Originally, the EU Commission wanted to present the proposal for the REACH chemicals regulation at the end of 2022. But apparently, it wants to put the project on ice for the time being – out of consideration for the industry. As Markus Grabitz and Till Hoppe have learned, the proposal is not due until 2024 at the earliest. Against the backdrop of massively increased raw material prices, the industry had repeatedly called for the regulation to be abandoned at the present time. But resistance is stirring among the member states, including Germany.
Premiere at Prague Castle: Today, the heads of state and government of more than 40 European countries will meet in the new format of the European Political Community. EU diplomats stressed in advance that this is not an “EU-plus” event; EU members and other countries will meet at eye level to discuss security and stability as well as energy and the economy. There will also be a need for discussion at tomorrow’s informal EU summit, for example, on the gas price cap, on which the member states are still in disagreement. In the run-up to the summit, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen signaled her willingness to introduce a gas price cap – but on closer inspection, her proposal turns out to be a veiled rejection, as Stephan Israel and Manuel Berkel report.
Germany’s gas storage facilities are currently well filled. But for the coming year, the German government and experts assume a very different situation. According to information available to Europe.Table, Berlin expects storage facilities to be almost empty in the upcoming spring, and also lower levels in July and September than in the current year. The winter of 2023/24 will also be challenging, experts say. “This winter is difficult but next winter may also be very difficult,” IEA chief Fatih Birol said yesterday in Finland, as Manuel Berkel reports.
Out of consideration for industry, the EU Commission is expected to put the proposal for the REACH chemicals regulation on hold. Originally, the Commission wanted to present the proposal for comprehensive chemicals regulation at the end of 2022. Now, according to information available to Europe.Table, it will be much later, possibly not until 2024. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen had announced the postponement in the group of MEPs from the CDU and CSU.
In Commission circles, the considerations were confirmed. However, the talks were still ongoing. Vice President Frans Timmermans and Environment Commissioner Virginijus Sinkevičius are pushing internally for the reform of REACH to be presented before the end of 2023. They fear that the project will otherwise be delayed considerably longer because a new European Parliament will be elected in 2024 and the Commission will be reappointed.
They are getting support from eight member states, including Germany: In a letter, they urged the Commission “to proceed with the planned revision of REACH and not leave it to the next Commission to fulfill its promises”. The letter, signed among others by German Environment Minister Steffi Lemke and her colleagues from France, Austria and Belgium, is available to Europe.Table.
The background to the postponement is that companies in the chemical industry have been massively affected by the rise in raw material prices as a result of the war against Ukraine. The industry has urgently requested that the burdens not be further increased by new regulatory steps. The acronym REACH stands for the Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Regulation of Chemicals. The regulation came into force in 2007 and should now be revised as part of the EU’s Green Deal chemicals strategy.
The European Chemicals Agency (ECHA), which is based in Helsinki, is responsible for monitoring REACH. The EU had adopted REACH because companies in the chemical industry had developed a large number of substances and placed them on the market without adequately clarifying the possible risks to humans and the environment. Fifteen years after the gradual entry into force of REACH, a fundamental revision should now take place.
The proposal for the EU legal text is reportedly as good as ready. From January to April 2022, the public consultation on the revision of REACH took place. In the summer, the Commission prepared the impact assessment for the law.
The industry association VCI had previously repeatedly called on the Commission not to impose further cost-intensive regulation on industry at present. In July, VCI President Christian Kullmann had pointed out: “Companies are already being forced to curb their production in particularly energy-intensive processes.”
In addition to the drastically increased prices for energy and raw materials, there is now also the “uncertainty factor Brussels,” the lobbyist warned verbatim. “Virtually unimpressed by current developments, the EU Commission is behaving in a way that can only be described as negligent.” Instead of relieving the economy of unnecessary additional burdens, it is unflinchingly relying on projects from the pre-war era and is enjoying “the role of the global model pupil in matters of environmental and climate protection.”
CDU leader Friedrich Merz and the CDU/CSU members of the European Parliament have long been calling on the Commission President to introduce a moratorium on burdens for companies. So far, they have not been successful.
In the circle of MEPs, the Commission’s decision to put REACH on ice was welcomed as overdue. It is expected that the amendment will no longer be part of the new work program that the EU Commission plans to adopt at its meeting on Oct. 18. With Till Hoppe
Shortly before the double summit this Thursday and Friday in Prague, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen indicated to the EU Parliament in Strasbourg that she was doing a U-turn in the dispute over a gas price cap – she signaled her willingness in principle to introduce a cap on gas prices. Later, her spokesman Eric Mamer made a spectacular addition: The Commission President was only interested in a price cap for gas trading within the EU.
Just a week ago, Commission officials had unequivocally rejected such a move. If there were only one – low – unit price in the internal market, gas flows between member states would be jeopardized and it would be practically impossible to allocate gas through administrative channels, the authority wrote in a non-paper to the Council of Energy Ministers.
However, 15 member states had previously exerted pressure in a letter to the Commission, calling for a proposal for a general gas price cap – including for imports. In the meantime, further EU states are said to have joined the initiative, according to EU diplomats. Should the Commission now accommodate the signatories after all?
Yesterday evening, it emerged that von der Leyen is attaching conditions to her apparent conciliation that advocates of a general price cap are unlikely to accept. First, if the price is to be temporarily capped, there would have to be binding solidarity agreements between the member states. So far, however, only a few have concluded these.
Secondly, there need to be increased obligations to save gas. In a letter, von der Leyen writes of EU-wide auctions for this purpose. However, some of the countries calling for a price cap – Poland and Spain, for example – reject stricter obligations. Von der Leyen’s offer is thus once again a veiled rejection of the 15 member states. In Berlin, but also in The Hague, there have already been reservations about a general price cap.
However, the Commission’s proposal for a price cap on gas for power generation is still on the table. Von der Leyen also reiterated on Wednesday the proposal to intensify negotiations with “trusted partners” such as Norway to lower the price of gas imports. For now, the Commission relies on voluntarism and the EU’s market power. Suppliers have an interest in concluding contracts with the EU that are mutually beneficial, von der Leyen told the Parliament. The goal is to achieve an “acceptable price corridor” and to be able to dampen price jumps.
At the same time, Brussels wants to push ahead with the idea of a joint purchasing platform to leverage the EU’s market power more effectively. Von der Leyen would prefer to launch it in spring when the gas storage facilities have to be filled again. The idea is to prevent member states from outbidding each other again.
At the same time, a conflict is simmering ahead of the summit over national go-it-alone aid packages. The focus is primarily on the German government’s €200 billion package. On the one hand, Germany is subsidizing gas for households and companies, thus encouraging consumption, according to the criticism. On the other hand, Berlin is blocking the price cap.
Critics complain of national egoism and a certain inconsistency. First and foremost, Italy’s outgoing Prime Minister Mario Draghi is likely to urge a European approach to aid for households and the economy at the summit, similar to the Covid pandemic. Similarly, Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton and Economic Affairs Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni warned in an opinion piece against fragmentation of the single market. The Frenchman and the Italian suggest taking a cue from the SURE mechanism, through which measures against short-time work were jointly financed during the pandemic. EU Council President Charles Michel also argued along these lines in an opinion piece in the Financial Times on Wednesday.
The informal EU summit on Friday in Prague is primarily intended to serve as a discussion forum so that decisions can then be made at the formal summit on Oct. 20. Today, however, the heads of state and government will first meet in the new format of the so-called European Political Community (EPC).
The format was originally an idea of French President Emmanuel Macron, with the ulterior motive of putting off the EU accession candidates. The concerns, especially in the Western Balkans, have since been dispelled, however, and expectations are generally positive. The format is a “good idea,” Albania’s Prime Minister Edi Rama and the Dutch head of government Mark Rutte wrote in a joint opinion piece in the run-up to the event. The continent must shape its own future. This presupposes that all democratic states work together.
Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala, as current EU Council President, and EU Council President Michel have invited the heads of state and government of 44 European states to Prague Castle for the premiere. In addition to the EU members, these are the EEA states, ex-member Great Britain, non-member Switzerland, but also the eastern partners such as Armenia and Azerbaijan, as well as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Everyone agreed to come except the Danish head of government, who is prevented from attending because of an urgent parliamentary debate. The Ukrainian president will be videoed in, while his prime minister is expected to be there. The aim is to create a political platform to talk about peace and prosperity on the continent, EU diplomats said. It is emphasized that the EPG is not an “EU-plus” event and that EU members and other countries are supposed to meet on an equal footing.
The meeting against the backdrop of the Russian war against Ukraine will begin with a plenary session at 1 p.m. Later, the meeting will be divided into two round tables to discuss security and stability as well as energy and the economy. Time is also reserved for bilateral talks. Results are to be exchanged at a working dinner in the evening. No conclusions are planned, but “a message of unity and solidarity” – provided that tensions between Azerbaijan and Armenia, for example, or between Turkey and Greece do not disturb the harmony.
The plan, according to diplomats, is for the European Political Community to meet every six to eight months. British Prime Minister Liz Truss, who initially did not want to attend at all, has offered London as the next venue. Britain could be up for grabs on a later occasion, EU diplomats said. The next EPG summit will be held in the east of the continent, specifically probably in Chişinău, the capital of Moldova, they said. With Manuel Berkel
Despite new LNG terminals, the German government expects gas storage levels in 2023 to be lower than in the current year by summer. For May 1, Berlin expects German storage facilities to be only ten percent full. By contrast, at the beginning of May this year, German storage facilities were still around 36 percent full, according to data from the European gas association GIE.
The EU Commission provided this information at the request of Europe.Table. Since this year, EU states with gas storage facilities have to report to the authority by September 15 which filling path they expect for February, May, July and September of the following year. According to a spokeswoman, the Commission intends to publish a complete overview of the reports in mid-November.
As Europe.Table learned in advance, the federal government expects lower gas storage levels for July 1 and September 1, 2023, than in the current year. While the federal government expects 30 and 65 percent for these dates, the figures for this year were 61 and 85 percent. The Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs did not want to comment on this.
The gas volume expected at the beginning of May corresponds to a ten-year low. Less than 24 terawatt hours of natural gas were last held in German storage facilities in April 2013, according to EIG data.
Many experts expect that the winter of 2023/24 could be even more challenging than the upcoming one. For the end of the heating season, the International Energy Agency (IEA) expects European storage facilities to still be 25 to 30 percent full on average. “This winter is difficult but next winter may also be very difficult,” IEA executive director Fatih Birol told reporters in Finland on Wednesday.
According to energy group RWE, gas storage facilities could still be filled with 15 to more than 30 percent next spring: The development depends on how much temperatures drop, how the nuclear power situation in France develops and how much wind power can be generated, said Group CEO Markus Krebber in a conversation with analysts on Tuesday.
In the further course, the situation will probably remain tense. “A level of 90 percent will not be reached again next year,” IfW Kiel Vice President Stefan Kooths told Europe.Table. In doing so, the institute’s head of the economy referred to the fall report for the BMWK from the end of September.
Until July, the simulations of the IfW and the other three participating institutes coincided with the filling path reported to Brussels by the German government. “For the beginning of September and the beginning of November 2023, however, our model delivers filling levels of 56 percent and 65 percent, respectively, and then declining again,” Kooths explains. So, at least for September 2023, the BMWK’s latest report is more optimistic than the economists’ expectation. Nevertheless, Kooths does not believe that a level of 90 percent will be reached again with the better September forecast.
At the beginning of August, the Federal Network Agency also simulated a worse development in storage levels. Of the eight scenarios for a supply stop via Nord Stream 1, only one saw similar gas storage levels for May and July as the German government now forecasts. Other calculations predicted that storage facilities would be completely empty for months.
Berlin is now conspicuously optimistic for next February: The German government reported its legally fixed target to Brussels – a fill level of 40 percent. The network agency, however, expects 20 percent at best in the event of a Nord Stream outage.
“The EU must succeed in bringing the two processes of internal reform and further opening from a geostrategic perspective together,” says Nicolai von Ondarza. As head of the EU/Europe research group at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), the committed European deals with the fundamental issues of the EU, such as its deepening and enlargement policies.
Since the beginning of the Russian war of aggression on Ukraine, he has observed a fundamental change in the EU: “The EU states have recognized for themselves that they have a strong geostrategic self-interest in a functioning enlargement policy. The candidate status of Ukraine and Moldova is not just a purely symbolic promise, but the start of a process.” However, an EU 30 Plus cannot avoid institutional reform to remain capable of acting.
The ability to act is also a decisive keyword in the debate on strategic sovereignty, which von Ondarza is helping to shape. He argues for a new understanding of European sovereignty in which the US continues to be considered as a partner, especially in the area of defense: “We must not fall into the trap of playing NATO and the EU or transatlantic ties and European ties off against each other.”
Von Ondarza not only wants to combine this in the debate, but it is also a lived part of his biography: An exchange year in the US had shown him a transatlantic perspective. His studies of European Studies in Great Britain have repeatedly shown him the strengths and opportunities of the EU.
Since 2011, he has also worked intensively on Great Britain and Northern Ireland at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik) and, as organizer of the British-German Outlook Group, is committed to bilateral dialogue between Germany and Great Britain. He describes the period since 2011 as one in which the UK has become increasingly polarized – as have relations with the EU regarding the Brexit.
He eagerly awaits what the election of new Prime Minister Liz Truss and the death of Queen Elizabeth II will mean for the United Kingdom and post-Brexit relations with the EU. Despite troubled times ahead and the multitude of crises such as the Northern Ireland Protocol, the energy crisis or Brexit, von Ondarza sees the Queen’s death first and foremost as a unifying moment for the country. He also observes great sympathy at the European level.
“But that doesn’t change the fact that we are again heading for a difficult situation between Europe and the UK,” von Ondarza said. Even under the new prime minister, Liz Truss, he expects “continued tough, confrontational rhetoric from London”. Marlene Resch
Originally, the EU Commission wanted to present the proposal for the REACH chemicals regulation at the end of 2022. But apparently, it wants to put the project on ice for the time being – out of consideration for the industry. As Markus Grabitz and Till Hoppe have learned, the proposal is not due until 2024 at the earliest. Against the backdrop of massively increased raw material prices, the industry had repeatedly called for the regulation to be abandoned at the present time. But resistance is stirring among the member states, including Germany.
Premiere at Prague Castle: Today, the heads of state and government of more than 40 European countries will meet in the new format of the European Political Community. EU diplomats stressed in advance that this is not an “EU-plus” event; EU members and other countries will meet at eye level to discuss security and stability as well as energy and the economy. There will also be a need for discussion at tomorrow’s informal EU summit, for example, on the gas price cap, on which the member states are still in disagreement. In the run-up to the summit, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen signaled her willingness to introduce a gas price cap – but on closer inspection, her proposal turns out to be a veiled rejection, as Stephan Israel and Manuel Berkel report.
Germany’s gas storage facilities are currently well filled. But for the coming year, the German government and experts assume a very different situation. According to information available to Europe.Table, Berlin expects storage facilities to be almost empty in the upcoming spring, and also lower levels in July and September than in the current year. The winter of 2023/24 will also be challenging, experts say. “This winter is difficult but next winter may also be very difficult,” IEA chief Fatih Birol said yesterday in Finland, as Manuel Berkel reports.
Out of consideration for industry, the EU Commission is expected to put the proposal for the REACH chemicals regulation on hold. Originally, the Commission wanted to present the proposal for comprehensive chemicals regulation at the end of 2022. Now, according to information available to Europe.Table, it will be much later, possibly not until 2024. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen had announced the postponement in the group of MEPs from the CDU and CSU.
In Commission circles, the considerations were confirmed. However, the talks were still ongoing. Vice President Frans Timmermans and Environment Commissioner Virginijus Sinkevičius are pushing internally for the reform of REACH to be presented before the end of 2023. They fear that the project will otherwise be delayed considerably longer because a new European Parliament will be elected in 2024 and the Commission will be reappointed.
They are getting support from eight member states, including Germany: In a letter, they urged the Commission “to proceed with the planned revision of REACH and not leave it to the next Commission to fulfill its promises”. The letter, signed among others by German Environment Minister Steffi Lemke and her colleagues from France, Austria and Belgium, is available to Europe.Table.
The background to the postponement is that companies in the chemical industry have been massively affected by the rise in raw material prices as a result of the war against Ukraine. The industry has urgently requested that the burdens not be further increased by new regulatory steps. The acronym REACH stands for the Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Regulation of Chemicals. The regulation came into force in 2007 and should now be revised as part of the EU’s Green Deal chemicals strategy.
The European Chemicals Agency (ECHA), which is based in Helsinki, is responsible for monitoring REACH. The EU had adopted REACH because companies in the chemical industry had developed a large number of substances and placed them on the market without adequately clarifying the possible risks to humans and the environment. Fifteen years after the gradual entry into force of REACH, a fundamental revision should now take place.
The proposal for the EU legal text is reportedly as good as ready. From January to April 2022, the public consultation on the revision of REACH took place. In the summer, the Commission prepared the impact assessment for the law.
The industry association VCI had previously repeatedly called on the Commission not to impose further cost-intensive regulation on industry at present. In July, VCI President Christian Kullmann had pointed out: “Companies are already being forced to curb their production in particularly energy-intensive processes.”
In addition to the drastically increased prices for energy and raw materials, there is now also the “uncertainty factor Brussels,” the lobbyist warned verbatim. “Virtually unimpressed by current developments, the EU Commission is behaving in a way that can only be described as negligent.” Instead of relieving the economy of unnecessary additional burdens, it is unflinchingly relying on projects from the pre-war era and is enjoying “the role of the global model pupil in matters of environmental and climate protection.”
CDU leader Friedrich Merz and the CDU/CSU members of the European Parliament have long been calling on the Commission President to introduce a moratorium on burdens for companies. So far, they have not been successful.
In the circle of MEPs, the Commission’s decision to put REACH on ice was welcomed as overdue. It is expected that the amendment will no longer be part of the new work program that the EU Commission plans to adopt at its meeting on Oct. 18. With Till Hoppe
Shortly before the double summit this Thursday and Friday in Prague, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen indicated to the EU Parliament in Strasbourg that she was doing a U-turn in the dispute over a gas price cap – she signaled her willingness in principle to introduce a cap on gas prices. Later, her spokesman Eric Mamer made a spectacular addition: The Commission President was only interested in a price cap for gas trading within the EU.
Just a week ago, Commission officials had unequivocally rejected such a move. If there were only one – low – unit price in the internal market, gas flows between member states would be jeopardized and it would be practically impossible to allocate gas through administrative channels, the authority wrote in a non-paper to the Council of Energy Ministers.
However, 15 member states had previously exerted pressure in a letter to the Commission, calling for a proposal for a general gas price cap – including for imports. In the meantime, further EU states are said to have joined the initiative, according to EU diplomats. Should the Commission now accommodate the signatories after all?
Yesterday evening, it emerged that von der Leyen is attaching conditions to her apparent conciliation that advocates of a general price cap are unlikely to accept. First, if the price is to be temporarily capped, there would have to be binding solidarity agreements between the member states. So far, however, only a few have concluded these.
Secondly, there need to be increased obligations to save gas. In a letter, von der Leyen writes of EU-wide auctions for this purpose. However, some of the countries calling for a price cap – Poland and Spain, for example – reject stricter obligations. Von der Leyen’s offer is thus once again a veiled rejection of the 15 member states. In Berlin, but also in The Hague, there have already been reservations about a general price cap.
However, the Commission’s proposal for a price cap on gas for power generation is still on the table. Von der Leyen also reiterated on Wednesday the proposal to intensify negotiations with “trusted partners” such as Norway to lower the price of gas imports. For now, the Commission relies on voluntarism and the EU’s market power. Suppliers have an interest in concluding contracts with the EU that are mutually beneficial, von der Leyen told the Parliament. The goal is to achieve an “acceptable price corridor” and to be able to dampen price jumps.
At the same time, Brussels wants to push ahead with the idea of a joint purchasing platform to leverage the EU’s market power more effectively. Von der Leyen would prefer to launch it in spring when the gas storage facilities have to be filled again. The idea is to prevent member states from outbidding each other again.
At the same time, a conflict is simmering ahead of the summit over national go-it-alone aid packages. The focus is primarily on the German government’s €200 billion package. On the one hand, Germany is subsidizing gas for households and companies, thus encouraging consumption, according to the criticism. On the other hand, Berlin is blocking the price cap.
Critics complain of national egoism and a certain inconsistency. First and foremost, Italy’s outgoing Prime Minister Mario Draghi is likely to urge a European approach to aid for households and the economy at the summit, similar to the Covid pandemic. Similarly, Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton and Economic Affairs Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni warned in an opinion piece against fragmentation of the single market. The Frenchman and the Italian suggest taking a cue from the SURE mechanism, through which measures against short-time work were jointly financed during the pandemic. EU Council President Charles Michel also argued along these lines in an opinion piece in the Financial Times on Wednesday.
The informal EU summit on Friday in Prague is primarily intended to serve as a discussion forum so that decisions can then be made at the formal summit on Oct. 20. Today, however, the heads of state and government will first meet in the new format of the so-called European Political Community (EPC).
The format was originally an idea of French President Emmanuel Macron, with the ulterior motive of putting off the EU accession candidates. The concerns, especially in the Western Balkans, have since been dispelled, however, and expectations are generally positive. The format is a “good idea,” Albania’s Prime Minister Edi Rama and the Dutch head of government Mark Rutte wrote in a joint opinion piece in the run-up to the event. The continent must shape its own future. This presupposes that all democratic states work together.
Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala, as current EU Council President, and EU Council President Michel have invited the heads of state and government of 44 European states to Prague Castle for the premiere. In addition to the EU members, these are the EEA states, ex-member Great Britain, non-member Switzerland, but also the eastern partners such as Armenia and Azerbaijan, as well as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Everyone agreed to come except the Danish head of government, who is prevented from attending because of an urgent parliamentary debate. The Ukrainian president will be videoed in, while his prime minister is expected to be there. The aim is to create a political platform to talk about peace and prosperity on the continent, EU diplomats said. It is emphasized that the EPG is not an “EU-plus” event and that EU members and other countries are supposed to meet on an equal footing.
The meeting against the backdrop of the Russian war against Ukraine will begin with a plenary session at 1 p.m. Later, the meeting will be divided into two round tables to discuss security and stability as well as energy and the economy. Time is also reserved for bilateral talks. Results are to be exchanged at a working dinner in the evening. No conclusions are planned, but “a message of unity and solidarity” – provided that tensions between Azerbaijan and Armenia, for example, or between Turkey and Greece do not disturb the harmony.
The plan, according to diplomats, is for the European Political Community to meet every six to eight months. British Prime Minister Liz Truss, who initially did not want to attend at all, has offered London as the next venue. Britain could be up for grabs on a later occasion, EU diplomats said. The next EPG summit will be held in the east of the continent, specifically probably in Chişinău, the capital of Moldova, they said. With Manuel Berkel
Despite new LNG terminals, the German government expects gas storage levels in 2023 to be lower than in the current year by summer. For May 1, Berlin expects German storage facilities to be only ten percent full. By contrast, at the beginning of May this year, German storage facilities were still around 36 percent full, according to data from the European gas association GIE.
The EU Commission provided this information at the request of Europe.Table. Since this year, EU states with gas storage facilities have to report to the authority by September 15 which filling path they expect for February, May, July and September of the following year. According to a spokeswoman, the Commission intends to publish a complete overview of the reports in mid-November.
As Europe.Table learned in advance, the federal government expects lower gas storage levels for July 1 and September 1, 2023, than in the current year. While the federal government expects 30 and 65 percent for these dates, the figures for this year were 61 and 85 percent. The Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs did not want to comment on this.
The gas volume expected at the beginning of May corresponds to a ten-year low. Less than 24 terawatt hours of natural gas were last held in German storage facilities in April 2013, according to EIG data.
Many experts expect that the winter of 2023/24 could be even more challenging than the upcoming one. For the end of the heating season, the International Energy Agency (IEA) expects European storage facilities to still be 25 to 30 percent full on average. “This winter is difficult but next winter may also be very difficult,” IEA executive director Fatih Birol told reporters in Finland on Wednesday.
According to energy group RWE, gas storage facilities could still be filled with 15 to more than 30 percent next spring: The development depends on how much temperatures drop, how the nuclear power situation in France develops and how much wind power can be generated, said Group CEO Markus Krebber in a conversation with analysts on Tuesday.
In the further course, the situation will probably remain tense. “A level of 90 percent will not be reached again next year,” IfW Kiel Vice President Stefan Kooths told Europe.Table. In doing so, the institute’s head of the economy referred to the fall report for the BMWK from the end of September.
Until July, the simulations of the IfW and the other three participating institutes coincided with the filling path reported to Brussels by the German government. “For the beginning of September and the beginning of November 2023, however, our model delivers filling levels of 56 percent and 65 percent, respectively, and then declining again,” Kooths explains. So, at least for September 2023, the BMWK’s latest report is more optimistic than the economists’ expectation. Nevertheless, Kooths does not believe that a level of 90 percent will be reached again with the better September forecast.
At the beginning of August, the Federal Network Agency also simulated a worse development in storage levels. Of the eight scenarios for a supply stop via Nord Stream 1, only one saw similar gas storage levels for May and July as the German government now forecasts. Other calculations predicted that storage facilities would be completely empty for months.
Berlin is now conspicuously optimistic for next February: The German government reported its legally fixed target to Brussels – a fill level of 40 percent. The network agency, however, expects 20 percent at best in the event of a Nord Stream outage.
“The EU must succeed in bringing the two processes of internal reform and further opening from a geostrategic perspective together,” says Nicolai von Ondarza. As head of the EU/Europe research group at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), the committed European deals with the fundamental issues of the EU, such as its deepening and enlargement policies.
Since the beginning of the Russian war of aggression on Ukraine, he has observed a fundamental change in the EU: “The EU states have recognized for themselves that they have a strong geostrategic self-interest in a functioning enlargement policy. The candidate status of Ukraine and Moldova is not just a purely symbolic promise, but the start of a process.” However, an EU 30 Plus cannot avoid institutional reform to remain capable of acting.
The ability to act is also a decisive keyword in the debate on strategic sovereignty, which von Ondarza is helping to shape. He argues for a new understanding of European sovereignty in which the US continues to be considered as a partner, especially in the area of defense: “We must not fall into the trap of playing NATO and the EU or transatlantic ties and European ties off against each other.”
Von Ondarza not only wants to combine this in the debate, but it is also a lived part of his biography: An exchange year in the US had shown him a transatlantic perspective. His studies of European Studies in Great Britain have repeatedly shown him the strengths and opportunities of the EU.
Since 2011, he has also worked intensively on Great Britain and Northern Ireland at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik) and, as organizer of the British-German Outlook Group, is committed to bilateral dialogue between Germany and Great Britain. He describes the period since 2011 as one in which the UK has become increasingly polarized – as have relations with the EU regarding the Brexit.
He eagerly awaits what the election of new Prime Minister Liz Truss and the death of Queen Elizabeth II will mean for the United Kingdom and post-Brexit relations with the EU. Despite troubled times ahead and the multitude of crises such as the Northern Ireland Protocol, the energy crisis or Brexit, von Ondarza sees the Queen’s death first and foremost as a unifying moment for the country. He also observes great sympathy at the European level.
“But that doesn’t change the fact that we are again heading for a difficult situation between Europe and the UK,” von Ondarza said. Even under the new prime minister, Liz Truss, he expects “continued tough, confrontational rhetoric from London”. Marlene Resch
