The current gas price crisis continues to preoccupy the European Union’s top politicians. In the view of Luxembourg’s Energy Minister Claude Turmes, only a package of measures will help: increase energy efficiency, expand renewable energies and diversify gas sources. The demand for gas will continue to fall. From a climate policy perspective, gas also has no future, says Turmes in an interview with Charlotte Wirth.
Today, the EU is continuing its search in Azerbaijan for possible alternatives to Russian gas supplies. In Baku, Energy Commissioner Kadri Simson is taking part in a meeting of the Advisory Council for the so-called “Southern Gas Corridor”. The meeting is to focus on a possible expansion of capacities for further deliveries to the west. However, expectations are not too high. “It is important for politicians to look at alternative energy suppliers. In the end, it is companies that have to decide on the market for supplies,” said BDI Chief Executive Joachim Lang Eric Bonse.
The EU Commission wants to help data-driven business models in Europe get off the ground. The Data Act as a new legal framework is intended to make it easier for start-ups and smaller companies in particular to access valuable data. A new draft shows: the EU Commission wants to make manufacturers of connected devices – from virtual assistants to cars – responsible for this. They are to give users access to data generated by them, and must also pass this on to other companies if they wish. This is intended to strengthen small repair businesses, for example. Till Hoppe has taken a close look at the draft Data Act.
Minister, you said a few weeks ago that the energy price crisis was a “short-term extreme situation”. Do you still believe that?
We are in an atypical situation; after all, a war between Russia and Ukraine is on the horizon. But the question we already had to ask ourselves during the last Russia-Ukraine crisis is how the EU is dealing with its dependence on Russia. During the first gas conflict between Russia and Ukraine in the mid-2000s, the EU diversified and built LNG ports, for example. If this diversification had not been carried out, we would be even more vulnerable to blackmail from Russia today. In the short term, we now need to take action to cushion prices for end-users. In the long term, we need to diversify our energy sources and use less gas.
Can we manage that? There are studies that say we will consume more, at least in the next few years, because gas is used as a bridging technology.
That is not correct. What is important with gas is the question of overall gas consumption in Europe. Consumption has been falling slightly in recent years. And it will fall by a third by 2030, especially in the heating sector – and that’s despite the fact that electricity consumption may rise slightly.
Mrs. von der Leyen is currently exploring where else gas could be purchased. If her negotiations bear fruit, who will pay? She has no mandate to negotiate and finance contracts.
I think these are more geopolitical negotiations, where you short-circuit with friendly governments – I’m thinking mainly of the US, Canada, Norway, – to see if they can help us out in the current situation, or even a war situation. But Ms. von der Leyen is not signing any treaties. I think that is an overinterpretation of her role. LNG will ultimately come to Europe because the European gas market currently offers a good price. However, we have to think about whether it doesn’t make sense to sign long-term contracts for LNG over the next few years in order to minimize our dependence on Russia.
Aren’t we then simply creating new dependencies? Let’s say we prefer to buy LNG from Qatar. That is not an unproblematic regime either.
The best gas policy is certainly energy efficiency, renewable energy, and diversification of gas sources. Once again, climate policy helps us reduce our gas consumption and our dependence on gas.
LNG is anything but climate-friendly; think of fracking, for example. Aren’t we now facing a tension between our demand for gas and our climate targets?
Gas leaks and methane leakage from gas fields and pipelines are not harmless either. That’s why it makes sense for the EU to finally come up with a methane strategy. And that is precisely why gas has no future.
But what about the transition period? At the moment, at least, we don’t seem to care where the gas comes from or how it’s produced. The important thing is that it flows.
Nevertheless. Fracking may be particularly bad, but the methane leakage from Russia is not harmless either. We shouldn’t think that Russian gas is particularly environmentally friendly.
Ultimately, the price determines where the LNG goes, and states where traders don’t also have to buy CO2 allowances have an advantage….
That is why we need an instrument against climate dumping, namely the CBAM. This is on the table and must now be negotiated quickly. This will protect our industry.
At the beginning of the gas crisis, they wanted to talk to Ms. Vestager about speculation on the gas market. Did that bear fruit?
Ms. Vestager and her team are monitoring the market very closely. The main issue at the moment is to check whether Gazprom has circumvented competition law. Such proceedings take time, but if there is enough evidence, then it is very efficient.
Is our problem perhaps also that renewable energies are not yet ready?
No, they are ready. However, we have the misfortune that France dreams so much about new nuclear power plants that it forgets to invest enough in renewable energies. In addition, the French power grid is under extreme stress because the old reactors are not on the grid due to material wear.
The previous German government is also to blame. Minister Altmaier had limited the expansion of solar energy. Then the construction of onshore wind energy was made almost impossible because the distance rules are so strict. That’s why I’m all the more pleased that with the new German government, Estonia, and Scotland, we now have governments that want to consistently expand renewable energies.
You are currently in talks with the penta-countries (Germany, Luxembourg, France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium, and Austria) so that gas storage facilities are more regulated and have to be filled up before the winters. How are the negotiations going?
The preliminary talks are going well. Most countries have understood that it is purposeful to regulate the storage facilities. They want to correct this mistake. In Germany, Climate Minister Habeck has already announced a law. Luxembourg currently holds the Penta chair. We want to coordinate the 575 TWh of gas storage that is in our countries in the future. If we can do that, it will be a huge step toward security of supply and price stability.
The current crisis may lead to a focus on the construction of new terminals, pipelines, and the like for fossil energies. Negotiations are currently underway to modernize the Energy Charter Treaty. Could this influence the negotiations? The EU is quite alone in wanting to adapt the treaty to the Paris climate goals.
The argument will certainly be used by the gas lobby. In the event of a crisis, all those who have always wanted to invest in fossil gas and will continue to do so will benefit. However, we are in a climate crisis. We should not forget that. The EU gas infrastructure would even have to suffice for a scenario in which Russia no longer supplies at all. So we don’t need to discuss further expansion of fossil gas infrastructure.
The EU Commission is continuing its search for alternatives to Russian gas supplies with a visit to Azerbaijan. Energy Commissioner Kadri Simson and Enlargement Commissioner Oliver Varhelyi are expected in the capital Baku on Friday, where they plan to attend a meeting of the Advisory Council for the so-called Southern Gas Corridor. It is the first time that Simson will attend this round in person, which underlines the high importance she attaches to gas supplies from Azerbaijan.
According to the EU Commission, the meeting will focus on the question of whether the Southern Gas Corridor can be expanded. Priority will be given to those EU countries that want to phase out coal. The meeting will also discuss the reduction of methane gas emissions. In addition to the high-level ministerial meeting, which will also be attended by numerous energy companies such as BP, Uniper, and LUKoil, Simson will hold bilateral talks with the energy minister of Azerbaijan.
The “bilaterals” will focus on Azerbaijan’s role in diversifying gas supplies in Europe, a Commission spokesman said. He also said that the possibility of expanding the capacity of the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) would be explored. So far, it stands at ten billion cubic meters a year. TAP has proven to be a stable and reliable supplier, the Brussels authority stresses.
However, quick results are not expected. Brussels says it is still too early to make statements about possible supply contracts. Azerbaijan’s ambassador to London, Elin Suleymanov, told the Bloomberg news agency that his country could expand gas supplies “in case of urgent need.” However, he said, it would not be possible to make up for the volume from Russia. This needs long-term planning, Suleymanov said, “It doesn’t work like someone comes along and says ‘give me more gas.’”
Jocopo Pepe, an energy expert at the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik in Berlin, expressed similar views. “Azerbaijan can be considered as an additional source, but only on a marginal scale. The Southern Gas Corridor is readily promoted by Azerbaijan as an alternative to Russian gas, but the volumes are not there. The capacities of the trans-Adriatic pipeline are limited to about ten to a maximum of 20 billion cubic meters per year. Around half of this goes to Turkey. The country represents a major outlet for gas from Azerbaijan.”
Most recently, Azerbaijan had expanded its deliveries to Turkey. According to estimates, the delivery capacities of the TAP pipeline are currently more than 80 percent utilized.
In addition to the technical restrictions, there are also political risks. Azerbaijan has been in the news for years with bribery and money laundering scandals in which German politicians and several MEPs were also involved. The so-called “Laundromat” continues to occupy the British judiciary to this day. On Tuesday, a judge in London sentenced an Azerbaijani MP to pay £5.6 million that were allegedly smuggled into the country illegally.
However, the EU Commission seems willing to overlook these scandals. Its move is primarily geopolitically motivated: Against the backdrop of the Ukraine conflict and possible sanctions against Russia, it is looking for ways to make the EU less dependent on Russian gas supplies. Brussels is also in contact with Qatar for this purpose. However, the emirate made it clear that it would not be able to meet Europe’s gas needs on its own. It is counting on a diplomatic solution, it said.
The Commission’s highest hopes are also pinned on the US. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and US President Biden announced last week that they would work closely together in the search for alternatives to Russian gas, with a particular focus on liquefied natural gas (LNG). Next Monday, Simson and EU foreign representative Josep Borrell will travel to Washington for the EU-US Energy Council. The transatlantic cooperation is to be concretized there.
The German industry association is skeptical: “Europe will not be able to replace substantial quantities of pipeline gas with LNG in a hurry. That would be expensive and time-consuming. Our European interests in energy supply are not congruent with American interests,” says BDI Managing Director Joachim Lang.
The fact that policymakers are looking at alternative energy suppliers is to be welcomed, he said. “It’s good that the European Commission is paving the way to diversify energy sources. In the end, it depends on the market price that companies are willing to pay whether an LNG tanker goes to Europe instead of, say, Asia.” With Timo Landenberger and Till Hoppe
The EU Commission wants to help data-driven business models in Europe get off the ground. The Data Act as a new legal framework is intended to make it easier for start-ups and smaller companies in particular to access valuable data. The authority plans to present its legislative proposal on February 23th. A draft of the project, initially planned for December, has now been released to the public.
Accordingly, special rules should apply to the state. If authorities request access to an organization’s data in crisis situations such as a pandemic, it must be provided quickly and free of charge. Authorities can also request data in “special circumstances” but must then pay the costs incurred “plus a reasonable margin”.
In the business world, it should generally remain up to the respective company whether it shares its data with others. But the Commission is proposing special rules for manufacturers of connected devices and related services active in the EU – the fast-growing area of the Internet of Things. This can include household appliances such as smart TVs as well as connected cars, medical devices, and machines.
Here, users, both private and business, should be able to demand access to data generated by them – immediately and free of charge. The manufacturers of virtual assistants (such as Amazon’s Alexa), for example, should be obliged to inform their customers in a comprehensible manner, even before the purchase, what kind of data the respective device collects.
In addition, users can demand that manufacturers make their data available to third parties. The Commission cites the agricultural sector as an example in its draft. There, a few agricultural machinery manufacturers dominate the market and “severely limit the ability of farmers and other small businesses to gain insight and value from the data they generate.” That, in turn, leads to farmers having no incentive to participate in shared data spaces, it says.
The clause is aimed in particular at the aftermarket sector, i.e. at strengthening repair stores. Car manufacturers and independent repair shops have been arguing for years about whether the latter should have access to maintenance-related data from vehicles.
Of note: according to the draft, the large digital corporations are to be left out, i.e., not allowed to profit from the data transfer. The clause refers to those companies that are classified as gatekeeper platforms under the Digital Markets Act. The Commission assumes here (and not without reason) that Google, Facebook, and others already have huge amounts of data at their disposal and derive enormous competitive advantages from it.
Manufacturers are allowed to charge a price for transferring data to third parties. However, in the case of small and medium-sized enterprises, this may not exceed the direct costs of the transfer, according to the draft. The member states are to set up arbitration bodies for disputes.
Criticism of the planned data access law comes from the mechanical engineering sector. It has been shown in the industry that the parties can find a negotiation result that is fair for both sides, says Niels Karssen, technical officer in the Brussels office of the VDMA. “A right to access and use data granted to the user or a third party by the user of the machines is, therefore, neither necessary nor purposeful.”
The Commission wants different rules to apply beyond the Internet of Things. There, a fairness test for data exchange agreements is to ensure that SMEs are not ripped off by stronger business partners. If a corresponding contract contains a number of provisions classified as unfair, it is void. However, the VDMA warns that these “black clauses” would lead to legal uncertainty. This has been shown by the negative experience in Germany with ABG control.
The Data Act contains special provisions for cloud providers. The large (US) providers, in particular, are often criticized for making it very difficult for their customers to switch to competitors. The Commission wants to break up this lock-in effect. Cloud providers are to be obliged to terminate service contracts after a maximum of 30 days and to enable “functional equivalence of the service in the IT environment of the other providers”. Moreover, to prevent access by security authorities from third countries, data processors are to take “all reasonable technical, legal and organizational measures.” With Jasmin Kohl
Victor van Hoorn joins the team meeting a few minutes late. He doesn’t have much time – just under half an hour. Then the next online appointment is already waiting. The Executive Director of Eurosif has a tight schedule because time is also pressing when it comes to sustainability and climate change. The 35-year-old has been the head of the Brussels-based organization for sustainable and responsible investment since June 2020, which is now just under a year and a half, and his mission is to promote the sustainability of European financial markets.
“We make sure that the voices of sustainable investors are heard by politicians and also taken into account, ” explains van Hoorn, who lives in Brussels with his girlfriend and plays soccer in an amateur team in his spare time. Currently, sustainable investments are not yet profitable in many cases and are therefore uninteresting for private investors. And that’s exactly what decision-makers within the EU need to focus on now.
To ensure this, Eurosif works closely with the EU Commission, the EU Parliament, and diplomats from the individual member states. In recent months, the EU taxonomy has been a particular focus. “This is a list of economic activities whose sustainability is assessed. This leads to passionate discussions. Especially when it comes to different energy sources,” he says. This clearly shows how much the understanding of sustainability in European countries diverges. France and Germany are very good examples of this in the area of nuclear energy.
Such debates are not new to Victor van Hoorn, who has a Dutch diplomat father and a French mother. Even in his youth, he recalls, his family would have lively discussions about political developments, historical events, and economics over dinner. “I still have one moment in my mind as very impressive,” he reports. “We were sitting around the table and my father was on a loudspeaker phone call. At that time, the Orange Revolution was taking place in Kyiv and he was in contact with the people on the Maidan. I was able to listen to everything live and was sort of there with the revolution.”
For van Hoorn, who was born in The Hague, this is also the basis for his later professional path. He studied law and economics and is licensed to practice law in the Netherlands and New York. “I worked as a lawyer for a few years. But for me, it was always more interesting how laws and regulations come about and how many factors play into it.” And that’s exactly why he now wants to influence what decisions are made himself. His goal: to pave the way for sustainable investments in the EU. Sarah Tekath
The current gas price crisis continues to preoccupy the European Union’s top politicians. In the view of Luxembourg’s Energy Minister Claude Turmes, only a package of measures will help: increase energy efficiency, expand renewable energies and diversify gas sources. The demand for gas will continue to fall. From a climate policy perspective, gas also has no future, says Turmes in an interview with Charlotte Wirth.
Today, the EU is continuing its search in Azerbaijan for possible alternatives to Russian gas supplies. In Baku, Energy Commissioner Kadri Simson is taking part in a meeting of the Advisory Council for the so-called “Southern Gas Corridor”. The meeting is to focus on a possible expansion of capacities for further deliveries to the west. However, expectations are not too high. “It is important for politicians to look at alternative energy suppliers. In the end, it is companies that have to decide on the market for supplies,” said BDI Chief Executive Joachim Lang Eric Bonse.
The EU Commission wants to help data-driven business models in Europe get off the ground. The Data Act as a new legal framework is intended to make it easier for start-ups and smaller companies in particular to access valuable data. A new draft shows: the EU Commission wants to make manufacturers of connected devices – from virtual assistants to cars – responsible for this. They are to give users access to data generated by them, and must also pass this on to other companies if they wish. This is intended to strengthen small repair businesses, for example. Till Hoppe has taken a close look at the draft Data Act.
Minister, you said a few weeks ago that the energy price crisis was a “short-term extreme situation”. Do you still believe that?
We are in an atypical situation; after all, a war between Russia and Ukraine is on the horizon. But the question we already had to ask ourselves during the last Russia-Ukraine crisis is how the EU is dealing with its dependence on Russia. During the first gas conflict between Russia and Ukraine in the mid-2000s, the EU diversified and built LNG ports, for example. If this diversification had not been carried out, we would be even more vulnerable to blackmail from Russia today. In the short term, we now need to take action to cushion prices for end-users. In the long term, we need to diversify our energy sources and use less gas.
Can we manage that? There are studies that say we will consume more, at least in the next few years, because gas is used as a bridging technology.
That is not correct. What is important with gas is the question of overall gas consumption in Europe. Consumption has been falling slightly in recent years. And it will fall by a third by 2030, especially in the heating sector – and that’s despite the fact that electricity consumption may rise slightly.
Mrs. von der Leyen is currently exploring where else gas could be purchased. If her negotiations bear fruit, who will pay? She has no mandate to negotiate and finance contracts.
I think these are more geopolitical negotiations, where you short-circuit with friendly governments – I’m thinking mainly of the US, Canada, Norway, – to see if they can help us out in the current situation, or even a war situation. But Ms. von der Leyen is not signing any treaties. I think that is an overinterpretation of her role. LNG will ultimately come to Europe because the European gas market currently offers a good price. However, we have to think about whether it doesn’t make sense to sign long-term contracts for LNG over the next few years in order to minimize our dependence on Russia.
Aren’t we then simply creating new dependencies? Let’s say we prefer to buy LNG from Qatar. That is not an unproblematic regime either.
The best gas policy is certainly energy efficiency, renewable energy, and diversification of gas sources. Once again, climate policy helps us reduce our gas consumption and our dependence on gas.
LNG is anything but climate-friendly; think of fracking, for example. Aren’t we now facing a tension between our demand for gas and our climate targets?
Gas leaks and methane leakage from gas fields and pipelines are not harmless either. That’s why it makes sense for the EU to finally come up with a methane strategy. And that is precisely why gas has no future.
But what about the transition period? At the moment, at least, we don’t seem to care where the gas comes from or how it’s produced. The important thing is that it flows.
Nevertheless. Fracking may be particularly bad, but the methane leakage from Russia is not harmless either. We shouldn’t think that Russian gas is particularly environmentally friendly.
Ultimately, the price determines where the LNG goes, and states where traders don’t also have to buy CO2 allowances have an advantage….
That is why we need an instrument against climate dumping, namely the CBAM. This is on the table and must now be negotiated quickly. This will protect our industry.
At the beginning of the gas crisis, they wanted to talk to Ms. Vestager about speculation on the gas market. Did that bear fruit?
Ms. Vestager and her team are monitoring the market very closely. The main issue at the moment is to check whether Gazprom has circumvented competition law. Such proceedings take time, but if there is enough evidence, then it is very efficient.
Is our problem perhaps also that renewable energies are not yet ready?
No, they are ready. However, we have the misfortune that France dreams so much about new nuclear power plants that it forgets to invest enough in renewable energies. In addition, the French power grid is under extreme stress because the old reactors are not on the grid due to material wear.
The previous German government is also to blame. Minister Altmaier had limited the expansion of solar energy. Then the construction of onshore wind energy was made almost impossible because the distance rules are so strict. That’s why I’m all the more pleased that with the new German government, Estonia, and Scotland, we now have governments that want to consistently expand renewable energies.
You are currently in talks with the penta-countries (Germany, Luxembourg, France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium, and Austria) so that gas storage facilities are more regulated and have to be filled up before the winters. How are the negotiations going?
The preliminary talks are going well. Most countries have understood that it is purposeful to regulate the storage facilities. They want to correct this mistake. In Germany, Climate Minister Habeck has already announced a law. Luxembourg currently holds the Penta chair. We want to coordinate the 575 TWh of gas storage that is in our countries in the future. If we can do that, it will be a huge step toward security of supply and price stability.
The current crisis may lead to a focus on the construction of new terminals, pipelines, and the like for fossil energies. Negotiations are currently underway to modernize the Energy Charter Treaty. Could this influence the negotiations? The EU is quite alone in wanting to adapt the treaty to the Paris climate goals.
The argument will certainly be used by the gas lobby. In the event of a crisis, all those who have always wanted to invest in fossil gas and will continue to do so will benefit. However, we are in a climate crisis. We should not forget that. The EU gas infrastructure would even have to suffice for a scenario in which Russia no longer supplies at all. So we don’t need to discuss further expansion of fossil gas infrastructure.
The EU Commission is continuing its search for alternatives to Russian gas supplies with a visit to Azerbaijan. Energy Commissioner Kadri Simson and Enlargement Commissioner Oliver Varhelyi are expected in the capital Baku on Friday, where they plan to attend a meeting of the Advisory Council for the so-called Southern Gas Corridor. It is the first time that Simson will attend this round in person, which underlines the high importance she attaches to gas supplies from Azerbaijan.
According to the EU Commission, the meeting will focus on the question of whether the Southern Gas Corridor can be expanded. Priority will be given to those EU countries that want to phase out coal. The meeting will also discuss the reduction of methane gas emissions. In addition to the high-level ministerial meeting, which will also be attended by numerous energy companies such as BP, Uniper, and LUKoil, Simson will hold bilateral talks with the energy minister of Azerbaijan.
The “bilaterals” will focus on Azerbaijan’s role in diversifying gas supplies in Europe, a Commission spokesman said. He also said that the possibility of expanding the capacity of the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) would be explored. So far, it stands at ten billion cubic meters a year. TAP has proven to be a stable and reliable supplier, the Brussels authority stresses.
However, quick results are not expected. Brussels says it is still too early to make statements about possible supply contracts. Azerbaijan’s ambassador to London, Elin Suleymanov, told the Bloomberg news agency that his country could expand gas supplies “in case of urgent need.” However, he said, it would not be possible to make up for the volume from Russia. This needs long-term planning, Suleymanov said, “It doesn’t work like someone comes along and says ‘give me more gas.’”
Jocopo Pepe, an energy expert at the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik in Berlin, expressed similar views. “Azerbaijan can be considered as an additional source, but only on a marginal scale. The Southern Gas Corridor is readily promoted by Azerbaijan as an alternative to Russian gas, but the volumes are not there. The capacities of the trans-Adriatic pipeline are limited to about ten to a maximum of 20 billion cubic meters per year. Around half of this goes to Turkey. The country represents a major outlet for gas from Azerbaijan.”
Most recently, Azerbaijan had expanded its deliveries to Turkey. According to estimates, the delivery capacities of the TAP pipeline are currently more than 80 percent utilized.
In addition to the technical restrictions, there are also political risks. Azerbaijan has been in the news for years with bribery and money laundering scandals in which German politicians and several MEPs were also involved. The so-called “Laundromat” continues to occupy the British judiciary to this day. On Tuesday, a judge in London sentenced an Azerbaijani MP to pay £5.6 million that were allegedly smuggled into the country illegally.
However, the EU Commission seems willing to overlook these scandals. Its move is primarily geopolitically motivated: Against the backdrop of the Ukraine conflict and possible sanctions against Russia, it is looking for ways to make the EU less dependent on Russian gas supplies. Brussels is also in contact with Qatar for this purpose. However, the emirate made it clear that it would not be able to meet Europe’s gas needs on its own. It is counting on a diplomatic solution, it said.
The Commission’s highest hopes are also pinned on the US. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and US President Biden announced last week that they would work closely together in the search for alternatives to Russian gas, with a particular focus on liquefied natural gas (LNG). Next Monday, Simson and EU foreign representative Josep Borrell will travel to Washington for the EU-US Energy Council. The transatlantic cooperation is to be concretized there.
The German industry association is skeptical: “Europe will not be able to replace substantial quantities of pipeline gas with LNG in a hurry. That would be expensive and time-consuming. Our European interests in energy supply are not congruent with American interests,” says BDI Managing Director Joachim Lang.
The fact that policymakers are looking at alternative energy suppliers is to be welcomed, he said. “It’s good that the European Commission is paving the way to diversify energy sources. In the end, it depends on the market price that companies are willing to pay whether an LNG tanker goes to Europe instead of, say, Asia.” With Timo Landenberger and Till Hoppe
The EU Commission wants to help data-driven business models in Europe get off the ground. The Data Act as a new legal framework is intended to make it easier for start-ups and smaller companies in particular to access valuable data. The authority plans to present its legislative proposal on February 23th. A draft of the project, initially planned for December, has now been released to the public.
Accordingly, special rules should apply to the state. If authorities request access to an organization’s data in crisis situations such as a pandemic, it must be provided quickly and free of charge. Authorities can also request data in “special circumstances” but must then pay the costs incurred “plus a reasonable margin”.
In the business world, it should generally remain up to the respective company whether it shares its data with others. But the Commission is proposing special rules for manufacturers of connected devices and related services active in the EU – the fast-growing area of the Internet of Things. This can include household appliances such as smart TVs as well as connected cars, medical devices, and machines.
Here, users, both private and business, should be able to demand access to data generated by them – immediately and free of charge. The manufacturers of virtual assistants (such as Amazon’s Alexa), for example, should be obliged to inform their customers in a comprehensible manner, even before the purchase, what kind of data the respective device collects.
In addition, users can demand that manufacturers make their data available to third parties. The Commission cites the agricultural sector as an example in its draft. There, a few agricultural machinery manufacturers dominate the market and “severely limit the ability of farmers and other small businesses to gain insight and value from the data they generate.” That, in turn, leads to farmers having no incentive to participate in shared data spaces, it says.
The clause is aimed in particular at the aftermarket sector, i.e. at strengthening repair stores. Car manufacturers and independent repair shops have been arguing for years about whether the latter should have access to maintenance-related data from vehicles.
Of note: according to the draft, the large digital corporations are to be left out, i.e., not allowed to profit from the data transfer. The clause refers to those companies that are classified as gatekeeper platforms under the Digital Markets Act. The Commission assumes here (and not without reason) that Google, Facebook, and others already have huge amounts of data at their disposal and derive enormous competitive advantages from it.
Manufacturers are allowed to charge a price for transferring data to third parties. However, in the case of small and medium-sized enterprises, this may not exceed the direct costs of the transfer, according to the draft. The member states are to set up arbitration bodies for disputes.
Criticism of the planned data access law comes from the mechanical engineering sector. It has been shown in the industry that the parties can find a negotiation result that is fair for both sides, says Niels Karssen, technical officer in the Brussels office of the VDMA. “A right to access and use data granted to the user or a third party by the user of the machines is, therefore, neither necessary nor purposeful.”
The Commission wants different rules to apply beyond the Internet of Things. There, a fairness test for data exchange agreements is to ensure that SMEs are not ripped off by stronger business partners. If a corresponding contract contains a number of provisions classified as unfair, it is void. However, the VDMA warns that these “black clauses” would lead to legal uncertainty. This has been shown by the negative experience in Germany with ABG control.
The Data Act contains special provisions for cloud providers. The large (US) providers, in particular, are often criticized for making it very difficult for their customers to switch to competitors. The Commission wants to break up this lock-in effect. Cloud providers are to be obliged to terminate service contracts after a maximum of 30 days and to enable “functional equivalence of the service in the IT environment of the other providers”. Moreover, to prevent access by security authorities from third countries, data processors are to take “all reasonable technical, legal and organizational measures.” With Jasmin Kohl
Victor van Hoorn joins the team meeting a few minutes late. He doesn’t have much time – just under half an hour. Then the next online appointment is already waiting. The Executive Director of Eurosif has a tight schedule because time is also pressing when it comes to sustainability and climate change. The 35-year-old has been the head of the Brussels-based organization for sustainable and responsible investment since June 2020, which is now just under a year and a half, and his mission is to promote the sustainability of European financial markets.
“We make sure that the voices of sustainable investors are heard by politicians and also taken into account, ” explains van Hoorn, who lives in Brussels with his girlfriend and plays soccer in an amateur team in his spare time. Currently, sustainable investments are not yet profitable in many cases and are therefore uninteresting for private investors. And that’s exactly what decision-makers within the EU need to focus on now.
To ensure this, Eurosif works closely with the EU Commission, the EU Parliament, and diplomats from the individual member states. In recent months, the EU taxonomy has been a particular focus. “This is a list of economic activities whose sustainability is assessed. This leads to passionate discussions. Especially when it comes to different energy sources,” he says. This clearly shows how much the understanding of sustainability in European countries diverges. France and Germany are very good examples of this in the area of nuclear energy.
Such debates are not new to Victor van Hoorn, who has a Dutch diplomat father and a French mother. Even in his youth, he recalls, his family would have lively discussions about political developments, historical events, and economics over dinner. “I still have one moment in my mind as very impressive,” he reports. “We were sitting around the table and my father was on a loudspeaker phone call. At that time, the Orange Revolution was taking place in Kyiv and he was in contact with the people on the Maidan. I was able to listen to everything live and was sort of there with the revolution.”
For van Hoorn, who was born in The Hague, this is also the basis for his later professional path. He studied law and economics and is licensed to practice law in the Netherlands and New York. “I worked as a lawyer for a few years. But for me, it was always more interesting how laws and regulations come about and how many factors play into it.” And that’s exactly why he now wants to influence what decisions are made himself. His goal: to pave the way for sustainable investments in the EU. Sarah Tekath
