The EU finance ministers are meeting today for the Council of Finance Ministers in Brussels. However, most of them were already there for yesterdays Eurogroup meeting. Including Jörg Kukies, who was making his first appearance as German Finance Minister in Brussels.
And as befits a German Finance Minister in Brussels, he was immediately confronted with the Eurobond issue. Last week it became known that the Polish presidency has great ambitions to finance the European rearmament with joint debt. A report in the Financial Times speaks of advanced negotiations on an intergovernmental financing vehicle of over €500 billion.
Kukies tried to remain as vague as possible. He did not want to have “abstract discussions on Eurobonds” and would rather talk about concrete ideas, he said, without going into detail about the idea of the €500 billion fund.
Today, Kukies and his colleagues will debate the Energy Tax Directive, among other things. The European Semester will also be a topic, and the focus of these discussions will primarily be on France. Two weeks ago, the Commission approved the French fiscal plan, but the government that presented this plan no longer exists.
I hope you have a day with concrete ideas instead of abstract discussions
It is no surprise that the political conclusion of the Mercosur agreement has met with rejection in many places: environmentalists fear additional deforestation of the rainforest, farmers fear increased competition from exports from Latin America. The European Commission was accordingly prepared to counter these points of criticism.
The agreement that has now been negotiated contains significantly stricter sustainability commitments for the Mercosur states than the 2019 version. This applies in particular to climate protection: the European Commission ensured that compliance with the Paris Agreement was included in the agreement as an “essential element.” In other words, should Argentina, for example, under President Javier Milei, withdraw from the Paris Agreement or no longer seriously pursue its goals, the EU could suspend the agreed tariff reductions. This is a strong economic incentive for Milei not to carry out his threat.
The clauses to protect the Paris Agreement also apply if the Mercosur Agreement is split into a political part and a trade part. “There is no gap,” assures the EU official. Even if the trade part is applied provisionally first, the clause on the Paris Agreement also applies, although it is anchored in the political part of the agreement.
The Commission is still examining whether it wants to split up the Mercosur agreement. Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Economics Minister Robert Habeck are pushing for this because the approval hurdles for trade facilitation would be lower: The trade issues are purely an EU competence (“EU only”) and could be provisionally put into force with a qualified majority in the Council of Member States and a simple majority in the European Parliament. The political part, on the other hand, also affects the competencies of the EU member states and must therefore be ratified by the national parliaments – which often takes years.
The commitments to protect the rainforest are somewhat less stringent. The Commission does point out that Brazil and Co have now committed themselves for the first time in an internationally binding treaty to halt deforestation by 2030. Previously, they had only committed to this politically, for example as part of the Glasgow Declaration.
However, the deforestation clause is not an “essential element.” As part of the sustainability chapter, it cannot be enforced by withdrawing tariff concessions. Instead, a dispute settlement mechanism provides for negotiations within the framework of an expert panel. “The link to trade sanctions is simply not politically acceptable for the Mercosur states and is often seen as a new imperialism of the industrialized countries,” says an EU official. The governments had already sharply criticized the EU anti-deforestation regulation.
At the same time, the Commission is trying to dispel the impression that it is sacrificing the interests of agriculture for those of industry. The importance of foreign trade for the agricultural and food sector is shown by the EU trade surplus of around €70 billion in 2023 in this area, it says. The deal creates a balance between such “offensive interests” in new export markets and the “defensive interests” of those sectors that have to accept an opening of the EU market to Latin American imports.
Manufacturers of processed foods, wine and spirits, olive oil and dairy products, including milk powder and baby food, would be able to export more cheaply. The Commission also sees the fact that indications of origin for products such as Parma ham or Spreewald gherkins would also be protected in the Mercosur countries as a plus point for the industry. On the other side, there are producers of beef, sheep and chicken meat, as well as sugar and rice. Reduced tariffs have been agreed for exports from Mercosur countries, but only for limited quotas. For beef and chicken, for example, the maximum quantities correspond to only 1.6 and 1.4 percent of EU consumption respectively, the Commission emphasizes.
If the additional imports of beef or sugar from Brazil and Argentina, for example, lead to market distortions in Europe and threaten to cause “serious damage” to the sectors affected, the Commission can implement safeguard mechanisms. The tariff concessions for importers would then be temporarily suspended. Such “safeguards” are an established instrument in EU trade policy.
Should the new free trade with South America nevertheless cause difficulties for European farmers, the Commission wants to have money up its sleeve to compensate them. Back in 2019, the then Trade Commissioner Phil Hogan promised “a support package of €1 billion exclusively for the agricultural sector.” A similar sum is to be made available in the new EU financial framework from 2028. However, the Commission prefers to speak of a kind of “fire insurance” that would take effect in the unlikely event of damage.
The German Farmers’ Association (DBV) still considers the planned protective mechanisms to be “completely inadequate.” The EU association Copa-Cogeca also emphasizes that imports from Latin America should be subject to the same environmental and social standards as domestic products. Where it is possible under trade law, this is already being done, according to the Commission.
However, “exporting” one’s own production standards is not only legally but also politically sensitive. This is because trading partners could respond with their own requirements. In Brazil, for example, industrial goods are produced in a more climate-friendly way than in the EU thanks to the high proportion of renewable energies. In addition, “no compromises” have been made when it comes to health and safety standards for food, emphasizes an official.
In any case, it makes more sense to enable European farmers to meet sustainability standards while remaining internationally competitive than to impose restrictions on imports, says Harald Grethe, head of the Agora Agrar think tank. For example, by ensuring that animal welfare and species protection services are adequately remunerated. After all, the sector is already facing international competition – even without the Mercosur deal.
Commissioners and cabinet members of the first von der Leyen Commission met with stakeholders from business and civil society 15692 times between 2019 and 2024. Resulting in 19 percent fewer meetings with stakeholders than the Commission held under Jean-Claude Juncker. This is according to a list of lobby meetings which the Commission is obliged to publish and which Table.Briefings has evaluated.
Commissioners and their cabinets have only had to keep public records of their stakeholder meetings since Jean-Claude Juncker took office. With the end of the first von der Leyen Commission, the stakeholder meetings of the two Commissions can now be compared for the first time.
A distribution of meetings over the years shows that both Commissions held the most stakeholder meetings in the first full year of their mandate and that this number then decreases towards the end of the mandate. The large difference in the number of stakeholder meetings is primarily due to the first two years of the Commission under Ursula von der Leyen, which were dominated by the pandemic.
In 2020, the first year of the Von der Leyen Commission, there were 32 percent fewer meetings with lobbyists than in the first year under Juncker (2015). In the following year, the difference was 20 percent. “It took a while for the Commission and the lobbyists to switch to digital lobby meetings – or at least for them to officially register them,” says Nina Katzemich Table.Briefings. As the campaigner for the NGO Lobby Control explains, the Commission must also register virtual meetings such as video conferences.
After an adjustment phase, the number of meetings could therefore have returned to the level of the previous mandate. However, even in its third year, the Von der Leyen Commission had almost 11 percent fewer meetings with stakeholders than its predecessor Commission.
For Heiko Willems, Managing Director of the BDI‘s Brussels office, the meetings with the Commission are important in many respects. “You can explain and categorize positions better in a personal conversation than in a written statement. You also get more information about the approach and views within the Commission,” he told Table.Briefings. The Commission did not want to comment on the figures despite repeated requests.
The quality of the exchange has also changed. 47 percent of stakeholder meetings took place fully or partially online, whereas this was virtually non-existent under Juncker. “When meetings take place online, personal interaction is of course neglected,” says Willems. However, one advantage of online meetings is that they are easier to plan.
Nevertheless, the reduced quantity and quality of meetings does not appear to be a major factor in the regulatory burden that the economy is currently complaining about. According to Willems, this has more to do with the focus on the Green Deal.
This focus is also evident in the stakeholder meetings. Frans Timmermans‘ cabinet had by far the most contacts with stakeholders, even though Timmermans had already stepped down as Commissioner in August 2023. The distribution of meetings also shows major differences between the Commissioners.
Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton and Financial Markets Commissioner Mairead McGuinness were also very active. As ordinary Commissioners, they had fewer cabinet members at their disposal than Executive Vice-Presidents Timmermans, Margrethe Vestager and Valdis Dombrovskis. In relation to their cabinet size, Breton and McGuinness therefore had relatively many stakeholder meetings.
In Germany, business representatives have often complained in recent years that they no longer have easy access to the Commissioners and their cabinets. This is probably mainly due to the appointment of Günther Oettinger. Compared to the other Commissioners, the former Digital and Budget Commissioner put in a real marathon when it came to meeting with interest groups. In comparison, even Breton seems reserved.
The Commission’s data also shows that the nationality of the Commissioners and their cabinet members has a major influence on which stakeholders they meet. The Oettinger era is therefore also likely to have marked the end of an era of exceptionally good access to the Commission for German stakeholders. As Commission President, von der Leyen must be more careful than others not to show any national preference. For the new Commission, German stakeholders can look forward to a strong German presence in the Commissioner cabinets.
Nevertheless, German interests were regularly heard in the first Von der Leyen Commission. In the ranking of interest representatives with the most individual meetings with Commissioners or their cabinet members, the BDI is in ninth place, making it the only business association from a Member State in the top 20.
It is also noticeable in the ranking that European companies are primarily represented by their associations. This also has to do with the institutionalized cooperation between the Commission and these associations. Airbus and Vodafone are the only individual European companies, while no fewer than five US companies from the tech industry are included – this demonstrates the importance of this sector and the extent to which it is dominated by US corporations. Only a handful of organizations do not directly represent corporate interests. With Stefanie Weber
He knows what it feels like to be on the other side. When lobbyists are in vehement opposition. During his time at the EU Commission, Jiří Zapletal experienced Italian lobbyists who chatted for two hours, created a pleasant atmosphere and subtly delivered their messages. And then there were their German colleagues, who were very blunt in their criticism – just as they were used to at home. “The tone in Brussels is much more conciliatory than in Berlin,” says Zapletal.
The son of a Czech father and a German mother sees himself as a “bridge builder between Berlin and Brussels.” Zapletal has been the German Savings Banks and Giro Association’s representative to the EU since September. The 45-year-old divides his time between Berlin and Brussels, with seven members of his team working in Brussels and eleven in Berlin.
In the past, the savings banks have often been perceived in Brussels as being a cause for concern. Zapletal now wants to show that these credit institutions with their peculiarities fit in well with the times – and, above all, perfectly with the plans of EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen for her second term of office. Financial education, which von der Leyen has written into Finance Commissioner Maria Luís Albuquerque‘s mission letter? “This is an important part of our public mission,” says Zapletal. Cohesion policy? “Savings banks do it every day.” Consumer protection? “We’ve been doing that for years, too.”
Jiří Zapletal has access to a large network in Berlin and Brussels. His former boss Steffen Meyer has just become State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Finance (BMF). Zapletal worked with him when he was the liaison officer for the German G20 presidency at the International Monetary Fund. Zapletal then moved to the Permanent Representation in Brussels to assist the BMF with Brexit. After more than five years, he joined the Commission as a national expert and worked on the EMIR Directive, among other things, which aims to increase transparency in the derivatives market.
The Saxon Minister for European Affairs, Katja Meier, recruited Zapletal from there to head the Saxon state representation in Brussels. He found the job at the top exciting, even if it was less about his specialist area of finance. Instead, he cut a five-meter-long Christmas stollen at the start of the Christmas market in the Ore Mountains. Zapletal was born in Brno in the Czech Republic and started school there, but came to the Ore Mountains at the age of six.
When the DSGV knocked on his door, Zapletal switched back to the lobbyist side. Twelve years earlier, he had already worked for the DSGV in Brussels. Zapletal has been involved with the savings banks since his youth. He completed an apprenticeship as a banker at Kreissparkasse Annaberg and was also sponsored by the savings bank as an athlete. In 1997, he won bronze with the four-times-100-meter relay team at the European Junior Championships, and the following year he came third with the relay team at the Junior World Championships. However, he then decided to go to university and studied European Integration in Chemnitz, at the same time as the current Green MEP Anna Cavazzini.
Jiří Zapletal is currently the reigning Brussels champion in the shot put in the M45 category. He also enthusiastically coaches his two daughters, aged nine and twelve. Thus sport still plays an important role in his life. Silke Wettach
The EU finance ministers are meeting today for the Council of Finance Ministers in Brussels. However, most of them were already there for yesterdays Eurogroup meeting. Including Jörg Kukies, who was making his first appearance as German Finance Minister in Brussels.
And as befits a German Finance Minister in Brussels, he was immediately confronted with the Eurobond issue. Last week it became known that the Polish presidency has great ambitions to finance the European rearmament with joint debt. A report in the Financial Times speaks of advanced negotiations on an intergovernmental financing vehicle of over €500 billion.
Kukies tried to remain as vague as possible. He did not want to have “abstract discussions on Eurobonds” and would rather talk about concrete ideas, he said, without going into detail about the idea of the €500 billion fund.
Today, Kukies and his colleagues will debate the Energy Tax Directive, among other things. The European Semester will also be a topic, and the focus of these discussions will primarily be on France. Two weeks ago, the Commission approved the French fiscal plan, but the government that presented this plan no longer exists.
I hope you have a day with concrete ideas instead of abstract discussions
It is no surprise that the political conclusion of the Mercosur agreement has met with rejection in many places: environmentalists fear additional deforestation of the rainforest, farmers fear increased competition from exports from Latin America. The European Commission was accordingly prepared to counter these points of criticism.
The agreement that has now been negotiated contains significantly stricter sustainability commitments for the Mercosur states than the 2019 version. This applies in particular to climate protection: the European Commission ensured that compliance with the Paris Agreement was included in the agreement as an “essential element.” In other words, should Argentina, for example, under President Javier Milei, withdraw from the Paris Agreement or no longer seriously pursue its goals, the EU could suspend the agreed tariff reductions. This is a strong economic incentive for Milei not to carry out his threat.
The clauses to protect the Paris Agreement also apply if the Mercosur Agreement is split into a political part and a trade part. “There is no gap,” assures the EU official. Even if the trade part is applied provisionally first, the clause on the Paris Agreement also applies, although it is anchored in the political part of the agreement.
The Commission is still examining whether it wants to split up the Mercosur agreement. Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Economics Minister Robert Habeck are pushing for this because the approval hurdles for trade facilitation would be lower: The trade issues are purely an EU competence (“EU only”) and could be provisionally put into force with a qualified majority in the Council of Member States and a simple majority in the European Parliament. The political part, on the other hand, also affects the competencies of the EU member states and must therefore be ratified by the national parliaments – which often takes years.
The commitments to protect the rainforest are somewhat less stringent. The Commission does point out that Brazil and Co have now committed themselves for the first time in an internationally binding treaty to halt deforestation by 2030. Previously, they had only committed to this politically, for example as part of the Glasgow Declaration.
However, the deforestation clause is not an “essential element.” As part of the sustainability chapter, it cannot be enforced by withdrawing tariff concessions. Instead, a dispute settlement mechanism provides for negotiations within the framework of an expert panel. “The link to trade sanctions is simply not politically acceptable for the Mercosur states and is often seen as a new imperialism of the industrialized countries,” says an EU official. The governments had already sharply criticized the EU anti-deforestation regulation.
At the same time, the Commission is trying to dispel the impression that it is sacrificing the interests of agriculture for those of industry. The importance of foreign trade for the agricultural and food sector is shown by the EU trade surplus of around €70 billion in 2023 in this area, it says. The deal creates a balance between such “offensive interests” in new export markets and the “defensive interests” of those sectors that have to accept an opening of the EU market to Latin American imports.
Manufacturers of processed foods, wine and spirits, olive oil and dairy products, including milk powder and baby food, would be able to export more cheaply. The Commission also sees the fact that indications of origin for products such as Parma ham or Spreewald gherkins would also be protected in the Mercosur countries as a plus point for the industry. On the other side, there are producers of beef, sheep and chicken meat, as well as sugar and rice. Reduced tariffs have been agreed for exports from Mercosur countries, but only for limited quotas. For beef and chicken, for example, the maximum quantities correspond to only 1.6 and 1.4 percent of EU consumption respectively, the Commission emphasizes.
If the additional imports of beef or sugar from Brazil and Argentina, for example, lead to market distortions in Europe and threaten to cause “serious damage” to the sectors affected, the Commission can implement safeguard mechanisms. The tariff concessions for importers would then be temporarily suspended. Such “safeguards” are an established instrument in EU trade policy.
Should the new free trade with South America nevertheless cause difficulties for European farmers, the Commission wants to have money up its sleeve to compensate them. Back in 2019, the then Trade Commissioner Phil Hogan promised “a support package of €1 billion exclusively for the agricultural sector.” A similar sum is to be made available in the new EU financial framework from 2028. However, the Commission prefers to speak of a kind of “fire insurance” that would take effect in the unlikely event of damage.
The German Farmers’ Association (DBV) still considers the planned protective mechanisms to be “completely inadequate.” The EU association Copa-Cogeca also emphasizes that imports from Latin America should be subject to the same environmental and social standards as domestic products. Where it is possible under trade law, this is already being done, according to the Commission.
However, “exporting” one’s own production standards is not only legally but also politically sensitive. This is because trading partners could respond with their own requirements. In Brazil, for example, industrial goods are produced in a more climate-friendly way than in the EU thanks to the high proportion of renewable energies. In addition, “no compromises” have been made when it comes to health and safety standards for food, emphasizes an official.
In any case, it makes more sense to enable European farmers to meet sustainability standards while remaining internationally competitive than to impose restrictions on imports, says Harald Grethe, head of the Agora Agrar think tank. For example, by ensuring that animal welfare and species protection services are adequately remunerated. After all, the sector is already facing international competition – even without the Mercosur deal.
Commissioners and cabinet members of the first von der Leyen Commission met with stakeholders from business and civil society 15692 times between 2019 and 2024. Resulting in 19 percent fewer meetings with stakeholders than the Commission held under Jean-Claude Juncker. This is according to a list of lobby meetings which the Commission is obliged to publish and which Table.Briefings has evaluated.
Commissioners and their cabinets have only had to keep public records of their stakeholder meetings since Jean-Claude Juncker took office. With the end of the first von der Leyen Commission, the stakeholder meetings of the two Commissions can now be compared for the first time.
A distribution of meetings over the years shows that both Commissions held the most stakeholder meetings in the first full year of their mandate and that this number then decreases towards the end of the mandate. The large difference in the number of stakeholder meetings is primarily due to the first two years of the Commission under Ursula von der Leyen, which were dominated by the pandemic.
In 2020, the first year of the Von der Leyen Commission, there were 32 percent fewer meetings with lobbyists than in the first year under Juncker (2015). In the following year, the difference was 20 percent. “It took a while for the Commission and the lobbyists to switch to digital lobby meetings – or at least for them to officially register them,” says Nina Katzemich Table.Briefings. As the campaigner for the NGO Lobby Control explains, the Commission must also register virtual meetings such as video conferences.
After an adjustment phase, the number of meetings could therefore have returned to the level of the previous mandate. However, even in its third year, the Von der Leyen Commission had almost 11 percent fewer meetings with stakeholders than its predecessor Commission.
For Heiko Willems, Managing Director of the BDI‘s Brussels office, the meetings with the Commission are important in many respects. “You can explain and categorize positions better in a personal conversation than in a written statement. You also get more information about the approach and views within the Commission,” he told Table.Briefings. The Commission did not want to comment on the figures despite repeated requests.
The quality of the exchange has also changed. 47 percent of stakeholder meetings took place fully or partially online, whereas this was virtually non-existent under Juncker. “When meetings take place online, personal interaction is of course neglected,” says Willems. However, one advantage of online meetings is that they are easier to plan.
Nevertheless, the reduced quantity and quality of meetings does not appear to be a major factor in the regulatory burden that the economy is currently complaining about. According to Willems, this has more to do with the focus on the Green Deal.
This focus is also evident in the stakeholder meetings. Frans Timmermans‘ cabinet had by far the most contacts with stakeholders, even though Timmermans had already stepped down as Commissioner in August 2023. The distribution of meetings also shows major differences between the Commissioners.
Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton and Financial Markets Commissioner Mairead McGuinness were also very active. As ordinary Commissioners, they had fewer cabinet members at their disposal than Executive Vice-Presidents Timmermans, Margrethe Vestager and Valdis Dombrovskis. In relation to their cabinet size, Breton and McGuinness therefore had relatively many stakeholder meetings.
In Germany, business representatives have often complained in recent years that they no longer have easy access to the Commissioners and their cabinets. This is probably mainly due to the appointment of Günther Oettinger. Compared to the other Commissioners, the former Digital and Budget Commissioner put in a real marathon when it came to meeting with interest groups. In comparison, even Breton seems reserved.
The Commission’s data also shows that the nationality of the Commissioners and their cabinet members has a major influence on which stakeholders they meet. The Oettinger era is therefore also likely to have marked the end of an era of exceptionally good access to the Commission for German stakeholders. As Commission President, von der Leyen must be more careful than others not to show any national preference. For the new Commission, German stakeholders can look forward to a strong German presence in the Commissioner cabinets.
Nevertheless, German interests were regularly heard in the first Von der Leyen Commission. In the ranking of interest representatives with the most individual meetings with Commissioners or their cabinet members, the BDI is in ninth place, making it the only business association from a Member State in the top 20.
It is also noticeable in the ranking that European companies are primarily represented by their associations. This also has to do with the institutionalized cooperation between the Commission and these associations. Airbus and Vodafone are the only individual European companies, while no fewer than five US companies from the tech industry are included – this demonstrates the importance of this sector and the extent to which it is dominated by US corporations. Only a handful of organizations do not directly represent corporate interests. With Stefanie Weber
He knows what it feels like to be on the other side. When lobbyists are in vehement opposition. During his time at the EU Commission, Jiří Zapletal experienced Italian lobbyists who chatted for two hours, created a pleasant atmosphere and subtly delivered their messages. And then there were their German colleagues, who were very blunt in their criticism – just as they were used to at home. “The tone in Brussels is much more conciliatory than in Berlin,” says Zapletal.
The son of a Czech father and a German mother sees himself as a “bridge builder between Berlin and Brussels.” Zapletal has been the German Savings Banks and Giro Association’s representative to the EU since September. The 45-year-old divides his time between Berlin and Brussels, with seven members of his team working in Brussels and eleven in Berlin.
In the past, the savings banks have often been perceived in Brussels as being a cause for concern. Zapletal now wants to show that these credit institutions with their peculiarities fit in well with the times – and, above all, perfectly with the plans of EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen for her second term of office. Financial education, which von der Leyen has written into Finance Commissioner Maria Luís Albuquerque‘s mission letter? “This is an important part of our public mission,” says Zapletal. Cohesion policy? “Savings banks do it every day.” Consumer protection? “We’ve been doing that for years, too.”
Jiří Zapletal has access to a large network in Berlin and Brussels. His former boss Steffen Meyer has just become State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Finance (BMF). Zapletal worked with him when he was the liaison officer for the German G20 presidency at the International Monetary Fund. Zapletal then moved to the Permanent Representation in Brussels to assist the BMF with Brexit. After more than five years, he joined the Commission as a national expert and worked on the EMIR Directive, among other things, which aims to increase transparency in the derivatives market.
The Saxon Minister for European Affairs, Katja Meier, recruited Zapletal from there to head the Saxon state representation in Brussels. He found the job at the top exciting, even if it was less about his specialist area of finance. Instead, he cut a five-meter-long Christmas stollen at the start of the Christmas market in the Ore Mountains. Zapletal was born in Brno in the Czech Republic and started school there, but came to the Ore Mountains at the age of six.
When the DSGV knocked on his door, Zapletal switched back to the lobbyist side. Twelve years earlier, he had already worked for the DSGV in Brussels. Zapletal has been involved with the savings banks since his youth. He completed an apprenticeship as a banker at Kreissparkasse Annaberg and was also sponsored by the savings bank as an athlete. In 1997, he won bronze with the four-times-100-meter relay team at the European Junior Championships, and the following year he came third with the relay team at the Junior World Championships. However, he then decided to go to university and studied European Integration in Chemnitz, at the same time as the current Green MEP Anna Cavazzini.
Jiří Zapletal is currently the reigning Brussels champion in the shot put in the M45 category. He also enthusiastically coaches his two daughters, aged nine and twelve. Thus sport still plays an important role in his life. Silke Wettach
