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On Sunday, new state elections will be held in Saxony and Thuringia, and the results have the potential to shake up the political landscape in Germany. If the polls prove correct, the AfD could become the strongest force in both federal states with around 30 percent (in Saxony, CDU Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer is still denying this). If the result of the Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht is included, the two parties critical of The System could receive around half of the votes.
This scenario had already triggered unrest in political Berlin before last weekend; the suspected Islamist terrorist attack in Solingen has heightened concerns to the point of panic. The predictably disastrous performance of the SPD, Greens and FDP is also likely to further increase the centrifugal forces in the coalition. It is becoming more questionable whether the “traffic light” coalition will have the strength to stay together until the Bundestag elections in a year’s time.
Even if the coalition holds out, not much is likely to come together in the federal government. This does not bode well for the EU’s ability to act, especially as President Emmanuel Macron has also caused a hopeless mess in Paris.
For the time being, Ursula von der Leyen has little choice but to observe events from afar. Should the AfD actually become part of a state government (which the other parties will try to prevent), the Commission President may have to take a closer look at her toolbox for protecting democracy and the rule of law.
According to a new analysis by the Jacques Delors Centre at the Berlin Hertie School, she could well find what she is looking for there: Instruments such as the conditionality mechanism or the safeguard provisions of the EU structural funds could also be applied at regional level, writes author Luise Quaritsch. “So if a far-right state government in Thuringia were to violate the fundamental values of the Union, it could risk a serious conflict with the Commission and billions in EU funding.”
Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.
Europe is currently experiencing what supply shocks can do to the European economy. In 2022, first energy prices and then food prices skyrocketed. When prices did not normalize quickly enough, the ECB was forced to raise interest rates and thus reduce demand. It feared that it would otherwise lose its credibility.
Inflation has since normalized again, but at the price of weak economic development and increased pressure on the budgets of EU member states. Given the geopolitical tensions, further supply shocks cannot be ruled out.
“We had 30 to 40 years of economic stability thanks to the opening up of trade, the integration of China into the value chains and the generally calm geopolitical climate”, says Jens van ‘t Klooster about the period that came to an end in 2022 at the latest. During this phase, price policy was increasingly neglected due to a lack of necessity, says the Assistant Professor of Political Economy at the University of Amsterdam. States have simplified their toolbox more and more, so that today the only lever against inflation is the central bank’s key interest rate.
With these limited options, the central banks have now entered a period in which more supply shocks are threatening again – not only from wars, but also from climate change. A study by the International Monetary Fund estimates that climate change will increase inflation by 0.1 to 0.4 percentage points. Researchers from the ECB and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research are more pessimistic: in their study, they calculate an additional inflation of 0.3 to 1.2 percentage points per year – at least partly due to the effect of climate change on food prices.
David Barmes, Policy Fellow at the Grantham Research Institute for Climate and Environment at the London School of Economics, fears that the figures from these studies underestimate the risk. “It’s very difficult to project these figures because it depends on so many variables”, he tells Table.Briefings.
Barmes’ nightmare scenario: ever new supply shocks in which the ECB is forced to repeatedly raise interest rates, pushing the economy into depression and at the same time making investments in climate protection and climate adaptation more difficult.
Achim Wambach, Professor of Economics at the University of Mannheim and President of the Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW), also sees this danger. “That’s why there is a strong case for stepping up the fight against climate change”, he tells Table.Briefings.
But he warns: “Measures to combat climate change can also drive up inflation.” For example, the “sudden” expansion of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, which is planned for 2027, will lead to a sharp rise in energy prices, which could also trigger an inflation shock.
Wambach holds governments to account. They “need to become aware again that their actions have an impact on inflation”, says the ZEW President.
As far as the role of the central bank in climate protection is concerned, Wambach remains cautious. “The ECB must clearly focus on its price stability mandate. There is a high risk that it will otherwise lose its credibility”, he says. If price increases threaten to drive up inflation expectations, the ECB must use the interest rate hammer, even if the reason is a supply shock.
Jens van ‘t Klooster, on the other hand, believes that interest rate hikes are a bad instrument in the current context. Instead of promoting supply, they depress demand and primarily affect investment rather than consumer spending. And because renewable energies tend to require higher initial investment, the expansion of renewable energies is hit disproportionately hard.
The Dutch economist points out that ECB interest rate hikes have always been linked to higher oil prices. This is hardly surprising, as energy costs have the strongest influence on inflation in Europe of all price components. “From a price stability perspective, moving away from fossil fuels is a no-brainer”, says van ‘t Klooster.
He proposes that the ECB should spare climate protection measures from interest rate hikes. This is nothing new. “Sector-specific exemptions from interest rate hikes have a long history”, says the economist, referring to the Bundesbank, which spared export loans from interest rate hikes until 1996 – foreign trade was too important for the German economy.
However, in addition to the ECB, van ‘t Klooster also believes that governments and European institutions have a duty to act. In a study commissioned by the European Parliament, he and German economics professor Isabella Weber have outlined how a European pricing policy could work. A sectoral approach is important, focusing on those products and sectors where a supply shock has the greatest effect on overall inflation. Weber had identified the energy, housing, wholesale and food sectors in a separate study.
Each sector would then have to specifically analyze how resilience to supply shocks could be improved. Depending on this, subsidies to expand production capacities, price controls, larger compulsory stocks or other measures could be used.
However, the prerequisite for all these measures is a better data situation. Weber and van ‘t Klooster are therefore calling on the EU Commission and the ECB to collect more detailed data that will allow a better insight into the inflation-relevant value chains. Only with precise knowledge of the specific conditions in each sector could the right measures be identified.
Similar calls for better data and more technical expertise within European and national administrations are also coming from economic security experts. The EU has already taken the first steps in this direction with the Chips Act in the semiconductor industry, for example, as well as across sectors in the Internal Market Emergency and Resilience Act (IMERA).
In the latter case, the powers that the EU Commission would have liked to have been given to collect data, command production and create compulsory stocks were severely limited by the member states. The system proposed by Weber and van ‘t Klooster is therefore likely to meet with considerable resistance.
After the United States, Canada has now doubled the import prices of Chinese EVs. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau justified the move on the grounds that China was deliberately exporting cheap products from overcapacity in the country’s factories. The step is part of a global trend to keep Chinese imports out. This, in turn, forces Chinese companies to relocate investments from their domestic market to the target markets.
As expected, the Chinese government reacted angrily on Wednesday and threatened consequences. The embassy in Ottawa called the move “protectionist,” adding that it violated World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules and undermined trade cooperation between the two countries.
The decision was triggered at a cabinet meeting, which US security adviser Jake Sullivan reportedly also attended: The import of Chinese EVs to Canada has increased almost fivefold within a year. However, most of the attention initially fell on Tesla. After all, the tariffs also affect cars from the US brand that are manufactured in Shanghai and thus run counter to company founder Elon Musk’s strategy of manufacturing cars at a large local plant at a Chinese cost and selling them worldwide.
A Canadian government spokesperson openly told the news agency Reuters that Tesla should supply the Canadian market from North America – in other words, from the USA. This would mean no tariffs. The goal is clear: Sales should serve the regional labor market; Canada doesn’t want to become the bargain bin for the enormous capacities of the Chinese economy.
China’s trade surplus rose to a record high of 99 billion US dollars in June, making all other economies nervous at the moment. After all, one person’s surplus is another’s deficit. China’s export success can be attributed to low prices thanks to high subsidies.
With 1.6 million cars sold in 2023, Canada is a significant car market. However, it is significantly smaller than, for example, the German market with 2.8 million vehicles sold. More importantly, the Canadian move is part of a global trend. As is well known, the EU is also imposing tariffs on Chinese EVs from October, and many other economies are closing their doors. Not just for cars: Indonesia slaps tariffs of up to 200 percent on textiles from China, and Malaysia cracks down on direct imports through shopping platforms.
Compared to the flat-rate tariffs of 100 percent imposed by the USA and Canada, the EU tariffs have a differentiated effect. They range between 17 and 36.3 percent and were calculated according to an analysis of the subsidies granted to individual manufacturers. This makes the EU’s tariffs much less political than the North American ones. Nevertheless, China also accuses Brussels of arbitrariness. The state media accuse the EU of blindly following the USA into a trade conflict.
Despite Chinese opposition, the tariffs are already having an effect. And they are heading right where the EU wants them to. As Xpeng CEO He Xiaopeng told Bloomberg, the EV manufacturer is considering building a plant and data centers in Europe.
Other Chinese brands are pursuing similar plans. BYD is building a factory in Hungary, Geely is moving to Slovakia and Chery is already producing in Spain. China’s investments in factories in the European economic area are thus growing substantially.
Local production helps avoid import duties, which is why Toyota started to set up plants in the USA and Europe in the early 1980s. As Japanese companies established themselves as domestic manufacturers, they no longer faced any reservations. Today, they are considered good employers.
Turkey successfully pulled off a different maneuver: Ankara first announced high tariffs on Chinese electric cars but withdrew the plan after BYD announced a large investment in the country.
Environmental activists have sued the European Commission over its 2030 emissions regulations before the European Court of Justice. According to statements from the NGOs Climate Action Network Europe (CAN Europe) and Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) on Tuesday, they seek a ruling from the EU’s second-highest court that would compel the Commission to strengthen its climate ambitions.
The lawsuit concerns the national greenhouse gas reduction targets under the Effort Sharing Regulation (ESR) – also known as burden sharing. It covers the sectors of transportation, agriculture, buildings, waste, and parts of industry that are not included in the European emissions trading system, setting national reduction targets up to the year 2030.
The NGOs argue that the limits are insufficient to quickly reduce Europe’s greenhouse gas emissions to meet the Paris climate goals. A lawyer representing the NGOs said the EU’s targets are not science-based. The organizations demand that wealthy nations and major historical polluters like the EU take faster action.
According to a letter from the court to the plaintiffs’ lawyers, obtained by Reuters, the court has prioritized the case. This could mean that it will be heard in 2025. The lawsuit was originally filed in February but was not made public at the time. In a written defense submitted to the court in July, which was seen by Reuters, the Commission requested the court to dismiss the case as inadmissible. The court did not comply with that request.
In France, Socialists and Greens are refusing further talks with President Emmanuel Macron regarding the formation of a government and are instead calling on their supporters to join mass protests. This response came after Macron rejected the idea of a planned minority government led by the left-wing alliance. Macron stated that such a government would quickly be toppled by a no-confidence vote in parliament. As president, he said, he would not pave the way for a leftist prime minister. France, he insisted, needs a stable government. Macron intended to hold further discussions with party leaders on Tuesday.
Forming a government has been difficult since the election about seven weeks ago. Macron’s alliance lost its majority. The left-wing alliance Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP) performed the strongest, with Macron’s bloc and the far-right around Marine Le Pen following closely behind. However, no coalition between them has yet been formed.
“This election is being stolen from us”, complained the leader of the Greens, Marine Tondelier, on local radio after Macron’s rejection. “We will not hold further talks with a president who doesn’t listen anyway… and who is obsessed with maintaining control.” Olivier Faure, leader of the Socialists, told the France 2 television channel that he would no longer participate in a “parody of democracy”. La France Insoumise, a far-left group within the NFP, called on supporters to demonstrate on Sept. 7th.
The French constitution grants the president the freedom to appoint whoever he chooses as prime minister. However, this person must be able to survive no-confidence votes from the opposition in parliament. Regardless of its composition, the new government will face difficult tasks ahead, particularly the drafting of a budget for 2025. Due to high new debt, France is under pressure from the European Commission and the bond markets.
Perhaps you sometimes feel the same way: You just want to have a quick look at what’s new on Instagram, TikTok, X or even Facebook – and you get lost in the endless supply of content. You’re fascinated by a sloth slowly crossing the road, then by a terrifying deep-sea monster and then by cute cat photos.
Or the content follows political discussions from stick to stick – and you succumb to the “rabbit hole effect“, as the European Commission calls it. Social media platforms are designed in such a way that users lose themselves in them like in a rabbit hole, unable to find a way out – and become addicted after consumption, similar to sugar.
Worldwide, the average use of social media is an astonishing two and a half hours per day. The Center for European Policy (cep) has investigated the consequences and evaluated a total of around 40 international studies in a meta-analysis. The result is that social media platforms are indeed addictive. The good news, however, is that the psychological damage is usually low, says the cep. A little sugar in your coffee – or a few minutes on Instagram – does no harm. But when one sugar in your coffee turns into a whole cake every hour, you will feel the consequences very soon.
Refined sugar causes blood sugar levels to skyrocket, known as a sugar rush, only for them to plummet even lower than before. It’s a similar story to social media: it can make you instantly happy in the short term, but the long-term effects can be quite bitter. The study reveals that many users feel exhausted and drained after excessive social media consumption, much like after a sugar rush.
The sad thing is that around a third of users want to spend less time on social media, but cannot manage to do so due to their addiction. The study suggests that we should go on a bit more of a “digital diet” now and then. As with a healthy diet, this could be achieved by providing clear warnings and reducing tempting elements on platforms. Perhaps the digital sugar content of social media should be better regulated to help users avoid falling into a sweet but harmful addiction.
With a view to a possible adaptation of EU regulation, cep digital expert Matthias Kullas suggests that certain design elements be restricted. These include push notifications and the ability to scroll or stream indefinitely. A ban on addictive algorithms is also possible.
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has already announced that the Commission intends to take action against the addictive design of social media platforms in this mandate. She has already taken the first steps against Meta and TikTok. This will probably not make our lives any less cute – after all, there are also cute animals outside of social media who benefit from our love and attention.
On Sunday, new state elections will be held in Saxony and Thuringia, and the results have the potential to shake up the political landscape in Germany. If the polls prove correct, the AfD could become the strongest force in both federal states with around 30 percent (in Saxony, CDU Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer is still denying this). If the result of the Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht is included, the two parties critical of The System could receive around half of the votes.
This scenario had already triggered unrest in political Berlin before last weekend; the suspected Islamist terrorist attack in Solingen has heightened concerns to the point of panic. The predictably disastrous performance of the SPD, Greens and FDP is also likely to further increase the centrifugal forces in the coalition. It is becoming more questionable whether the “traffic light” coalition will have the strength to stay together until the Bundestag elections in a year’s time.
Even if the coalition holds out, not much is likely to come together in the federal government. This does not bode well for the EU’s ability to act, especially as President Emmanuel Macron has also caused a hopeless mess in Paris.
For the time being, Ursula von der Leyen has little choice but to observe events from afar. Should the AfD actually become part of a state government (which the other parties will try to prevent), the Commission President may have to take a closer look at her toolbox for protecting democracy and the rule of law.
According to a new analysis by the Jacques Delors Centre at the Berlin Hertie School, she could well find what she is looking for there: Instruments such as the conditionality mechanism or the safeguard provisions of the EU structural funds could also be applied at regional level, writes author Luise Quaritsch. “So if a far-right state government in Thuringia were to violate the fundamental values of the Union, it could risk a serious conflict with the Commission and billions in EU funding.”
Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.
Europe is currently experiencing what supply shocks can do to the European economy. In 2022, first energy prices and then food prices skyrocketed. When prices did not normalize quickly enough, the ECB was forced to raise interest rates and thus reduce demand. It feared that it would otherwise lose its credibility.
Inflation has since normalized again, but at the price of weak economic development and increased pressure on the budgets of EU member states. Given the geopolitical tensions, further supply shocks cannot be ruled out.
“We had 30 to 40 years of economic stability thanks to the opening up of trade, the integration of China into the value chains and the generally calm geopolitical climate”, says Jens van ‘t Klooster about the period that came to an end in 2022 at the latest. During this phase, price policy was increasingly neglected due to a lack of necessity, says the Assistant Professor of Political Economy at the University of Amsterdam. States have simplified their toolbox more and more, so that today the only lever against inflation is the central bank’s key interest rate.
With these limited options, the central banks have now entered a period in which more supply shocks are threatening again – not only from wars, but also from climate change. A study by the International Monetary Fund estimates that climate change will increase inflation by 0.1 to 0.4 percentage points. Researchers from the ECB and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research are more pessimistic: in their study, they calculate an additional inflation of 0.3 to 1.2 percentage points per year – at least partly due to the effect of climate change on food prices.
David Barmes, Policy Fellow at the Grantham Research Institute for Climate and Environment at the London School of Economics, fears that the figures from these studies underestimate the risk. “It’s very difficult to project these figures because it depends on so many variables”, he tells Table.Briefings.
Barmes’ nightmare scenario: ever new supply shocks in which the ECB is forced to repeatedly raise interest rates, pushing the economy into depression and at the same time making investments in climate protection and climate adaptation more difficult.
Achim Wambach, Professor of Economics at the University of Mannheim and President of the Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW), also sees this danger. “That’s why there is a strong case for stepping up the fight against climate change”, he tells Table.Briefings.
But he warns: “Measures to combat climate change can also drive up inflation.” For example, the “sudden” expansion of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, which is planned for 2027, will lead to a sharp rise in energy prices, which could also trigger an inflation shock.
Wambach holds governments to account. They “need to become aware again that their actions have an impact on inflation”, says the ZEW President.
As far as the role of the central bank in climate protection is concerned, Wambach remains cautious. “The ECB must clearly focus on its price stability mandate. There is a high risk that it will otherwise lose its credibility”, he says. If price increases threaten to drive up inflation expectations, the ECB must use the interest rate hammer, even if the reason is a supply shock.
Jens van ‘t Klooster, on the other hand, believes that interest rate hikes are a bad instrument in the current context. Instead of promoting supply, they depress demand and primarily affect investment rather than consumer spending. And because renewable energies tend to require higher initial investment, the expansion of renewable energies is hit disproportionately hard.
The Dutch economist points out that ECB interest rate hikes have always been linked to higher oil prices. This is hardly surprising, as energy costs have the strongest influence on inflation in Europe of all price components. “From a price stability perspective, moving away from fossil fuels is a no-brainer”, says van ‘t Klooster.
He proposes that the ECB should spare climate protection measures from interest rate hikes. This is nothing new. “Sector-specific exemptions from interest rate hikes have a long history”, says the economist, referring to the Bundesbank, which spared export loans from interest rate hikes until 1996 – foreign trade was too important for the German economy.
However, in addition to the ECB, van ‘t Klooster also believes that governments and European institutions have a duty to act. In a study commissioned by the European Parliament, he and German economics professor Isabella Weber have outlined how a European pricing policy could work. A sectoral approach is important, focusing on those products and sectors where a supply shock has the greatest effect on overall inflation. Weber had identified the energy, housing, wholesale and food sectors in a separate study.
Each sector would then have to specifically analyze how resilience to supply shocks could be improved. Depending on this, subsidies to expand production capacities, price controls, larger compulsory stocks or other measures could be used.
However, the prerequisite for all these measures is a better data situation. Weber and van ‘t Klooster are therefore calling on the EU Commission and the ECB to collect more detailed data that will allow a better insight into the inflation-relevant value chains. Only with precise knowledge of the specific conditions in each sector could the right measures be identified.
Similar calls for better data and more technical expertise within European and national administrations are also coming from economic security experts. The EU has already taken the first steps in this direction with the Chips Act in the semiconductor industry, for example, as well as across sectors in the Internal Market Emergency and Resilience Act (IMERA).
In the latter case, the powers that the EU Commission would have liked to have been given to collect data, command production and create compulsory stocks were severely limited by the member states. The system proposed by Weber and van ‘t Klooster is therefore likely to meet with considerable resistance.
After the United States, Canada has now doubled the import prices of Chinese EVs. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau justified the move on the grounds that China was deliberately exporting cheap products from overcapacity in the country’s factories. The step is part of a global trend to keep Chinese imports out. This, in turn, forces Chinese companies to relocate investments from their domestic market to the target markets.
As expected, the Chinese government reacted angrily on Wednesday and threatened consequences. The embassy in Ottawa called the move “protectionist,” adding that it violated World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules and undermined trade cooperation between the two countries.
The decision was triggered at a cabinet meeting, which US security adviser Jake Sullivan reportedly also attended: The import of Chinese EVs to Canada has increased almost fivefold within a year. However, most of the attention initially fell on Tesla. After all, the tariffs also affect cars from the US brand that are manufactured in Shanghai and thus run counter to company founder Elon Musk’s strategy of manufacturing cars at a large local plant at a Chinese cost and selling them worldwide.
A Canadian government spokesperson openly told the news agency Reuters that Tesla should supply the Canadian market from North America – in other words, from the USA. This would mean no tariffs. The goal is clear: Sales should serve the regional labor market; Canada doesn’t want to become the bargain bin for the enormous capacities of the Chinese economy.
China’s trade surplus rose to a record high of 99 billion US dollars in June, making all other economies nervous at the moment. After all, one person’s surplus is another’s deficit. China’s export success can be attributed to low prices thanks to high subsidies.
With 1.6 million cars sold in 2023, Canada is a significant car market. However, it is significantly smaller than, for example, the German market with 2.8 million vehicles sold. More importantly, the Canadian move is part of a global trend. As is well known, the EU is also imposing tariffs on Chinese EVs from October, and many other economies are closing their doors. Not just for cars: Indonesia slaps tariffs of up to 200 percent on textiles from China, and Malaysia cracks down on direct imports through shopping platforms.
Compared to the flat-rate tariffs of 100 percent imposed by the USA and Canada, the EU tariffs have a differentiated effect. They range between 17 and 36.3 percent and were calculated according to an analysis of the subsidies granted to individual manufacturers. This makes the EU’s tariffs much less political than the North American ones. Nevertheless, China also accuses Brussels of arbitrariness. The state media accuse the EU of blindly following the USA into a trade conflict.
Despite Chinese opposition, the tariffs are already having an effect. And they are heading right where the EU wants them to. As Xpeng CEO He Xiaopeng told Bloomberg, the EV manufacturer is considering building a plant and data centers in Europe.
Other Chinese brands are pursuing similar plans. BYD is building a factory in Hungary, Geely is moving to Slovakia and Chery is already producing in Spain. China’s investments in factories in the European economic area are thus growing substantially.
Local production helps avoid import duties, which is why Toyota started to set up plants in the USA and Europe in the early 1980s. As Japanese companies established themselves as domestic manufacturers, they no longer faced any reservations. Today, they are considered good employers.
Turkey successfully pulled off a different maneuver: Ankara first announced high tariffs on Chinese electric cars but withdrew the plan after BYD announced a large investment in the country.
Environmental activists have sued the European Commission over its 2030 emissions regulations before the European Court of Justice. According to statements from the NGOs Climate Action Network Europe (CAN Europe) and Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) on Tuesday, they seek a ruling from the EU’s second-highest court that would compel the Commission to strengthen its climate ambitions.
The lawsuit concerns the national greenhouse gas reduction targets under the Effort Sharing Regulation (ESR) – also known as burden sharing. It covers the sectors of transportation, agriculture, buildings, waste, and parts of industry that are not included in the European emissions trading system, setting national reduction targets up to the year 2030.
The NGOs argue that the limits are insufficient to quickly reduce Europe’s greenhouse gas emissions to meet the Paris climate goals. A lawyer representing the NGOs said the EU’s targets are not science-based. The organizations demand that wealthy nations and major historical polluters like the EU take faster action.
According to a letter from the court to the plaintiffs’ lawyers, obtained by Reuters, the court has prioritized the case. This could mean that it will be heard in 2025. The lawsuit was originally filed in February but was not made public at the time. In a written defense submitted to the court in July, which was seen by Reuters, the Commission requested the court to dismiss the case as inadmissible. The court did not comply with that request.
In France, Socialists and Greens are refusing further talks with President Emmanuel Macron regarding the formation of a government and are instead calling on their supporters to join mass protests. This response came after Macron rejected the idea of a planned minority government led by the left-wing alliance. Macron stated that such a government would quickly be toppled by a no-confidence vote in parliament. As president, he said, he would not pave the way for a leftist prime minister. France, he insisted, needs a stable government. Macron intended to hold further discussions with party leaders on Tuesday.
Forming a government has been difficult since the election about seven weeks ago. Macron’s alliance lost its majority. The left-wing alliance Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP) performed the strongest, with Macron’s bloc and the far-right around Marine Le Pen following closely behind. However, no coalition between them has yet been formed.
“This election is being stolen from us”, complained the leader of the Greens, Marine Tondelier, on local radio after Macron’s rejection. “We will not hold further talks with a president who doesn’t listen anyway… and who is obsessed with maintaining control.” Olivier Faure, leader of the Socialists, told the France 2 television channel that he would no longer participate in a “parody of democracy”. La France Insoumise, a far-left group within the NFP, called on supporters to demonstrate on Sept. 7th.
The French constitution grants the president the freedom to appoint whoever he chooses as prime minister. However, this person must be able to survive no-confidence votes from the opposition in parliament. Regardless of its composition, the new government will face difficult tasks ahead, particularly the drafting of a budget for 2025. Due to high new debt, France is under pressure from the European Commission and the bond markets.
Perhaps you sometimes feel the same way: You just want to have a quick look at what’s new on Instagram, TikTok, X or even Facebook – and you get lost in the endless supply of content. You’re fascinated by a sloth slowly crossing the road, then by a terrifying deep-sea monster and then by cute cat photos.
Or the content follows political discussions from stick to stick – and you succumb to the “rabbit hole effect“, as the European Commission calls it. Social media platforms are designed in such a way that users lose themselves in them like in a rabbit hole, unable to find a way out – and become addicted after consumption, similar to sugar.
Worldwide, the average use of social media is an astonishing two and a half hours per day. The Center for European Policy (cep) has investigated the consequences and evaluated a total of around 40 international studies in a meta-analysis. The result is that social media platforms are indeed addictive. The good news, however, is that the psychological damage is usually low, says the cep. A little sugar in your coffee – or a few minutes on Instagram – does no harm. But when one sugar in your coffee turns into a whole cake every hour, you will feel the consequences very soon.
Refined sugar causes blood sugar levels to skyrocket, known as a sugar rush, only for them to plummet even lower than before. It’s a similar story to social media: it can make you instantly happy in the short term, but the long-term effects can be quite bitter. The study reveals that many users feel exhausted and drained after excessive social media consumption, much like after a sugar rush.
The sad thing is that around a third of users want to spend less time on social media, but cannot manage to do so due to their addiction. The study suggests that we should go on a bit more of a “digital diet” now and then. As with a healthy diet, this could be achieved by providing clear warnings and reducing tempting elements on platforms. Perhaps the digital sugar content of social media should be better regulated to help users avoid falling into a sweet but harmful addiction.
With a view to a possible adaptation of EU regulation, cep digital expert Matthias Kullas suggests that certain design elements be restricted. These include push notifications and the ability to scroll or stream indefinitely. A ban on addictive algorithms is also possible.
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has already announced that the Commission intends to take action against the addictive design of social media platforms in this mandate. She has already taken the first steps against Meta and TikTok. This will probably not make our lives any less cute – after all, there are also cute animals outside of social media who benefit from our love and attention.