It’s time for the last time before the European elections: The last session week of the European Parliament and the last college meeting are coming up in April. The last EU-US Trade and Technology Council (TTC) is taking place today and tomorrow in Leuven, Flanders. This sixth TTC is so important because it will also be the last transatlantic meeting of its kind before the presidential elections in the USA. And who can say whether these talks will be resumed if the Americans actually elect Donald Trump to the presidency for a second time?
The sixth TTC at ministerial level is also important because, unlike the previous meeting in Washington, there will be a joint final declaration. US Ministers Anthony Blinken and Gina Raimondo and Trade Representative Katherine Tai, together with Margrethe Vestager, Valdis Dombrovskis and Thierry Breton, want to take stock and put down on paper what has been achieved so far. As a reminder: goods and services worth €4 billion cross the Atlantic every day.
But what exactly was achieved? Tangible progress has been made, particularly in areas where there were no regulations on either side. Such as the agreement on standardized charging systems for heavy commercial vehicles. Agreeing on the mutual recognition of existing standards or procedures, on the other hand, is much more difficult. For example, the VDMA has repeatedly called for mutual recognition of conformity assessment bodies, which would make things much easier and save companies money.
The DIHK’s request for more intensive cooperation on digital standard setting, high-risk technologies and the digital and green transformation will be more successful. In the field of artificial intelligence, there will be close cooperation between the new AI Office in Brussels and the Artificial Intelligence Security Center near Washington. This has already been announced, as well as for the upcoming mobile communications technology (6G), quantum technology and semiconductors.
We wish you a wonderful rest of the week!
For the first time, the EU Commission is officially investigating whether Chinese state subsidies have given solar companies an advantage over domestic bidders in a tender in Europe. There is “sufficient evidence” that two bidders have received“foreign subsidies that distort the internal market“, the Brussels authority announced on Wednesday. The Commission has therefore now launched a formal investigation into the two consortia.
Specifically, it concerns the tender for the construction and operation of the Rovinari Solar Park in Romania. The developers of the project are Oltenia Energy Complex and OMV Petrom. Two consortia that have submitted bids for this project are now affected by the EU investigation:
If the allegations are confirmed, the authority could ban the companies from accessing public tenders throughout the EU.
Even though the investigation is a novelty, it is unlikely to be of decisive help to European module manufacturers. Unlike the anti-subsidy investigation against electric car manufacturers from October 2023, this time the Commission is not taking action against imports of Chinese products per se, but only against a limited part of the market.
Wednesday’s measure is based on the newly created Foreign Subsidies Regulation (FSR) from 2023, which specifically targets subsidies in public tenders – which is no longer the dominant market segment for photovoltaics. According to the German Solar Industry Association, around half of solar demand in Germany was accounted for by the home segment, i.e. small systems without tenders. In the case of large systems on open spaces or roofs, on the other hand, part of the expansion is purely private.
Furthermore, only a portion of public procurement procedures meet the FSR reporting thresholds. It obliges companies bidding for EU tenders worth more than 250 million euros to disclose the amount of state subsidies they have received if these were higher than 4 million euros.
There were mixed reactions from the solar industry on Wednesday. “We see this investigation as an important step. The Commission is proving that it is indeed acting under the legal framework for unfair trading practices to respond to the Chinese industry’s aggressive strategy on net-zero technologies“, said Johan Lindahl, Secretary General of the manufacturers’ association ESMC.
Others emphasize that this is not a comprehensive anti-subsidy investigation against all imports, as is the case with EVs. “We have not received any signals from the Commission in recent weeks that it would get out the big knife“, says a German solar manager. Energy Commissioner Kadri Simson herself had spoken out against this after the last meeting of EU energy ministers.
So far, the FSR has been used in a tender for a railroad project in Bulgaria. The EU Commission had also launched an investigation into state subsidies from abroad. The Chinese bidder CRRC Qingdao Sifang Locomotive responded last week by withdrawing from the tender.
European solar manufacturers have been complaining for months about the low-cost competition from China and are demanding aid from the state and Brussels. At the end of February, Glasmanufaktur Brandenburg asked the federal government for support in order to maintain production. In January, Swiss manufacturer Meyer Burger threatened to close its plant in Freiberg, Saxony, in April without subsidies; the company recently sent out redundancy notices to around 400 employees. Meyer Burger had originally wanted to expand in Germany; now the company is relocating part of its production to the USA. This is because generous aid is flowing there.
However, little funding has been provided in Europe to date, even though the EU has set itself the goal of ensuring that at least 40 percent of all photovoltaic systems are produced domestically in Europe from 2030 under the planned Net-Zero Industry Act.
In any case, large parts of the solar industry itself are against punitive tariffs, as they would drive up prices and make the energy transition too expensive. The downstream industry in particular, which installs the systems for customers, rejects tariffs – because it is dependent on the cheap solar modules from China. The German solar industry also spoke out against higher tariffs. They would prefer money from the state, for example in the form of a so-called resilience program that provides financial support to domestic manufacturers in tenders.
This is precisely where the investigation comes in, at least to tackle excessive subsidies. If the specific allegations against the two consortia from China are confirmed, the Commission could ban the awarding of the solar park in Romania to the companies concerned or demand compensation measures from the groups. The result of the investigation is expected in three to four months.
On Wednesday, the Chinese Chamber of Commerce spoke of “great dissatisfaction with the misuse of the new tool by the responsible EU authorities“. The regulation is too broad and contains ambiguous definitions. Contribution: Christiane Kuehl
By summer 2025, the International Seabed Authority (ISA) wants to have developed rules for the extraction of raw materials in the deep sea. At the meeting from March 18 to 29 in Kingston, Jamaica, the ISA member states discussed a consolidated text for the first time. However, there was a considerable need for discussion and not even the first third of the regulations had been finalized, Table.Briefings learned from participants in the negotiations.
“At this rate, it is unrealistic that the regulations will be ready by summer 2025“, said Martin Webeler, who attended the negotiations as an observer on behalf of the Environmental Justice Foundation. Almost every regulation is still being worked on, and fundamental issues such as permissible threshold values for environmental damage have barely been addressed and new questions are constantly arising, he summarized.
A spokeswoman for the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWK), which is in charge of the project, announced that the Council had not yet given the green light for deep sea mining. The Council members would continue to negotiate the mining regulations. The next meeting is scheduled for July. It is still unclear whether another meeting will take place in the autumn, as was the case last year – and it probably depends on whether the first mining license is applied for next summer.
Together with the EU, France and other countries, the German government is calling for a precautionary pause in deep sea mining: permits should only be issued when negative effects on the marine environment can be ruled out. To this end, the regulations must take the precautionary principle into account. “In the further course of the negotiations, it will be important that even more states speak out in favor of postponing deep-sea mining and succeed in developing an ambitious set of regulations with effective environmental limits and standards”, said a spokeswoman for the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWK).
However, a consensus among the international community is far from guaranteed: Too many countries see the seabed as an advantage in the race for manganese, copper or nickel – all important raw materials for the energy transition and digitalization. At the beginning of the year, Norway decided to explore the Arctic seabed and mine minerals on the Norwegian seabed, aiming to become the first country to carry out deep-sea mining on a commercial scale. China currently holds five exploration licenses and wants to push ahead with mining; India also recently applied to the ISA for two more licenses to explore deep-sea resources.
The industry is also divided: Companies such as Bosch and Continental are campaigning for commercial deep-sea mining in the Deep Sea Mining Alliance, and the Federation of German Industries (BDI) also wants to “see deep-sea mining as an opportunity“. On the other hand, a group including Volkswagen, BMW, Google, Philips and Samsung has joined the call for a moratorium.
While the ISA has already drawn up a set of rules for the exploration of raw material deposits on the seabed, there is still no such set of rules for the extraction of these raw materials. The pressure increased in 2021 when the Pacific island state of Nauru, together with a subsidiary of the Canadian The Metals Company (TMC), triggered the so-called two-year clause of international maritime law. According to this clause, the ISA would have had to submit a set of regulations within two years. The deadline for this expired in July 2023.
Last year, the states were unable to agree on how the ISA should deal with mining applications without the regulations. They merely stipulated that there should be no provisional approvals without the Council having the opportunity to negotiate again. The first application could arrive as early as the summer: TMC confirmed to Table.Briefings on request that the mining application should be submitted after the ISA meeting in July. Together with Nauru, the company wants to mine battery raw materials in an area of the Clarion-Clipperton Zone in the Pacific. According to TMC, this area contains the largest untapped nickel deposit in the world.
If the world’s first application for the extraction of deep-sea resources in international waters is actually received by the ISA, another meeting is likely to take place in the fall. However, if the ISA’s Legal and Technical Committee makes a positive recommendation, experts say it will be virtually impossible for states to avert approval.
However, the work of the authority could also receive a new boost in July, as the post of current Secretary General Michael Lodge is up for election. During the Council meeting in Kingston, Brazil announced the candidacy of Leticia Carvalho. The marine biologist currently works for the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and, with this biography, is raising hopes among civil society observers for a more neutral administration of the ISA.
Lodge, who has a legal background, has been accused of a lack of neutrality in favor of the industry in the past. For example, Franziska Brantner, Parliamentary State Secretary at the BMWK, wrote a letter to Lodge in March 2023 and expressed “serious concern” about his attempts to unilaterally influence the delegations. Several diplomats from the member states had reported these allegations. All states parties to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea “must be able to trust that the Secretariat will respect its duty of neutrality”, Brantner wrote.
In addition, the General Secretariat is repeatedly criticized for restricting the participation of the press and observers from civil society during the negotiations and preventing protests. This time, the agenda of the Council meeting also included a debate about a protest action by Greenpeace: after activists from the NGO demonstrated against deep-sea mining around a research vessel in autumn 2023, the Secretariat wanted to impose a safety zone around such ships. However, a majority of states in the Council prevented this.
The clear victory of the opposition CHP in the local elections in Turkey has come as a great surprise even to experts. EU politician Sergey Lagodinsky points out that the elections were not fair. There were no incidents during the voting process, but since the “reshuffle” following the attempted coup in 2016, the numerous political prisoners, the restricted freedom of the press and the fight against terror in the Kurdish regions, it is not possible to speak of a fair election. “It is all the more admirable that parties like the CHP and DEM are not giving up and achieving such results“, says Lagodinsky.
After the election, Erdoğan admitted his party’s defeat in an unexpectedly self-critical speech. The president had been very present during the election campaign. At the beginning of March, he announced that this year’s local elections would be his “finale”. The AKP chairman is unlikely to run in the 2028 presidential elections.
Is the poor result a belated reminder of the meager and hesitant relief efforts following last year’s earthquakes? We can only speculate. The fact that the economic situation remains miserable despite great promises following the presidential election victory is seen as a key explanation for the opposition’s resounding victory.
The CHP now has a good starting position. Not only has it defended the mayorships in the most important cities of Istanbul and Ankara, it has now also secured a majority in the city parliaments. Until now, the CHP mayors have been able to block them politically.
However, Sergey Lagodinsky warns against premature euphoria. Although the results are “a democratic lesson to Erdoğan”, his era is not yet over. “The election gives hope that the system is not completely broken”, says the co-chair of the European Parliament’s EU-Turkey delegation. “But I wouldn’t bet on whether this is the beginning of the end of authoritarianism.”
Istanbul mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu has become a beacon of hope for the progressive forces in Turkey following his third victory against the AKP. However, a presumably politically motivated court case is currently underway against him, which could lead to a prison sentence and a ban on the 52-year-old’s activities. The verdict is expected this year.
Observers also fear that Erdoğan could soon invade northern Syria and northern Iraq in the fight against Kurdish terrorists. In Van in eastern Anatolia, the AKP also tried to disqualify Abdullah Zeydan, the election winner of the pro-Kurdish DEM party, which led to protests. However, Zeydan has since been reinstated by the high election committee.
Looking to the future, Lagodinsky says: “The election results are proof that it is worth fighting for Turkey’s European future.” Contrary to the voices calling for an end to the negotiations, he continues to believe in Turkey’s accession to the EU. Because once the process has been suspended, it cannot de facto be resumed.
It’s time for the last time before the European elections: The last session week of the European Parliament and the last college meeting are coming up in April. The last EU-US Trade and Technology Council (TTC) is taking place today and tomorrow in Leuven, Flanders. This sixth TTC is so important because it will also be the last transatlantic meeting of its kind before the presidential elections in the USA. And who can say whether these talks will be resumed if the Americans actually elect Donald Trump to the presidency for a second time?
The sixth TTC at ministerial level is also important because, unlike the previous meeting in Washington, there will be a joint final declaration. US Ministers Anthony Blinken and Gina Raimondo and Trade Representative Katherine Tai, together with Margrethe Vestager, Valdis Dombrovskis and Thierry Breton, want to take stock and put down on paper what has been achieved so far. As a reminder: goods and services worth €4 billion cross the Atlantic every day.
But what exactly was achieved? Tangible progress has been made, particularly in areas where there were no regulations on either side. Such as the agreement on standardized charging systems for heavy commercial vehicles. Agreeing on the mutual recognition of existing standards or procedures, on the other hand, is much more difficult. For example, the VDMA has repeatedly called for mutual recognition of conformity assessment bodies, which would make things much easier and save companies money.
The DIHK’s request for more intensive cooperation on digital standard setting, high-risk technologies and the digital and green transformation will be more successful. In the field of artificial intelligence, there will be close cooperation between the new AI Office in Brussels and the Artificial Intelligence Security Center near Washington. This has already been announced, as well as for the upcoming mobile communications technology (6G), quantum technology and semiconductors.
We wish you a wonderful rest of the week!
For the first time, the EU Commission is officially investigating whether Chinese state subsidies have given solar companies an advantage over domestic bidders in a tender in Europe. There is “sufficient evidence” that two bidders have received“foreign subsidies that distort the internal market“, the Brussels authority announced on Wednesday. The Commission has therefore now launched a formal investigation into the two consortia.
Specifically, it concerns the tender for the construction and operation of the Rovinari Solar Park in Romania. The developers of the project are Oltenia Energy Complex and OMV Petrom. Two consortia that have submitted bids for this project are now affected by the EU investigation:
If the allegations are confirmed, the authority could ban the companies from accessing public tenders throughout the EU.
Even though the investigation is a novelty, it is unlikely to be of decisive help to European module manufacturers. Unlike the anti-subsidy investigation against electric car manufacturers from October 2023, this time the Commission is not taking action against imports of Chinese products per se, but only against a limited part of the market.
Wednesday’s measure is based on the newly created Foreign Subsidies Regulation (FSR) from 2023, which specifically targets subsidies in public tenders – which is no longer the dominant market segment for photovoltaics. According to the German Solar Industry Association, around half of solar demand in Germany was accounted for by the home segment, i.e. small systems without tenders. In the case of large systems on open spaces or roofs, on the other hand, part of the expansion is purely private.
Furthermore, only a portion of public procurement procedures meet the FSR reporting thresholds. It obliges companies bidding for EU tenders worth more than 250 million euros to disclose the amount of state subsidies they have received if these were higher than 4 million euros.
There were mixed reactions from the solar industry on Wednesday. “We see this investigation as an important step. The Commission is proving that it is indeed acting under the legal framework for unfair trading practices to respond to the Chinese industry’s aggressive strategy on net-zero technologies“, said Johan Lindahl, Secretary General of the manufacturers’ association ESMC.
Others emphasize that this is not a comprehensive anti-subsidy investigation against all imports, as is the case with EVs. “We have not received any signals from the Commission in recent weeks that it would get out the big knife“, says a German solar manager. Energy Commissioner Kadri Simson herself had spoken out against this after the last meeting of EU energy ministers.
So far, the FSR has been used in a tender for a railroad project in Bulgaria. The EU Commission had also launched an investigation into state subsidies from abroad. The Chinese bidder CRRC Qingdao Sifang Locomotive responded last week by withdrawing from the tender.
European solar manufacturers have been complaining for months about the low-cost competition from China and are demanding aid from the state and Brussels. At the end of February, Glasmanufaktur Brandenburg asked the federal government for support in order to maintain production. In January, Swiss manufacturer Meyer Burger threatened to close its plant in Freiberg, Saxony, in April without subsidies; the company recently sent out redundancy notices to around 400 employees. Meyer Burger had originally wanted to expand in Germany; now the company is relocating part of its production to the USA. This is because generous aid is flowing there.
However, little funding has been provided in Europe to date, even though the EU has set itself the goal of ensuring that at least 40 percent of all photovoltaic systems are produced domestically in Europe from 2030 under the planned Net-Zero Industry Act.
In any case, large parts of the solar industry itself are against punitive tariffs, as they would drive up prices and make the energy transition too expensive. The downstream industry in particular, which installs the systems for customers, rejects tariffs – because it is dependent on the cheap solar modules from China. The German solar industry also spoke out against higher tariffs. They would prefer money from the state, for example in the form of a so-called resilience program that provides financial support to domestic manufacturers in tenders.
This is precisely where the investigation comes in, at least to tackle excessive subsidies. If the specific allegations against the two consortia from China are confirmed, the Commission could ban the awarding of the solar park in Romania to the companies concerned or demand compensation measures from the groups. The result of the investigation is expected in three to four months.
On Wednesday, the Chinese Chamber of Commerce spoke of “great dissatisfaction with the misuse of the new tool by the responsible EU authorities“. The regulation is too broad and contains ambiguous definitions. Contribution: Christiane Kuehl
By summer 2025, the International Seabed Authority (ISA) wants to have developed rules for the extraction of raw materials in the deep sea. At the meeting from March 18 to 29 in Kingston, Jamaica, the ISA member states discussed a consolidated text for the first time. However, there was a considerable need for discussion and not even the first third of the regulations had been finalized, Table.Briefings learned from participants in the negotiations.
“At this rate, it is unrealistic that the regulations will be ready by summer 2025“, said Martin Webeler, who attended the negotiations as an observer on behalf of the Environmental Justice Foundation. Almost every regulation is still being worked on, and fundamental issues such as permissible threshold values for environmental damage have barely been addressed and new questions are constantly arising, he summarized.
A spokeswoman for the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWK), which is in charge of the project, announced that the Council had not yet given the green light for deep sea mining. The Council members would continue to negotiate the mining regulations. The next meeting is scheduled for July. It is still unclear whether another meeting will take place in the autumn, as was the case last year – and it probably depends on whether the first mining license is applied for next summer.
Together with the EU, France and other countries, the German government is calling for a precautionary pause in deep sea mining: permits should only be issued when negative effects on the marine environment can be ruled out. To this end, the regulations must take the precautionary principle into account. “In the further course of the negotiations, it will be important that even more states speak out in favor of postponing deep-sea mining and succeed in developing an ambitious set of regulations with effective environmental limits and standards”, said a spokeswoman for the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWK).
However, a consensus among the international community is far from guaranteed: Too many countries see the seabed as an advantage in the race for manganese, copper or nickel – all important raw materials for the energy transition and digitalization. At the beginning of the year, Norway decided to explore the Arctic seabed and mine minerals on the Norwegian seabed, aiming to become the first country to carry out deep-sea mining on a commercial scale. China currently holds five exploration licenses and wants to push ahead with mining; India also recently applied to the ISA for two more licenses to explore deep-sea resources.
The industry is also divided: Companies such as Bosch and Continental are campaigning for commercial deep-sea mining in the Deep Sea Mining Alliance, and the Federation of German Industries (BDI) also wants to “see deep-sea mining as an opportunity“. On the other hand, a group including Volkswagen, BMW, Google, Philips and Samsung has joined the call for a moratorium.
While the ISA has already drawn up a set of rules for the exploration of raw material deposits on the seabed, there is still no such set of rules for the extraction of these raw materials. The pressure increased in 2021 when the Pacific island state of Nauru, together with a subsidiary of the Canadian The Metals Company (TMC), triggered the so-called two-year clause of international maritime law. According to this clause, the ISA would have had to submit a set of regulations within two years. The deadline for this expired in July 2023.
Last year, the states were unable to agree on how the ISA should deal with mining applications without the regulations. They merely stipulated that there should be no provisional approvals without the Council having the opportunity to negotiate again. The first application could arrive as early as the summer: TMC confirmed to Table.Briefings on request that the mining application should be submitted after the ISA meeting in July. Together with Nauru, the company wants to mine battery raw materials in an area of the Clarion-Clipperton Zone in the Pacific. According to TMC, this area contains the largest untapped nickel deposit in the world.
If the world’s first application for the extraction of deep-sea resources in international waters is actually received by the ISA, another meeting is likely to take place in the fall. However, if the ISA’s Legal and Technical Committee makes a positive recommendation, experts say it will be virtually impossible for states to avert approval.
However, the work of the authority could also receive a new boost in July, as the post of current Secretary General Michael Lodge is up for election. During the Council meeting in Kingston, Brazil announced the candidacy of Leticia Carvalho. The marine biologist currently works for the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and, with this biography, is raising hopes among civil society observers for a more neutral administration of the ISA.
Lodge, who has a legal background, has been accused of a lack of neutrality in favor of the industry in the past. For example, Franziska Brantner, Parliamentary State Secretary at the BMWK, wrote a letter to Lodge in March 2023 and expressed “serious concern” about his attempts to unilaterally influence the delegations. Several diplomats from the member states had reported these allegations. All states parties to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea “must be able to trust that the Secretariat will respect its duty of neutrality”, Brantner wrote.
In addition, the General Secretariat is repeatedly criticized for restricting the participation of the press and observers from civil society during the negotiations and preventing protests. This time, the agenda of the Council meeting also included a debate about a protest action by Greenpeace: after activists from the NGO demonstrated against deep-sea mining around a research vessel in autumn 2023, the Secretariat wanted to impose a safety zone around such ships. However, a majority of states in the Council prevented this.
The clear victory of the opposition CHP in the local elections in Turkey has come as a great surprise even to experts. EU politician Sergey Lagodinsky points out that the elections were not fair. There were no incidents during the voting process, but since the “reshuffle” following the attempted coup in 2016, the numerous political prisoners, the restricted freedom of the press and the fight against terror in the Kurdish regions, it is not possible to speak of a fair election. “It is all the more admirable that parties like the CHP and DEM are not giving up and achieving such results“, says Lagodinsky.
After the election, Erdoğan admitted his party’s defeat in an unexpectedly self-critical speech. The president had been very present during the election campaign. At the beginning of March, he announced that this year’s local elections would be his “finale”. The AKP chairman is unlikely to run in the 2028 presidential elections.
Is the poor result a belated reminder of the meager and hesitant relief efforts following last year’s earthquakes? We can only speculate. The fact that the economic situation remains miserable despite great promises following the presidential election victory is seen as a key explanation for the opposition’s resounding victory.
The CHP now has a good starting position. Not only has it defended the mayorships in the most important cities of Istanbul and Ankara, it has now also secured a majority in the city parliaments. Until now, the CHP mayors have been able to block them politically.
However, Sergey Lagodinsky warns against premature euphoria. Although the results are “a democratic lesson to Erdoğan”, his era is not yet over. “The election gives hope that the system is not completely broken”, says the co-chair of the European Parliament’s EU-Turkey delegation. “But I wouldn’t bet on whether this is the beginning of the end of authoritarianism.”
Istanbul mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu has become a beacon of hope for the progressive forces in Turkey following his third victory against the AKP. However, a presumably politically motivated court case is currently underway against him, which could lead to a prison sentence and a ban on the 52-year-old’s activities. The verdict is expected this year.
Observers also fear that Erdoğan could soon invade northern Syria and northern Iraq in the fight against Kurdish terrorists. In Van in eastern Anatolia, the AKP also tried to disqualify Abdullah Zeydan, the election winner of the pro-Kurdish DEM party, which led to protests. However, Zeydan has since been reinstated by the high election committee.
Looking to the future, Lagodinsky says: “The election results are proof that it is worth fighting for Turkey’s European future.” Contrary to the voices calling for an end to the negotiations, he continues to believe in Turkey’s accession to the EU. Because once the process has been suspended, it cannot de facto be resumed.
