school, she studied political science at the University of Bonn. Demirel then moved into the NRW state parliament for the Left Party from 2010 to 2017.
“Even today, I don’t mince matters,” Demirel says. That creates a headwind, in Parliament, sometimes even in her parliamentary group. But especially in the subcommittee on security and defense. There, her convictions often differ from those of her colleagues from other parties. Especially, regarding the EU dealings with the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine.
“In the committee, I am, so to speak, doing the opposition to all the others who want to transform the EU into a military union,” Demirel says. She condemns the Russian war of aggression, but urgently calls for a peace initiative. She also recently criticized NATO’s line, saying that a political solution was needed, not more weapons packages, so that the war would finally stop.
In addition to geopolitics, Demirel is concerned with social justice. In 2022, she actively worked on the minimum wage directive adopted by the EU. In order for the directive to be enforced in the individual member states, however, Demirel says stronger trade unions are needed to advocate for collective agreements.
For the politician, it is important to move outside the “EU bubble.” Especially not to lose sight of social justice. On her first day in Brussels, she said to her office assistant that this bubble is not the real world. “With the income and all the privileges we have, we are far from the reality of most people’s lives.”
Özlem Demirel thus keeps trying to stay aware of why she is where she is. “It’s just not about me,” Demirel says, “it’s about the cause.” Dayan Djajadisastra
Difficult discussions on aid for Ukraine and also on the situation in North Africa are guaranteed: The defense and foreign ministers are meeting informally in Toledo today and tomorrow, respectively, under the Spanish presidency. The talks will focus on Josep Borrell’s plan to put future support for Ukraine on a stable footing.
The EU’s foreign policy chief is proposing to guarantee Ukraine a total of €20 billion for the next four years, i.e. funds of five billion each year. So far, the EU has secured military aid for Kyiv through the so-called Peace Facility. However, an eighth tranche of €500 million has been blocked by Hungary for months.
With the new aid basis, Borrell wants to prevent similar blackmail maneuvers in the future. Viktor Orbán’s government, however, fundamentally questions continued aid to Ukraine.
However, there are also reservations about Borrell’s plan from some net contributors in the EU. This is against the background that the EU Commission is pushing for an additional €66 billion for the financial period from 2021 to 2027, among other things because of additional migration tasks and high inflation. Germany and the Netherlands have signaled they want to discuss military aid for Ukraine in the context of EU budget negotiations.
In Toledo, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, prevented from attending due to the cabinet meeting at Schloss Meseberg, will be represented by State Secretary Siemtje Möller. On Thursday, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock will take part at the Gymnich.
The German government wants to join forces with France to push for increased efforts to cut bureaucracy at the EU level. It is calling on the EU Commission to “draw up an ambitious action plan for acceleration and relief measures that can be implemented in the short term,” according to a discussion paper for the cabinet meeting in Meseberg. In addition, an ambitious agenda is needed for the coming years on how important investment projects can be accelerated and how companies and administrations can be relieved.
The paper was penned by Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) and Justice Minister Marco Buschmann (FDP) and is to be adopted in Meseberg on Wednesday. There, the traffic light coalition also wants to adopt the key points of another national bureaucracy relief law. “Over the decades, a veritable bureaucracy thicket has developed in Germany that is difficult to penetrate,” reads a yesterday presented ten-point paper for Germany as a business location.
However, the coalition partners believe that many regulations originate in Brussels. For this reason, they want to take up corresponding statements by President Emmanuel Macron and “launch a Franco-German initiative to reduce bureaucracy in the EU.” This could boost Europe’s competitiveness in the world and is also of geostrategic interest. The German government said it was in contact with Paris on this issue.
In May, Macron spoke in favor of a regulatory pause so as not to overburden the industry. Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo sounded the same horn a little later. The EPP, and the CDU/CSU, in particular, have been pushing for a moratorium on burdens for some time. However, the paper Habeck helped to draft does not go that far: “We want to accelerate and ease the burden without waiving necessary protection standards,” it says.
Instead, Habeck wants to facilitate the switch to climate-friendly and digital technologies while simultaneously countering growing criticism from the business community of crippling regulations. Recent moves by the EU Commission, such as the Net-Zero Industry Act, which aims to speed up planning and approval procedures for green investments in member states, have a similar direction of impact.
In addition, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has announced in the Competitiveness Strategy that she wants to eliminate a quarter of the reporting obligations for companies caused by EU requirements. A Commission spokesperson said upon request that the first proposals in the fall would target the Green Deal, digital and economic areas.
Von der Leyen had also enshrined a “one-in-one-out” rule. It states that additional burdens from new Commission proposals should be offset by relief in the same policy area. The agency will report on this for the first time in its Annual Burden Survey, the spokesman said. The Commission also plans to present a relief package for small and medium-sized businesses in mid-September. And it has instructed the new Green Deal coordinator Maroš Šefčovič to seek dialogue with stakeholders.
However, the CDU/CSU doubts that Habeck and Buschmann are serious. “The two federal ministers are to be congratulated on the fact that they seem to have finally understood that the bureaucratic burdens on our economy have, in the meantime, reached partly unbearable levels,” Daniel Caspary, the Chairman of the CDU/CSU members of the European Parliament, causticized.
EPP Group economic policy spokesman Markus Ferber commented, “The traffic light parties have raised their hands in Brussels every time new bureaucracy monsters like a European supply chain law or completely sprawling sustainability reporting were voted on.” Moreover, EU laws in Germany are regularly implemented in such a way that they cause more effort than necessary for companies, he added.
Freya Lemcke, head of the DIHK representation at the EU, pointed out that a large number of regulations such as the REACH Regulation, the Packaging Directive or the Medical Devices Regulation could be freed from unnecessary bureaucracy. In addition, she said, the “one-in-one-out” rule at the European level should be applied consistently by all institutions involved in legislation. “SMEs, in particular, have thus high hopes for the current initiatives of the German government and the EU Commission,” she said.
Specifically, Buschmann and Habeck propose several measures:
In Germany, obtaining citizenship has long been regarded as the end of the integration process. In times of labor shortages and demographic change, however, it is increasingly seen as a factor of attractiveness. Only those who offer a realistic prospect of naturalization are really attractive target countries for the talent they are looking for.
“A modern citizenship law is a decisive key to Germany’s competitiveness as a business location,” said Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) when presenting the cabinet draft a week ago. And Faeser also referred to the situation within Europe: “In a European comparison, we are clearly behind our neighbors in terms of naturalizations.”
In fact, some states in Europe grant significantly more citizenship. In the latest available European statistics for 2021, Spain (138,083), France (114,898) and Italy (109,552) are clearly ahead of the Federal Republic. And this is despite lower population figures. Sweden (70,713) and the Netherlands (57,782) are directly behind fourth-placed Germany (94,675) in absolute terms, although these two countries also have significantly fewer inhabitants. However, there are also states where naturalizations are virtually non-existent. Lithuania, for example, had only 102 naturalizations in 2021, while Estonia had 375.
Who is naturalized in the respective countries varies greatly. The only discernable pattern across the EU: there is no clear pattern, only temporal, geographical and historical references.
Almost everywhere, for example, in the 2021 figures, a small group of new EU citizens can be found who previously held British passports but sought EU citizenship in the wake of Brexit. In Luxembourg, for example, this group was among the largest three.
The relatively large number of Russian citizens naturalized in 2021 in the Republic of Cyprus (352) and Malta (116) is striking. People born in China were also among the largest three groups of new citizens in the two states. This is not least due to the highly controversial so-called “ius pecuniae” – the granting of citizenship in return for investment. But even in these two countries, citizens from the United Kingdom were the largest group, in each case in 2021 as a result of Brexit: an effect that is likely to be only temporary, given low overall numbers.
In the European high-tech melting pot of Ireland, for example, there are traces of naturalizations, which are probably primarily due to the attractiveness for skilled workers also intended by Nancy Faeser. As many as 746 Indian citizens were granted Irish citizenship there in 2021. Like Denmark, Sweden, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Hungary and a few other countries, Ireland is one of the EU members that largely permit multiple citizenships.
The Netherlands and Austria have the most restrictive rules on dual or multiple citizenship in the EU. As a rule, this is not possible in these countries. Spain restricts the possibility to Portuguese and French citizens as well as passport holders from former Spanish colonies. The cabinet proposal would move Germany from the intermediate group of states with many restrictions to the group of states with multiple citizenship.
But there are already many of them in Germany today. The naturalization figures for 2022 have been available since May. The largest group is people who have immigrated from Syria: of 168,500 naturalized last year in total, 48,300 were Syrian citizens. A consequence of immigration from the civil war country after 2014, who now increasingly meet the criteria of the previously applicable citizenship law.
After eight years of permanent residence, foreigners who have already been permanent residents can also become Germans. If there are special integration achievements, this is also possible after six years, which was the case for more than a quarter of this group. For the large group of Syrians, dual citizenship is almost automatic: Assad’s torture state formally releases its citizens from their citizenship only in a few cases.
The second largest group in Germany (14,235) previously held a Turkish passport. What is particularly striking about this group is that the average length of residence was enormously long, at more than 24 years before naturalization. The remainder is distributed among smaller groups of new Germans from various countries – for example, Ukrainian women, who accounted for two-thirds of the 5,665 new citizens from this country.
What does this reality mean in the competition for the most attractive conditions as a passport location proclaimed by the Minister of the Interior? The effect will probably be much smaller than hoped for. Instead, a completely different value is likely to be relevant for attractiveness, one that is not centrally recorded statistically in Europe: the length of the procedure. In Sweden, for example, 75 percent of naturalization procedures are decided in a good two and a half years; in Ireland, according to the Immigration Department, the procedure currently takes an average of about 19 months from the complete application.
In Germany, on the other hand, the duration depends primarily on the capacities of the responsible local authority. The duration is not recorded centrally for statistical purposes. However, the fact that it is currently very long in many municipalities is confirmed unambiguously. Some procedures take several years, even in simple cases.
What the German government’s draft law does not provide, however – despite corresponding demands: a clear legal time frame to which the German offices would also have to adhere. The “integration into German living conditions,” as the Nationality Act puts it, begins with long waiting periods.
Özlem Demirel’s favorite quote is “He who does not fight has lost already.” Whenever the left-wing politician sees injustice, she fights for her conviction: social justice. Throughout her career, Demirel’s fighting locations have changed a few times.
Since 2019, her central arena has been the Brussels “EU bubble.” Demirel is a Member of the European Parliament and a member of the Group of the Left (GUE/NGL). Just recently, she was again nominated by her party for the upcoming 2024 European election. In the top team with Martin Schirdewan and the non-party Carola Rackete and Gerhard Trabert, she is in third place.
Actually, the 39-year-old Demirel had never wanted to become a professional politician. Born in Turkey in 1984, she moved to Germany with her family at the age of five. “My father was a leftist and a Kurd. He was arrested several times during the military coup in Turkey,” Demirel recalls. Fleeing the Turkish government, her family applied for political asylum in Germany.
“When I was a child, my father always told me I had to stand up for my convictions,” Demirel says. “Even if it takes strength and leisure.” Following her father’s advice, she became politically involved as a student on the board of North Rhine-Westphalia’s state student council. In this role, she organized demonstrations in the early 2000s – against the Afghanistan war and against tuition fees. After school, she studied political science at the University of Bonn. Demirel then moved into the NRW state parliament for the Left Party from 2010 to 2017.
“Even today, I don’t mince matters,” Demirel says. That creates a headwind, in Parliament, sometimes even in her parliamentary group. But especially in the subcommittee on security and defense. There, her convictions often differ from those of her colleagues from other parties. Especially, regarding the EU dealings with the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine.
“In the committee, I am, so to speak, doing the opposition to all the others who want to transform the EU into a military union,” Demirel says. She condemns the Russian war of aggression, but urgently calls for a peace initiative. She also recently criticized NATO’s line, saying that a political solution was needed, not more weapons packages, so that the war would finally stop.
In addition to geopolitics, Demirel is concerned with social justice. In 2022, she actively worked on the minimum wage directive adopted by the EU. In order for the directive to be enforced in the individual member states, however, Demirel says stronger trade unions are needed to advocate for collective agreements.
For the politician, it is important to move outside the “EU bubble.” Especially not to lose sight of social justice. On her first day in Brussels, she said to her office assistant that this bubble is not the real world. “With the income and all the privileges we have, we are far from the reality of most people’s lives.”
Özlem Demirel thus keeps trying to stay aware of why she is where she is. “It’s just not about me,” Demirel says, “it’s about the cause.” Dayan Djajadisastra
