European laws are subject to the principles of gender equality and non-discrimination. However, these principles are occasionally ignored when it comes to road safety, as crash test dummies are still only modeled on the male body. This has devastating consequences, as analyzed by Charlotte Wirth. The risk of injury after traffic accidents is sometimes significantly higher for women than for men.
Some EU member states also fear devastating consequences due to the German Skilled Immigration Act. Germany urgently needs immigration into the labor market and wants to lower the barriers for immigration. However, countries in southern and eastern Europe are concerned that their own skilled workers could be poached. Falk Steiner has the details.
Last week, EU Research Commissioner Mariya Gabriel opened the first “European Innovation Days” in Silicon Valley, aiming to spark interest in Europe among US start-ups and investors. In an interview with Manfred Ronzheimer, she explains how she wants to make the EU more attractive and in which areas Europe no longer needs to hide.
Additionally, we are launching a new series in Europe.Table today. Although the European elections in 2024 are still some time away, we will start looking at the projection for the composition of the next EU Parliament approximately every six weeks. For his Column “If the European election were on Sunday…”, Manuel Müller compiles the results of opinion polls from all 27 member states.
I wish you a pleasant read and a beautiful day.
The immigration law is to be significantly simplified in the future: “Shredding bureaucracy” is the order of the day, announced Federal Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Hubertus Heil (SPD). Two million job vacancies are a record, says Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD). Among other things, the reformed EU Blue Card is pinned with the hopes of the federal government. They want to “consistently use the scope of the directive”, for example for immigrants who “have a master craftsman’s degree rather than a master’s degree”, as Faeser puts it.
Germany urgently needs immigration into the labor market – from the EU, Europe, and third countries. The Federal Republic will need about 400,000 new workers annually in the coming years, according to calculations by the Institute for Employment Research. This is in addition to the number of people who enter the labor market in Germany each year on their own.
Before the coronavirus pandemic, Hubertus Heil calculated on Wednesday, there were about 315,000 immigrants counted. In addition to better retraining of citizens who have not yet been part of the labor market, labor migration is primarily intended to make it possible to achieve the necessary numbers. When the baby boomer generation retires en masse in the coming years, the new system must be up and running.
The new German regulation is a significant improvement for academics and those with a demonstrable formal professional qualification, says Panu Poutvaraa from the Munich-based ifo Institute. In the future, those who can present a university degree will no longer be tied to this field of activity but will be allowed to pursue any qualified employment in general.
In the future, those with a formal professional qualification will be allowed to enter the country first and then obtain recognition later. However, the ifo labor market economist wishes for more: “It would make sense to also allow people with professional experience but without formal proof of it to enter the country for the purpose of long-term employment,” says Pana Poutvaraa. “In this case, one should rely on the assessment of potential employers.”
However, there is also a shortage of skilled workers in parts of Eastern and Central Europe. Romanian EPP Member of Parliament Siegfried Mureșan welcomes the German law: “If implemented correctly, the law could contribute to reducing the still high unemployment among younger skilled workers in Southern Europe.” But he also warns: “Skilled workers should only be recruited where they are not currently needed in the labor market.” Yet the German proposal takes little consideration of this, given its own shortage symptoms.
“In many places, we now have not only a shortage of skilled workers but also a shortage of labor,” says CDU Member of the European Parliament Dennis Radtke. “This development is not only true for Germany but also in many parts of Europe.” This is because large parts of Europe are in the midst of a demographic change. In particular, the south and east are aging rapidly. According to Eurostat’s projections, by 2100, Hungary, Italy, Finland, and Estonia will lose up to 20 percent of their current population. Croatia, Bulgaria, Romania, and Lithuania could lose more than 30 percent of their inhabitants. Latvia stands alone at the top: by 2100, 43.7 percent fewer residents are expected to live there, according to Eurostat’s calculations.
EU citizens are also getting older: for example, Eurostat expects that by the end of the current century, one in six inhabitants in Poland will be over 80 years old, and thus already born today. The reservoir for internal migration within the EU will soon be almost as empty as the water reservoirs in northern Italy.
No wonder that other member states are also increasingly looking for workers and want to apply the new EU rules as well. For example, the Luxembourg government plans to present a law this Friday that would grant a work permit for third-country nationals within five days in defined shortage occupations – a speed that will not be achieved with the new German regulation. Luxembourg also wants to grant work permits to accompanying partners, announced Labor Minister Georges Engel in response to a Table.Media inquiry.
For CDU politician Dennis Radtke, the problem should therefore be addressed at the European level. “Of course, we are also in competition with each other for workers, which significantly affects joint action,” Radtke describes the problem. Consequently, it makes sense that the EU Commission has declared 2023 the European Year of Skills.
According to the federal government’s plans, the Federal Employment Agency alone is to issue 50,000 work permits annually for the Western Balkan countries. However, it is questionable whether Germany can achieve its target numbers at all.
The approach still causes discontent in other member states. “By attracting skilled workers from outside the EU, the federal government may solve a problem for itself. But it creates one for the others,” says a diplomat from a neighboring country who would have preferred better coordination. After all, the German visas are Schengen visas, which provide access to economies and societies where the discussion is fundamentally different.
Because Germany is acting very deliberately for its own benefit: the recruitment of workers should only be possible in countries with which a repatriation agreement exists. This is intended to increase pressure, especially on countries that hope that labor migrants from their countries will send money back to their home countries but have so far shown no interest in accepting rejected asylum seekers.
Such agreements exist, for example, with Vietnam, North Macedonia, Serbia, Kazakhstan, Guinea, Georgia, Algeria, and Armenia. The federal government, however, aims to achieve further agreements in the near future. The Federal Minister of the Interior is under pressure to succeed ahead of the state elections in Bavaria and Hesse in October, where Nancy Faeser, as the top candidate for the SPD, is also running for election.
Other member states would also prefer joint solutions in this regard – but according to diplomatic sources, the relevant experts of the federal government have shown little interest in a truly joint approach. At present, there is still a lack of a common position in the Council on future migration law. (with Markus Grabitz, Till Hoppe, and Charlotte Wirth)
He bears the name of the Germanic god of thunder. Thor is the name of the latest generation crash test dummy that is meant to help make cars safer. The name is significant. To this day, vehicles are only required to be tested with male dummies in order to be approved for use in Europe.
The Transport Committee of the European Parliament (TRAN) wants to change this. In a statement on the report of the Women’s Rights and Gender Equality Committee on the safety of women in transport, the members of parliament call for the use of female crash test dummies in the future. “For too long, cars, car seats, and seat belts have been designed for the male body, which has catastrophic consequences for women involved in car accidents,” says Tilly Metz, Green MEP who submitted the amendment. With the statement, TRAN calls on the Commission to develop new standards for crash test dummies.
It may be surprising that the use of such dummies is not yet mandatory today. Since the 1960s, it has been known that women have a significantly higher risk of injury in traffic accidents than men. Up to 47 percent in fatal and life-threatening injuries, write Swedish scientists Astrid Linder and Wanna Swedberg, citing studies from 1969 to 2013. The risk is particularly high in so-called whiplash injuries, i.e. soft tissue injuries of the neck – up to three times higher than in men. But injuries to the lower extremities and entrapment are also more common in women.
Despite this data situation, the following applies by law: the test standard is the average man. The corresponding male dummy is called “Hybrid III 50th percentile man”. Height: 1.75 meters. Weight: 78 kilograms. Only for side collisions will the female “Hybrid III 5 percentile woman” also be used. Namely as a female passenger to simulate a small person. Height: 1.50 meters. Weight: 51 kilos.
For Swedish researchers Linder and Swedberg, this shows that European legislation cements inequalities: for example, the principles of gender equality and non-discrimination of the EU treaties are not respected, Linder and Swedberg ask in their study: “Whose road safety is actually protected by EU laws?”
When asked, the EU Commission admits that testing is currently only being done with dummies representing an average man, or rather a scaled-down version of the average man. Furthermore, it refers to a new working group of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) on the equal protection of inmates.
In fact, the technical requirements for vehicles and thus also the rules for the use of dummies are defined by the UNECE. Its regulations on occupant safety specify exactly which tests must be carried out with which dummies. For example, frontal and side impacts must be simulated. EU legislation merely reinforces the UNECE standards, for example in the framework directive on the approval of vehicles (Regulation 2018/858). So far, the rules provide for the use of the so-called Hybrid III dummy, which is soon to be replaced by Thor.
However, while the male dummy is based on the data of the male population, this is not the case for the female hybrid dummy. The relevant Regulation 73 of the UN Economic Commission reads in this regard: This dummy “represents the smallest segment of the adult population and was derived from scaled data of the male Hybrid III.”
The German Motor Vehicle Inspection Association DEKRA puts it more succinctly. It says the Hybrid III female dummy is “more or less a shrunken version” of the male dummy. “In terms of size and weight, it would represent a 12- to 14-year-old girl today rather than an adult woman.” In the Thor model, the female dummy is actually modeled after a woman’s body, but it, too, will represent a very small female occupant rather than the average woman.
The differences between men and women go beyond height and weight. “The anatomy is different. Forces and accelerations acting from the outside are certainly more pronounced in women than in men,” says Gabriele Kaczmarczyk of the German Association of Women Doctors. For example, women’s torsos have a different shape than men’s, and their necks have a different curvature. The shape and stiffness of muscles and joints also differ.
Astrid Linder has developed the first average female dummy. Her name is Eva, she is 1.62 meters tall and weighs 62 kilograms, but she is not yet ready for production. As long as there is no demand for such dummies, for example through revised legislation, Eva will not be marketed: “Only when society finally asks for a female dummy, they will it get it,” says the engineer.
The fact that the legislation continues to require testing only with male dummies has concrete consequences. There is no incentive for carmakers and registration bodies to go beyond the legislation. Vehicle manufacturer Volvo, for example, has a gender strategy with its “E.V.A.” strategy for “Safe Vehicles for All.” Nevertheless, the manufacturer has no choice but to test with available female dummies.
“Even if insurance companies were to collect more data and car manufacturers were to develop their own female dummies, this will not be taken into account by the regulatory apparatus,” Astrid Linder regrets. The legislation is too rigid for that, she says. It’s as if society is saying, “no, we’re not looking at that, we’re only interested in the average man,” the researcher complains.
When asked, EU-NCAP, the European road safety initiative that evaluates vehicle safety, says, “We can’t break down vehicle safety to such simplistic terms as men and women.” Instead, it says, we need to consider the entire spectrum of people.
Ms. Gabriel, Silicon Valley is regarded worldwide as the Olympus of innovation. As a European, what were your expectations when you came to California?
We want to make innovators and investors from the USA aware of the opportunities offered by Europe as a business location. This was aimed at founders who want to open a startup in Europe as well as experts who are interested in working for European companies or scientific institutions. Our intention is to attract innovators from Silicon Valley to the European ecosystem for deep tech innovation.
How did you present the European innovation landscape in terms of content?
As set out by the New European Innovation Agenda, we wanted to position Europe as a global powerhouse for deep-tech innovation. This was based in particular on high-tech industries such as construction, agriculture, engineering, energy and transportation. On the ground, we found that Europe can also be seen on par with the US in innovation in other sectors, including aerospace.
Back from the USA, what are your “lessons learned”?
The most important lesson is that the EU and the US are equal partners when it comes to deep tech innovations. Which are also geared toward solving our major societal challenges. It turned out that Europe is a reliable partner on equal footing for the Silicon Valley innovation ecosystem when it comes to innovations in hardware as well as in biology. For us, deep tech is the new wave of innovation in which Europe is expected to play a leading role.
Our appearance in Silicon Valley also encouraged us to focus our efforts on sectors where the EU is stronger than competitors in deep tech innovation. These are sectors such as manufacturing, engineering, agriculture and energy, to name the most important.
What’s next? What cooperation plans do you have for the future?
The newly launched EU Innovation Talent Platform will provide a clear path for those who want to come to Europe to create and grow their deep tech innovation startups here. We expect this platform to become the one-stop shop for innovators looking to move to Europe.
Also in the planning stages is another mission to the Bay Area next October to solidify bridges between EU and US ecosystems with bidirectional movements of capital and talent in deep tech innovation. The next mission will focus on specific industry sectors where Europe is particularly strong. The March Monitoring Group, together with the European Sounding Board for Innovation, will make the selection. We are also considering showcasing European innovation achievements in other regions of the US, such as Austin in Texas.
Around fourteen months before the 2024 European elections, the polls are showing an exciting race. According to a current projection, the Christian Democrat-conservative European People’s Party (EPP) would currently only have 162 MEPs and would thus fall significantly below its level of 176 seats in the current Parliament. The Social Democratic Group (S&D) would also lose seats, but to a lesser extent: Instead of 144, it would now have 137 seats. If this remains the case, or if the Social Democrats make up even more ground, it could be one of the closest European elections in recent decades.
In the preparations for the European election campaign, which are gradually getting underway, these developments are likely to be noted with interest. On the one hand, there is the top candidate procedure, according to which the European parties nominate their candidates for the Commission presidency before the election. The favorite for the EPP nomination is considered to be incumbent Ursula von der Leyen, who, however, has not yet explicitly stated whether she will be available for a second term.
What is less clear is who might run in the S&D primaries this fall. Possible contenders include Frans Timmermans, the 2019 frontrunner and current Commission vice president; Sanna Marin, who is vying for her position as national head of government in Finland’s parliamentary election this Sunday; and former Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta. The narrower the gap between the EPP and S&D becomes, the more significant the candidate selection will be.
On the other hand, the close race draws attention to possible new additions of national parties: On the one hand, the inclusion of new parties can increase the weight of parliamentary groups; on the other hand, it always influences their political profile and can therefore meet resistance. For example, the fact that the EPP could be working toward the accession of the Italian governing party Fratelli d’Italia (currently a member of the right-wing ECR group) recently caused a lot of internal anger.
But there are also new faces – such as the Dutch farmers’ party BBB, which recently won the national provincial elections and will probably enter the European Parliament for the first time in 2024. It is not yet clear which group it will then join, but the EPP would be an obvious option. In the “dynamic scenario” of the seat projection, which takes into account such plausible but still uncertain new parliamentary group entries, the EPP (170 seats) is therefore still slightly ahead of the S&D (141).
Behind the EPP and S&D, the liberal Renew Europe (RE) group defends its position as the third strongest group in the projection. In the baseline scenario, it loses slightly (94 seats instead of 101), but in the dynamic scenario, it is able to maintain its current strength (102) due to the inclusion of new member parties.
The European Greens, who benefited from a “green wave” in the 2019 European elections thanks in part to the Fridays for Future movement that began at that time, fall back significantly in the projection. Instead of 72 seats at present, they would only have 42 seats in the baseline scenario (dynamic scenario: 76). However, in past European elections, the Greens were often able to make strong gains during the election campaign.
The share of seats held by the right-wing parliamentary groups ID and EKR, which currently each have 64 seats, is likely to increase further after the European elections. In the base scenario of the projection, the ECR – propelled by Fratelli d’Italia – climbs to 78 MEPs, the ID to 68. The dynamic scenario takes into account a possible ID accession of the currently factionless Hungarian ruling party Fidesz and therefore sees the ID (84 seats) just ahead of the ECR (81). Together, the right-wing parties would have almost one-fifth of the seats in Parliament, more than ever before.
Finally, the left-wing parliamentary group has also made slight gains, increasing its number of seats from the current 38 to 44 (dynamic scenario: 46). On the other hand, the proportion of nonattached deputies is likely to fall: In the current Parliament, they have 46 seats – also due to various party resignations and expulsions in the course of the legislative period since 2019; in the projection, this figure is only 38 (dynamic scenario: 35).
Since there are no pan-European election polls, the seat projection is based on aggregated national polls and election results from all member states. In the baseline scenario, all national parties are each assigned to their current parliamentary group (or the parliamentary group of their European umbrella party); parties without a clear European assignment are shown as “other” parties. The dynamic scenario assigns all “other parties” in each case to a parliamentary group that they could plausibly join and includes possible changes of parliamentary groups of other national parties.
More details on the data basis and methodology of the projection as well as a breakdown of the results by individual national parties can be found on the blog: The (European) Federalist.
Manuel Müller is a Senior Research Fellow at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs (FIIA) in Helsinki and runs the blog “The (European) Federalist”. He studied history and Hispanic studies and wrote his dissertation on the European public sphere in the debate on the Maastricht Treaty. Müller will from now on publish his projections on his blog and through Table.Media.
European laws are subject to the principles of gender equality and non-discrimination. However, these principles are occasionally ignored when it comes to road safety, as crash test dummies are still only modeled on the male body. This has devastating consequences, as analyzed by Charlotte Wirth. The risk of injury after traffic accidents is sometimes significantly higher for women than for men.
Some EU member states also fear devastating consequences due to the German Skilled Immigration Act. Germany urgently needs immigration into the labor market and wants to lower the barriers for immigration. However, countries in southern and eastern Europe are concerned that their own skilled workers could be poached. Falk Steiner has the details.
Last week, EU Research Commissioner Mariya Gabriel opened the first “European Innovation Days” in Silicon Valley, aiming to spark interest in Europe among US start-ups and investors. In an interview with Manfred Ronzheimer, she explains how she wants to make the EU more attractive and in which areas Europe no longer needs to hide.
Additionally, we are launching a new series in Europe.Table today. Although the European elections in 2024 are still some time away, we will start looking at the projection for the composition of the next EU Parliament approximately every six weeks. For his Column “If the European election were on Sunday…”, Manuel Müller compiles the results of opinion polls from all 27 member states.
I wish you a pleasant read and a beautiful day.
The immigration law is to be significantly simplified in the future: “Shredding bureaucracy” is the order of the day, announced Federal Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Hubertus Heil (SPD). Two million job vacancies are a record, says Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD). Among other things, the reformed EU Blue Card is pinned with the hopes of the federal government. They want to “consistently use the scope of the directive”, for example for immigrants who “have a master craftsman’s degree rather than a master’s degree”, as Faeser puts it.
Germany urgently needs immigration into the labor market – from the EU, Europe, and third countries. The Federal Republic will need about 400,000 new workers annually in the coming years, according to calculations by the Institute for Employment Research. This is in addition to the number of people who enter the labor market in Germany each year on their own.
Before the coronavirus pandemic, Hubertus Heil calculated on Wednesday, there were about 315,000 immigrants counted. In addition to better retraining of citizens who have not yet been part of the labor market, labor migration is primarily intended to make it possible to achieve the necessary numbers. When the baby boomer generation retires en masse in the coming years, the new system must be up and running.
The new German regulation is a significant improvement for academics and those with a demonstrable formal professional qualification, says Panu Poutvaraa from the Munich-based ifo Institute. In the future, those who can present a university degree will no longer be tied to this field of activity but will be allowed to pursue any qualified employment in general.
In the future, those with a formal professional qualification will be allowed to enter the country first and then obtain recognition later. However, the ifo labor market economist wishes for more: “It would make sense to also allow people with professional experience but without formal proof of it to enter the country for the purpose of long-term employment,” says Pana Poutvaraa. “In this case, one should rely on the assessment of potential employers.”
However, there is also a shortage of skilled workers in parts of Eastern and Central Europe. Romanian EPP Member of Parliament Siegfried Mureșan welcomes the German law: “If implemented correctly, the law could contribute to reducing the still high unemployment among younger skilled workers in Southern Europe.” But he also warns: “Skilled workers should only be recruited where they are not currently needed in the labor market.” Yet the German proposal takes little consideration of this, given its own shortage symptoms.
“In many places, we now have not only a shortage of skilled workers but also a shortage of labor,” says CDU Member of the European Parliament Dennis Radtke. “This development is not only true for Germany but also in many parts of Europe.” This is because large parts of Europe are in the midst of a demographic change. In particular, the south and east are aging rapidly. According to Eurostat’s projections, by 2100, Hungary, Italy, Finland, and Estonia will lose up to 20 percent of their current population. Croatia, Bulgaria, Romania, and Lithuania could lose more than 30 percent of their inhabitants. Latvia stands alone at the top: by 2100, 43.7 percent fewer residents are expected to live there, according to Eurostat’s calculations.
EU citizens are also getting older: for example, Eurostat expects that by the end of the current century, one in six inhabitants in Poland will be over 80 years old, and thus already born today. The reservoir for internal migration within the EU will soon be almost as empty as the water reservoirs in northern Italy.
No wonder that other member states are also increasingly looking for workers and want to apply the new EU rules as well. For example, the Luxembourg government plans to present a law this Friday that would grant a work permit for third-country nationals within five days in defined shortage occupations – a speed that will not be achieved with the new German regulation. Luxembourg also wants to grant work permits to accompanying partners, announced Labor Minister Georges Engel in response to a Table.Media inquiry.
For CDU politician Dennis Radtke, the problem should therefore be addressed at the European level. “Of course, we are also in competition with each other for workers, which significantly affects joint action,” Radtke describes the problem. Consequently, it makes sense that the EU Commission has declared 2023 the European Year of Skills.
According to the federal government’s plans, the Federal Employment Agency alone is to issue 50,000 work permits annually for the Western Balkan countries. However, it is questionable whether Germany can achieve its target numbers at all.
The approach still causes discontent in other member states. “By attracting skilled workers from outside the EU, the federal government may solve a problem for itself. But it creates one for the others,” says a diplomat from a neighboring country who would have preferred better coordination. After all, the German visas are Schengen visas, which provide access to economies and societies where the discussion is fundamentally different.
Because Germany is acting very deliberately for its own benefit: the recruitment of workers should only be possible in countries with which a repatriation agreement exists. This is intended to increase pressure, especially on countries that hope that labor migrants from their countries will send money back to their home countries but have so far shown no interest in accepting rejected asylum seekers.
Such agreements exist, for example, with Vietnam, North Macedonia, Serbia, Kazakhstan, Guinea, Georgia, Algeria, and Armenia. The federal government, however, aims to achieve further agreements in the near future. The Federal Minister of the Interior is under pressure to succeed ahead of the state elections in Bavaria and Hesse in October, where Nancy Faeser, as the top candidate for the SPD, is also running for election.
Other member states would also prefer joint solutions in this regard – but according to diplomatic sources, the relevant experts of the federal government have shown little interest in a truly joint approach. At present, there is still a lack of a common position in the Council on future migration law. (with Markus Grabitz, Till Hoppe, and Charlotte Wirth)
He bears the name of the Germanic god of thunder. Thor is the name of the latest generation crash test dummy that is meant to help make cars safer. The name is significant. To this day, vehicles are only required to be tested with male dummies in order to be approved for use in Europe.
The Transport Committee of the European Parliament (TRAN) wants to change this. In a statement on the report of the Women’s Rights and Gender Equality Committee on the safety of women in transport, the members of parliament call for the use of female crash test dummies in the future. “For too long, cars, car seats, and seat belts have been designed for the male body, which has catastrophic consequences for women involved in car accidents,” says Tilly Metz, Green MEP who submitted the amendment. With the statement, TRAN calls on the Commission to develop new standards for crash test dummies.
It may be surprising that the use of such dummies is not yet mandatory today. Since the 1960s, it has been known that women have a significantly higher risk of injury in traffic accidents than men. Up to 47 percent in fatal and life-threatening injuries, write Swedish scientists Astrid Linder and Wanna Swedberg, citing studies from 1969 to 2013. The risk is particularly high in so-called whiplash injuries, i.e. soft tissue injuries of the neck – up to three times higher than in men. But injuries to the lower extremities and entrapment are also more common in women.
Despite this data situation, the following applies by law: the test standard is the average man. The corresponding male dummy is called “Hybrid III 50th percentile man”. Height: 1.75 meters. Weight: 78 kilograms. Only for side collisions will the female “Hybrid III 5 percentile woman” also be used. Namely as a female passenger to simulate a small person. Height: 1.50 meters. Weight: 51 kilos.
For Swedish researchers Linder and Swedberg, this shows that European legislation cements inequalities: for example, the principles of gender equality and non-discrimination of the EU treaties are not respected, Linder and Swedberg ask in their study: “Whose road safety is actually protected by EU laws?”
When asked, the EU Commission admits that testing is currently only being done with dummies representing an average man, or rather a scaled-down version of the average man. Furthermore, it refers to a new working group of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) on the equal protection of inmates.
In fact, the technical requirements for vehicles and thus also the rules for the use of dummies are defined by the UNECE. Its regulations on occupant safety specify exactly which tests must be carried out with which dummies. For example, frontal and side impacts must be simulated. EU legislation merely reinforces the UNECE standards, for example in the framework directive on the approval of vehicles (Regulation 2018/858). So far, the rules provide for the use of the so-called Hybrid III dummy, which is soon to be replaced by Thor.
However, while the male dummy is based on the data of the male population, this is not the case for the female hybrid dummy. The relevant Regulation 73 of the UN Economic Commission reads in this regard: This dummy “represents the smallest segment of the adult population and was derived from scaled data of the male Hybrid III.”
The German Motor Vehicle Inspection Association DEKRA puts it more succinctly. It says the Hybrid III female dummy is “more or less a shrunken version” of the male dummy. “In terms of size and weight, it would represent a 12- to 14-year-old girl today rather than an adult woman.” In the Thor model, the female dummy is actually modeled after a woman’s body, but it, too, will represent a very small female occupant rather than the average woman.
The differences between men and women go beyond height and weight. “The anatomy is different. Forces and accelerations acting from the outside are certainly more pronounced in women than in men,” says Gabriele Kaczmarczyk of the German Association of Women Doctors. For example, women’s torsos have a different shape than men’s, and their necks have a different curvature. The shape and stiffness of muscles and joints also differ.
Astrid Linder has developed the first average female dummy. Her name is Eva, she is 1.62 meters tall and weighs 62 kilograms, but she is not yet ready for production. As long as there is no demand for such dummies, for example through revised legislation, Eva will not be marketed: “Only when society finally asks for a female dummy, they will it get it,” says the engineer.
The fact that the legislation continues to require testing only with male dummies has concrete consequences. There is no incentive for carmakers and registration bodies to go beyond the legislation. Vehicle manufacturer Volvo, for example, has a gender strategy with its “E.V.A.” strategy for “Safe Vehicles for All.” Nevertheless, the manufacturer has no choice but to test with available female dummies.
“Even if insurance companies were to collect more data and car manufacturers were to develop their own female dummies, this will not be taken into account by the regulatory apparatus,” Astrid Linder regrets. The legislation is too rigid for that, she says. It’s as if society is saying, “no, we’re not looking at that, we’re only interested in the average man,” the researcher complains.
When asked, EU-NCAP, the European road safety initiative that evaluates vehicle safety, says, “We can’t break down vehicle safety to such simplistic terms as men and women.” Instead, it says, we need to consider the entire spectrum of people.
Ms. Gabriel, Silicon Valley is regarded worldwide as the Olympus of innovation. As a European, what were your expectations when you came to California?
We want to make innovators and investors from the USA aware of the opportunities offered by Europe as a business location. This was aimed at founders who want to open a startup in Europe as well as experts who are interested in working for European companies or scientific institutions. Our intention is to attract innovators from Silicon Valley to the European ecosystem for deep tech innovation.
How did you present the European innovation landscape in terms of content?
As set out by the New European Innovation Agenda, we wanted to position Europe as a global powerhouse for deep-tech innovation. This was based in particular on high-tech industries such as construction, agriculture, engineering, energy and transportation. On the ground, we found that Europe can also be seen on par with the US in innovation in other sectors, including aerospace.
Back from the USA, what are your “lessons learned”?
The most important lesson is that the EU and the US are equal partners when it comes to deep tech innovations. Which are also geared toward solving our major societal challenges. It turned out that Europe is a reliable partner on equal footing for the Silicon Valley innovation ecosystem when it comes to innovations in hardware as well as in biology. For us, deep tech is the new wave of innovation in which Europe is expected to play a leading role.
Our appearance in Silicon Valley also encouraged us to focus our efforts on sectors where the EU is stronger than competitors in deep tech innovation. These are sectors such as manufacturing, engineering, agriculture and energy, to name the most important.
What’s next? What cooperation plans do you have for the future?
The newly launched EU Innovation Talent Platform will provide a clear path for those who want to come to Europe to create and grow their deep tech innovation startups here. We expect this platform to become the one-stop shop for innovators looking to move to Europe.
Also in the planning stages is another mission to the Bay Area next October to solidify bridges between EU and US ecosystems with bidirectional movements of capital and talent in deep tech innovation. The next mission will focus on specific industry sectors where Europe is particularly strong. The March Monitoring Group, together with the European Sounding Board for Innovation, will make the selection. We are also considering showcasing European innovation achievements in other regions of the US, such as Austin in Texas.
Around fourteen months before the 2024 European elections, the polls are showing an exciting race. According to a current projection, the Christian Democrat-conservative European People’s Party (EPP) would currently only have 162 MEPs and would thus fall significantly below its level of 176 seats in the current Parliament. The Social Democratic Group (S&D) would also lose seats, but to a lesser extent: Instead of 144, it would now have 137 seats. If this remains the case, or if the Social Democrats make up even more ground, it could be one of the closest European elections in recent decades.
In the preparations for the European election campaign, which are gradually getting underway, these developments are likely to be noted with interest. On the one hand, there is the top candidate procedure, according to which the European parties nominate their candidates for the Commission presidency before the election. The favorite for the EPP nomination is considered to be incumbent Ursula von der Leyen, who, however, has not yet explicitly stated whether she will be available for a second term.
What is less clear is who might run in the S&D primaries this fall. Possible contenders include Frans Timmermans, the 2019 frontrunner and current Commission vice president; Sanna Marin, who is vying for her position as national head of government in Finland’s parliamentary election this Sunday; and former Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta. The narrower the gap between the EPP and S&D becomes, the more significant the candidate selection will be.
On the other hand, the close race draws attention to possible new additions of national parties: On the one hand, the inclusion of new parties can increase the weight of parliamentary groups; on the other hand, it always influences their political profile and can therefore meet resistance. For example, the fact that the EPP could be working toward the accession of the Italian governing party Fratelli d’Italia (currently a member of the right-wing ECR group) recently caused a lot of internal anger.
But there are also new faces – such as the Dutch farmers’ party BBB, which recently won the national provincial elections and will probably enter the European Parliament for the first time in 2024. It is not yet clear which group it will then join, but the EPP would be an obvious option. In the “dynamic scenario” of the seat projection, which takes into account such plausible but still uncertain new parliamentary group entries, the EPP (170 seats) is therefore still slightly ahead of the S&D (141).
Behind the EPP and S&D, the liberal Renew Europe (RE) group defends its position as the third strongest group in the projection. In the baseline scenario, it loses slightly (94 seats instead of 101), but in the dynamic scenario, it is able to maintain its current strength (102) due to the inclusion of new member parties.
The European Greens, who benefited from a “green wave” in the 2019 European elections thanks in part to the Fridays for Future movement that began at that time, fall back significantly in the projection. Instead of 72 seats at present, they would only have 42 seats in the baseline scenario (dynamic scenario: 76). However, in past European elections, the Greens were often able to make strong gains during the election campaign.
The share of seats held by the right-wing parliamentary groups ID and EKR, which currently each have 64 seats, is likely to increase further after the European elections. In the base scenario of the projection, the ECR – propelled by Fratelli d’Italia – climbs to 78 MEPs, the ID to 68. The dynamic scenario takes into account a possible ID accession of the currently factionless Hungarian ruling party Fidesz and therefore sees the ID (84 seats) just ahead of the ECR (81). Together, the right-wing parties would have almost one-fifth of the seats in Parliament, more than ever before.
Finally, the left-wing parliamentary group has also made slight gains, increasing its number of seats from the current 38 to 44 (dynamic scenario: 46). On the other hand, the proportion of nonattached deputies is likely to fall: In the current Parliament, they have 46 seats – also due to various party resignations and expulsions in the course of the legislative period since 2019; in the projection, this figure is only 38 (dynamic scenario: 35).
Since there are no pan-European election polls, the seat projection is based on aggregated national polls and election results from all member states. In the baseline scenario, all national parties are each assigned to their current parliamentary group (or the parliamentary group of their European umbrella party); parties without a clear European assignment are shown as “other” parties. The dynamic scenario assigns all “other parties” in each case to a parliamentary group that they could plausibly join and includes possible changes of parliamentary groups of other national parties.
More details on the data basis and methodology of the projection as well as a breakdown of the results by individual national parties can be found on the blog: The (European) Federalist.
Manuel Müller is a Senior Research Fellow at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs (FIIA) in Helsinki and runs the blog “The (European) Federalist”. He studied history and Hispanic studies and wrote his dissertation on the European public sphere in the debate on the Maastricht Treaty. Müller will from now on publish his projections on his blog and through Table.Media.
