The industry is applying pressure. As the international trade environment darkens, the focus of major European companies is turning back to the domestic market. The day before yesterday, the European chemical and heavy industry launched its appeal for an “Industrial Deal”, today the “European Roundtable for Industry” (ERT) is hosting a major rendezvous in the Brussels Auto Museum.
In addition to CEOs and other company representatives, Commission Vice-President Margrethe Vestager and Belgian Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Hadja Lahbib will also be there. Enrico Letta, who is due to speak about his internal market report in Parliament’s internal market committee shortly beforehand, will also be present.
The ERT was already a driving force at the birth of the single market. Now the industrial alliance is calling for a new “Delors moment” to deepen the integration of the single market. In two publications that the ERT will present today, European industry points out the obstacles that are particularly troubling them: from the lack of a capital market union to difficulties with the posting of workers.
The industrialists, plagued by existential fears, also want a more business-friendly reorganization of the EU Commission. This is why they are putting forward the idea of a new Directorate-General for Market Integration (DG MINT).
So the ideas and wishes for a sustainable European industry are there. Let’s hope they work – otherwise, the industrialists in the museum will soon no longer be guests, but part of the inventory.
The EU’s CO2 fleet legislation is coming under pressure. The German CDU and CSU will go into the European elections with the demand to revise the stipulated ban on combustion engines in 2035. This will put pressure on Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who is seeking a second term in office as the lead candidate of the Christian Democratic party family EPP.
In her first term of office, the Commission proposed the end of the combustion engine. It remains to be seen whether the CDU politician will adopt the demands of the parties nominating her. At her official presentation as EPP lead candidate by EPP leader Manfred Weber, she evaded the question and referred to the legal situation: “In 2035, the CO2 fleet limits must fall to zero”, she said in response to a question from Table.Media. She mentioned the Commission’s proposal, which would allow new vehicles to run exclusively on e-fuels even after 2035. However, this proposal has not yet found a majority in the Council.
Von der Leyen also referred to the review of the CO2 fleet legislation provided for in the law in 2026. The Commission could then make a proposal to revise the CO2 fleet legislation and, as part of this, also withdraw the ban on combustion engines. It would also be possible to allow manufacturers to offset e-fuels against the CO2 fleet limits. However, it remains to be seen whether the next Commission will take this route.
There were no majorities in favor of a future for the combustion engine in either the Council or the European Parliament during the current legislative period. Supporters of the technology hope that the majorities will change with the European elections from June 2-9. The number of states governed by Christian Democrats has also recently increased in the body of member states.
The industry is starting to move. Important suppliers consider the politically imposed end of the combustion engine in 2035 to be premature. They calculate that “the combustion engine will always have a market share of 15 percent“, as representatives told Table.Media.
So far, the major suppliers have not publicly called for the end of the combustion engine. However, according to information available to Table.Media, companies are currently rethinking their communication strategy on the combustion engine. The political department of a major German supplier says: “The suppliers would be happy if the end of the combustion engine was overturned.”
Benjamin Krieger from the European umbrella association of suppliers Clepa is in favor of tackling the CO2 fleet legislation once again: “Automotive suppliers stand for technological openness and climate protection.” All technologies that contribute to reducing emissions should do so: electromobility, hydrogen, renewable fuels. “To achieve this, we need CO2 regulation that ensures emissions reduction without prescribing technologies. The regulatory review should take this into account.”
Car manufacturers have largely committed themselves to e-mobility. Their investment plans are based on selling 70 percent of vehicles with battery-electric drives by 2030. VW, for example, plans to invest in combustion technology for the last time in 2024 and 2025, but will then significantly reduce the sums involved.
However, there are also initial signs of a rethink among manufacturers. Mercedes boss Ola Källenius recently weakened the goal of going fully electric from 2030 “wherever the market situation allows”. He said that even well after 2030, customers would “naturally” still be able to get combustion engines from Mercedes.
BMW boss Oliver Zipse has always called for technological neutrality. In his previous role as head of Porsche, VW boss Oliver Blume ensured that Porsche itself got involved in the production of climate-neutral fuels in Chile. So far, however, he has not indicated whether he sees e-fuels as a solution for the VW parent company.
In 2030, the CO2 fleet legislation will only allow manufacturers in the EU to register new cars that emit an average of less than 50 grams of CO2 per kilometer driven. If the target is not met, there is a risk of fines. This corresponds to a consumption of two liters per hundred kilometers. The EU regulation therefore represents a major obstacle for manufacturers to produce economical combustion engines. Scientists assume that current technology can be used to build highly economical diesel engines that get by on around three liters of diesel per 100 kilometers.
Despite EU regulations, manufacturers have not stopped developing combustion engines. Next week, for example, Porsche will present a new eight-cylinder engine at a VDI engine congress in Baden-Baden. Mercedes is developing a new four-cylinder engine for a passenger car with Chinese partners. Renault has contributed its combustion engine technology to a joint venture with Chinese partners. The company is called Aurobay and has announced that it will produce eight million engines for passenger cars per year in 19 plants worldwide “in the long term”.
In the most important export markets for German manufacturers – China, the USA and the UK – there is a trend back towards combustion engines. US President Joe Biden recently cut back on the ambitious EV strategy. The planned ramp-up of the technology should be slowed down. If Donald Trump returns, a renaissance of the combustion engine is likely. The UK has postponed the planned 2030 phase-out of the combustion engine by five years.
Even in China, the world’s largest car market, the combustion engine will continue to be used: According to an estimate by the Chinese government last year, the combustion engine will play a “decisive role” in operation with e-fuels until 2060.
If the ban on combustion engines is overturned, this would have consequences for the EU’s climate targets. More vehicles with combustion engines would be registered than planned and CO2 emissions in traffic would therefore be higher. Unless vehicles with combustion engines were to be fueled exclusively with climate-neutral e-fuels after 2035. The CO2 fleet legislation is part of the Green Deal and ensures that the EU reduces CO2 emissions by 55% in 2035 compared to 1990. The EU Commission wants to reduce CO2 emissions by 90 percent by 2040 and be climate-neutral by 2050 at the latest. Von der Leyen emphasized yesterday: “We must achieve our climate targets.”
The Commission’s impact assessment for the 2040 climate target is based on the phase-out of the technology in 2035, according to which the proportion of combustion engines in the passenger car fleet would fall to 26% by 2040. Ten years later, according to the Commission, combustion engines will only account for two percent. According to the Commission’s plans, the share of battery-electric cars should be 57 percent by 2040 and 79 percent by 2050.
The impact assessment on the share of e-fuels is not as precise. It states that a good ten percent of energy consumption could be covered by e-fuels by 2040. By 2050, however, the share would then fall significantly. If the end of combustion engines were to come to an end, these figures would be a waste of time. With Claire Stam
Commission Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis and Economic Affairs Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni presented a successful interim assessment of the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) yesterday, Wednesday. It had created trust in a difficult time, Dombrovskis said at the press conference. Gentiloni recalled that the announcement of the RRF had helped to reduce the spreads between European government bonds.
So far, €225 billion have already been paid out to member states. According to the Commission, this money has had the following effects, among others:
Last autumn, a report by the European Court of Auditors criticized the fact that although the EU Commission’s measurement methodology was good at measuring the fulfillment of plans, reform steps and payments, it was not suitable for auditing the final result.
Lydia Korinek, economic policy consultant at the ZOE Institute, also criticizes the EU Commission’s indicators. They say little about the long-term effects of the RRF. In any case, she argued that it was too early to properly determine the impact of the RRF.
Nevertheless, Korinek sees the outcome of the RRF as positive overall. “It is very good to think about the short and long-term goals together“, she said about the RRF’s approach of allocating European money in return for national reforms and investments in European priorities.
In a study for the ZOE Institute, she found that the resilience of the European economy has not declined thanks to the RRF, despite all the crises of recent years. In addition, economic resilience has improved, especially in those member states that have benefited most from the RRF.
Sander Tordoir, Senior Economist at the Centre for European Reform (CER), said that the RRF must be assessed differently based on its various objectives. The primary objective of providing member states with a fiscal bridge at a time when economic demand collapsed had worked. Thanks to the RRF, fiscal policy and monetary policy had pulled in the same direction and thus prevented an economic crisis like the one in 2012/13.
According to Tordoir, the second objective, namely to promote investment in European priorities, has so far been achieved with varying degrees of success depending on the member state.
This is also where Monika Hohlmeier’s criticism comes in. The EPP MEP is Chair of the Committee on Budgetary Control in the European Parliament. Even though she thinks the idea of the RRF is right, she rates its implementation as “pretty mediocre and fraught with problems.”
“There is not enough administrative capacity in many member states to spend the huge sums properly, effectively and in a targeted manner.” Hohlmeier therefore emphasizes that the RRF should remain “a one-off and temporary exception”.
The EU Commission does not necessarily see it that way. In one of the less critical words it says about the RRF, it does admit that there is still room for improvement in the administrative capacity of the member states. For them, however, the RRF is also a test of how the EU should deal with future challenges.
While Dombrovskis is very reluctant to comment on future examples of the use of an RRF-like instrument, Economic Affairs Commissioner Gentiloni is more proactive. In his opinion, the EU should examine in the next political cycle whether a similar instrument would be suitable for overcoming European challenges in the area of defense.
Although Hohlmeier welcomes the fact that the area of defense is being addressed at European level, she is opposed to an RRF-like fund with this purpose. “I am convinced that a stand-alone comprehensive defense program should run through the EU budget to ensure control and compliance with the objectives by the EU Parliament,” she said. The RRF model is much more susceptible to fraud.
Tordoir is also skeptical about a defense RRF. “This type of debt-financed fiscal capacity should be reserved for EU-wide recessions“, he says. Public goods such as defense, for example, cannot be financed by debt for all eternity. The EU’s income base is too narrow for that.
Korinek, on the other hand, points out that the EU will face a “huge fiscal cliff” when the current RRF expires in 2027 and thanks to the new EU debt rules. This must be overcome, especially if a European industrial policy is to be successful. “It doesn’t necessarily have to be debt, but it has to be European”, she says.
Is the telecommunications market in Europe dysfunctional or not? It has long been known that EU Digital Commissioner Thierry Breton considers the telecommunications providers in the EU to be too small. The proposals that were leaked last week are mainly characterized by the fact that Breton and Vestager want to leave the door open for one of the most controversial issues of the telecommunications markets: the so-called sender-pays or fair-share model.
Table.Media has reported many times why the criticism of this idea is so vociferous: There is a massive imbalance in terms of which service provider sends which internet traffic on its way. Traffic-intensive providers such as Amazon or Netflix account for the lion’s share of network traffic. However, they are also the main reason why users book expensive high-speed Internet access and buy 4k monitors and televisions in the first place: There is virtually no traffic without a user to cause it. Accordingly, the Commission’s initiative did not fall on fertile soil beyond the largest telecommunications providers in this legislature either, but instead met with massive criticism.
Nevertheless, the Commission’s white paper assumes that all segments will merge in the future, from the backbone and mobile communications to cloud services and content providers. Therefore, both the legal framework and the cost structures should be revised and adapted. “We need to create a level playing field for a genuine Digital Single Market to trigger the investments that will make it possible to build the digital network infrastructures of tomorrow”, says Breton.
However, it is by no means certain that content and network providers will merge in the future. This trend has been predicted for 20 years – but it has never happened in Europe and has not been scientifically proven.
After all, the separation of network infrastructure and content was the Internet’s success model. The fact that this is actually changing with the cloud, IoT, 6G and many other current developments is yet to be seen in reality. This is also because the regulatory framework is deliberately making this more difficult. However, Breton fears that EU telecommunications companies may not be strong enough for the competition of the future and that sooner or later they will be sold off.
However, the EU Commission does not seem entirely convinced: Pilot projects should first show what such a scaling 3C network would look like in practice. EU officials explain that this could be tested in the automotive and telemedicine sectors with large-scale pilots. These are both applications that major telecommunications companies have been predicting as the near future for almost 20 years.
The proposal also contains less far-reaching changes. However, these are also controversial, particularly among the member states. While the regulators regularly see little need for action when it comes to spectrum policy, for example, Breton would prefer to transfer responsibility for this entirely to Brussels and thus create uniform standards across Europe.
And the idea that the copper phase-out of broadband connections should take place in a more coordinated manner also sounds charming at first – setting a real target date of 2030 would perhaps give some copper-based business models a leg up.
However, Breton once again combines this with a proposal to disempower national regulators: the White Paper sees a preliminary product for fiber optic access as a regulatory necessity. Whoever has the fiber must share it with competitors – and the EU Commission could monitor this instead of the regulatory authorities, as this should be uniform throughout Europe. The fact that this will still not meet with approval does not require any fortune-telling skills.
To tackle a fundamental revision of the legal framework, which has just been revised several times, in the coming legislative period, many passages of the white paper still sound very vague. An EU official said today: “At this stage, it is still very early to predict what should be done.” This is one of the reasons why experts were consulted first and a public consultation will now follow.
The coming Commission will then have to resolve the many conflicts and questions raised: The consultation on the White Paper is due to run until the end of June 2024. Only then could a Digital Networks Act follow, as Breton has in mind.
Olaf Scholz is running in the European elections: Most people would probably consign this claim directly to the world of fake news. Not so in Italy. Here, the head of government is actually toying with the idea of having her name on the ballot paper at the beginning of June. Giorgia Meloni has not yet decided whether she will run for her Fratelli d’Italia in the European elections or not.
So will Rome soon be without a female prime minister? Meloni at least rules that out, ballot paper or not. Instead of fake news, Italians may soon have to deal with fake candidates. “The citizens know that I’m not going to Europe”, said Meloni at the beginning of the year. However, she appreciates every opportunity to face the vote of her fellow citizens.
Meloni sees no contradiction in running for an office that she will 100 percent not run for. Her idea is that if she decides to do so, it might also persuade other party leaders to show their faces – and take the vote in Italy to a whole new level. And yes: Elly Schlein, the leader of the social democratic Partito Democratico, is also leaving everything open.
A recent survey by the Noto Institute, reported by “La Repubblica” on Wednesday, shows what impact fake candidates would have on the real election result. Without Meloni on the ballot paper, the Fratelli d’Italia would have 27.5 percent. With her, 30 percent. With Schlein, the PD would get 20.5 percent instead of 19.5 percent. Voter turnout could also rise by four percentage points to 54% with prominent names in the race. Fake or not fake.
The only thing that is clear at the moment is that nobody in Italy wants to know anything more about former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, under whose leadership the PD won an incredible 40.8% in the 2014 European elections. Ten years later, the micro-party he founded, Italia Viva, is polling at three percent – regardless of whether he runs for office himself or not. Almut Siefert
The industry is applying pressure. As the international trade environment darkens, the focus of major European companies is turning back to the domestic market. The day before yesterday, the European chemical and heavy industry launched its appeal for an “Industrial Deal”, today the “European Roundtable for Industry” (ERT) is hosting a major rendezvous in the Brussels Auto Museum.
In addition to CEOs and other company representatives, Commission Vice-President Margrethe Vestager and Belgian Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Hadja Lahbib will also be there. Enrico Letta, who is due to speak about his internal market report in Parliament’s internal market committee shortly beforehand, will also be present.
The ERT was already a driving force at the birth of the single market. Now the industrial alliance is calling for a new “Delors moment” to deepen the integration of the single market. In two publications that the ERT will present today, European industry points out the obstacles that are particularly troubling them: from the lack of a capital market union to difficulties with the posting of workers.
The industrialists, plagued by existential fears, also want a more business-friendly reorganization of the EU Commission. This is why they are putting forward the idea of a new Directorate-General for Market Integration (DG MINT).
So the ideas and wishes for a sustainable European industry are there. Let’s hope they work – otherwise, the industrialists in the museum will soon no longer be guests, but part of the inventory.
The EU’s CO2 fleet legislation is coming under pressure. The German CDU and CSU will go into the European elections with the demand to revise the stipulated ban on combustion engines in 2035. This will put pressure on Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who is seeking a second term in office as the lead candidate of the Christian Democratic party family EPP.
In her first term of office, the Commission proposed the end of the combustion engine. It remains to be seen whether the CDU politician will adopt the demands of the parties nominating her. At her official presentation as EPP lead candidate by EPP leader Manfred Weber, she evaded the question and referred to the legal situation: “In 2035, the CO2 fleet limits must fall to zero”, she said in response to a question from Table.Media. She mentioned the Commission’s proposal, which would allow new vehicles to run exclusively on e-fuels even after 2035. However, this proposal has not yet found a majority in the Council.
Von der Leyen also referred to the review of the CO2 fleet legislation provided for in the law in 2026. The Commission could then make a proposal to revise the CO2 fleet legislation and, as part of this, also withdraw the ban on combustion engines. It would also be possible to allow manufacturers to offset e-fuels against the CO2 fleet limits. However, it remains to be seen whether the next Commission will take this route.
There were no majorities in favor of a future for the combustion engine in either the Council or the European Parliament during the current legislative period. Supporters of the technology hope that the majorities will change with the European elections from June 2-9. The number of states governed by Christian Democrats has also recently increased in the body of member states.
The industry is starting to move. Important suppliers consider the politically imposed end of the combustion engine in 2035 to be premature. They calculate that “the combustion engine will always have a market share of 15 percent“, as representatives told Table.Media.
So far, the major suppliers have not publicly called for the end of the combustion engine. However, according to information available to Table.Media, companies are currently rethinking their communication strategy on the combustion engine. The political department of a major German supplier says: “The suppliers would be happy if the end of the combustion engine was overturned.”
Benjamin Krieger from the European umbrella association of suppliers Clepa is in favor of tackling the CO2 fleet legislation once again: “Automotive suppliers stand for technological openness and climate protection.” All technologies that contribute to reducing emissions should do so: electromobility, hydrogen, renewable fuels. “To achieve this, we need CO2 regulation that ensures emissions reduction without prescribing technologies. The regulatory review should take this into account.”
Car manufacturers have largely committed themselves to e-mobility. Their investment plans are based on selling 70 percent of vehicles with battery-electric drives by 2030. VW, for example, plans to invest in combustion technology for the last time in 2024 and 2025, but will then significantly reduce the sums involved.
However, there are also initial signs of a rethink among manufacturers. Mercedes boss Ola Källenius recently weakened the goal of going fully electric from 2030 “wherever the market situation allows”. He said that even well after 2030, customers would “naturally” still be able to get combustion engines from Mercedes.
BMW boss Oliver Zipse has always called for technological neutrality. In his previous role as head of Porsche, VW boss Oliver Blume ensured that Porsche itself got involved in the production of climate-neutral fuels in Chile. So far, however, he has not indicated whether he sees e-fuels as a solution for the VW parent company.
In 2030, the CO2 fleet legislation will only allow manufacturers in the EU to register new cars that emit an average of less than 50 grams of CO2 per kilometer driven. If the target is not met, there is a risk of fines. This corresponds to a consumption of two liters per hundred kilometers. The EU regulation therefore represents a major obstacle for manufacturers to produce economical combustion engines. Scientists assume that current technology can be used to build highly economical diesel engines that get by on around three liters of diesel per 100 kilometers.
Despite EU regulations, manufacturers have not stopped developing combustion engines. Next week, for example, Porsche will present a new eight-cylinder engine at a VDI engine congress in Baden-Baden. Mercedes is developing a new four-cylinder engine for a passenger car with Chinese partners. Renault has contributed its combustion engine technology to a joint venture with Chinese partners. The company is called Aurobay and has announced that it will produce eight million engines for passenger cars per year in 19 plants worldwide “in the long term”.
In the most important export markets for German manufacturers – China, the USA and the UK – there is a trend back towards combustion engines. US President Joe Biden recently cut back on the ambitious EV strategy. The planned ramp-up of the technology should be slowed down. If Donald Trump returns, a renaissance of the combustion engine is likely. The UK has postponed the planned 2030 phase-out of the combustion engine by five years.
Even in China, the world’s largest car market, the combustion engine will continue to be used: According to an estimate by the Chinese government last year, the combustion engine will play a “decisive role” in operation with e-fuels until 2060.
If the ban on combustion engines is overturned, this would have consequences for the EU’s climate targets. More vehicles with combustion engines would be registered than planned and CO2 emissions in traffic would therefore be higher. Unless vehicles with combustion engines were to be fueled exclusively with climate-neutral e-fuels after 2035. The CO2 fleet legislation is part of the Green Deal and ensures that the EU reduces CO2 emissions by 55% in 2035 compared to 1990. The EU Commission wants to reduce CO2 emissions by 90 percent by 2040 and be climate-neutral by 2050 at the latest. Von der Leyen emphasized yesterday: “We must achieve our climate targets.”
The Commission’s impact assessment for the 2040 climate target is based on the phase-out of the technology in 2035, according to which the proportion of combustion engines in the passenger car fleet would fall to 26% by 2040. Ten years later, according to the Commission, combustion engines will only account for two percent. According to the Commission’s plans, the share of battery-electric cars should be 57 percent by 2040 and 79 percent by 2050.
The impact assessment on the share of e-fuels is not as precise. It states that a good ten percent of energy consumption could be covered by e-fuels by 2040. By 2050, however, the share would then fall significantly. If the end of combustion engines were to come to an end, these figures would be a waste of time. With Claire Stam
Commission Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis and Economic Affairs Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni presented a successful interim assessment of the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) yesterday, Wednesday. It had created trust in a difficult time, Dombrovskis said at the press conference. Gentiloni recalled that the announcement of the RRF had helped to reduce the spreads between European government bonds.
So far, €225 billion have already been paid out to member states. According to the Commission, this money has had the following effects, among others:
Last autumn, a report by the European Court of Auditors criticized the fact that although the EU Commission’s measurement methodology was good at measuring the fulfillment of plans, reform steps and payments, it was not suitable for auditing the final result.
Lydia Korinek, economic policy consultant at the ZOE Institute, also criticizes the EU Commission’s indicators. They say little about the long-term effects of the RRF. In any case, she argued that it was too early to properly determine the impact of the RRF.
Nevertheless, Korinek sees the outcome of the RRF as positive overall. “It is very good to think about the short and long-term goals together“, she said about the RRF’s approach of allocating European money in return for national reforms and investments in European priorities.
In a study for the ZOE Institute, she found that the resilience of the European economy has not declined thanks to the RRF, despite all the crises of recent years. In addition, economic resilience has improved, especially in those member states that have benefited most from the RRF.
Sander Tordoir, Senior Economist at the Centre for European Reform (CER), said that the RRF must be assessed differently based on its various objectives. The primary objective of providing member states with a fiscal bridge at a time when economic demand collapsed had worked. Thanks to the RRF, fiscal policy and monetary policy had pulled in the same direction and thus prevented an economic crisis like the one in 2012/13.
According to Tordoir, the second objective, namely to promote investment in European priorities, has so far been achieved with varying degrees of success depending on the member state.
This is also where Monika Hohlmeier’s criticism comes in. The EPP MEP is Chair of the Committee on Budgetary Control in the European Parliament. Even though she thinks the idea of the RRF is right, she rates its implementation as “pretty mediocre and fraught with problems.”
“There is not enough administrative capacity in many member states to spend the huge sums properly, effectively and in a targeted manner.” Hohlmeier therefore emphasizes that the RRF should remain “a one-off and temporary exception”.
The EU Commission does not necessarily see it that way. In one of the less critical words it says about the RRF, it does admit that there is still room for improvement in the administrative capacity of the member states. For them, however, the RRF is also a test of how the EU should deal with future challenges.
While Dombrovskis is very reluctant to comment on future examples of the use of an RRF-like instrument, Economic Affairs Commissioner Gentiloni is more proactive. In his opinion, the EU should examine in the next political cycle whether a similar instrument would be suitable for overcoming European challenges in the area of defense.
Although Hohlmeier welcomes the fact that the area of defense is being addressed at European level, she is opposed to an RRF-like fund with this purpose. “I am convinced that a stand-alone comprehensive defense program should run through the EU budget to ensure control and compliance with the objectives by the EU Parliament,” she said. The RRF model is much more susceptible to fraud.
Tordoir is also skeptical about a defense RRF. “This type of debt-financed fiscal capacity should be reserved for EU-wide recessions“, he says. Public goods such as defense, for example, cannot be financed by debt for all eternity. The EU’s income base is too narrow for that.
Korinek, on the other hand, points out that the EU will face a “huge fiscal cliff” when the current RRF expires in 2027 and thanks to the new EU debt rules. This must be overcome, especially if a European industrial policy is to be successful. “It doesn’t necessarily have to be debt, but it has to be European”, she says.
Is the telecommunications market in Europe dysfunctional or not? It has long been known that EU Digital Commissioner Thierry Breton considers the telecommunications providers in the EU to be too small. The proposals that were leaked last week are mainly characterized by the fact that Breton and Vestager want to leave the door open for one of the most controversial issues of the telecommunications markets: the so-called sender-pays or fair-share model.
Table.Media has reported many times why the criticism of this idea is so vociferous: There is a massive imbalance in terms of which service provider sends which internet traffic on its way. Traffic-intensive providers such as Amazon or Netflix account for the lion’s share of network traffic. However, they are also the main reason why users book expensive high-speed Internet access and buy 4k monitors and televisions in the first place: There is virtually no traffic without a user to cause it. Accordingly, the Commission’s initiative did not fall on fertile soil beyond the largest telecommunications providers in this legislature either, but instead met with massive criticism.
Nevertheless, the Commission’s white paper assumes that all segments will merge in the future, from the backbone and mobile communications to cloud services and content providers. Therefore, both the legal framework and the cost structures should be revised and adapted. “We need to create a level playing field for a genuine Digital Single Market to trigger the investments that will make it possible to build the digital network infrastructures of tomorrow”, says Breton.
However, it is by no means certain that content and network providers will merge in the future. This trend has been predicted for 20 years – but it has never happened in Europe and has not been scientifically proven.
After all, the separation of network infrastructure and content was the Internet’s success model. The fact that this is actually changing with the cloud, IoT, 6G and many other current developments is yet to be seen in reality. This is also because the regulatory framework is deliberately making this more difficult. However, Breton fears that EU telecommunications companies may not be strong enough for the competition of the future and that sooner or later they will be sold off.
However, the EU Commission does not seem entirely convinced: Pilot projects should first show what such a scaling 3C network would look like in practice. EU officials explain that this could be tested in the automotive and telemedicine sectors with large-scale pilots. These are both applications that major telecommunications companies have been predicting as the near future for almost 20 years.
The proposal also contains less far-reaching changes. However, these are also controversial, particularly among the member states. While the regulators regularly see little need for action when it comes to spectrum policy, for example, Breton would prefer to transfer responsibility for this entirely to Brussels and thus create uniform standards across Europe.
And the idea that the copper phase-out of broadband connections should take place in a more coordinated manner also sounds charming at first – setting a real target date of 2030 would perhaps give some copper-based business models a leg up.
However, Breton once again combines this with a proposal to disempower national regulators: the White Paper sees a preliminary product for fiber optic access as a regulatory necessity. Whoever has the fiber must share it with competitors – and the EU Commission could monitor this instead of the regulatory authorities, as this should be uniform throughout Europe. The fact that this will still not meet with approval does not require any fortune-telling skills.
To tackle a fundamental revision of the legal framework, which has just been revised several times, in the coming legislative period, many passages of the white paper still sound very vague. An EU official said today: “At this stage, it is still very early to predict what should be done.” This is one of the reasons why experts were consulted first and a public consultation will now follow.
The coming Commission will then have to resolve the many conflicts and questions raised: The consultation on the White Paper is due to run until the end of June 2024. Only then could a Digital Networks Act follow, as Breton has in mind.
Olaf Scholz is running in the European elections: Most people would probably consign this claim directly to the world of fake news. Not so in Italy. Here, the head of government is actually toying with the idea of having her name on the ballot paper at the beginning of June. Giorgia Meloni has not yet decided whether she will run for her Fratelli d’Italia in the European elections or not.
So will Rome soon be without a female prime minister? Meloni at least rules that out, ballot paper or not. Instead of fake news, Italians may soon have to deal with fake candidates. “The citizens know that I’m not going to Europe”, said Meloni at the beginning of the year. However, she appreciates every opportunity to face the vote of her fellow citizens.
Meloni sees no contradiction in running for an office that she will 100 percent not run for. Her idea is that if she decides to do so, it might also persuade other party leaders to show their faces – and take the vote in Italy to a whole new level. And yes: Elly Schlein, the leader of the social democratic Partito Democratico, is also leaving everything open.
A recent survey by the Noto Institute, reported by “La Repubblica” on Wednesday, shows what impact fake candidates would have on the real election result. Without Meloni on the ballot paper, the Fratelli d’Italia would have 27.5 percent. With her, 30 percent. With Schlein, the PD would get 20.5 percent instead of 19.5 percent. Voter turnout could also rise by four percentage points to 54% with prominent names in the race. Fake or not fake.
The only thing that is clear at the moment is that nobody in Italy wants to know anything more about former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, under whose leadership the PD won an incredible 40.8% in the 2014 European elections. Ten years later, the micro-party he founded, Italia Viva, is polling at three percent – regardless of whether he runs for office himself or not. Almut Siefert
