French trade unions are fiercely resisting the plans of French President Emmanuel Macron. Massive strikes have again been announced for today, which marks the 6th day of strikes against the pension reform, Macron’s most ambitious plan. Transport Minister Clément Beaune, a close confidant of the president, already said: “The strikes will not stop on March 7”. But Macron has nothing to lose, writes Tanja Kuchenbecker.
Swiss State Secretary Livia Leu arrives in Brussels today for the eighth round of exploratory talks with the EU Commission. It is unlikely to be the last: Talks on a new basis for the bilateral relationship have been tough; the exploratory talks have been about the same issues over and over again for the past year. And that’s despite the fact that time is running out. Stephan Israel analyzes why the EU and Switzerland are having such a hard time with each other.
Limit values that are more closely aligned with WHO recommendations and emergency measures in the event of particularly bad air: Javi López (S&D), the Parliamentary negotiator for the Air Quality Directive, wants to tighten up the Commission’s proposal. Find out exactly what he plans in the News.
France is once again facing massive protests against pension reform. Train and air traffic will probably be hit hardest. Transport Minister Clément Beaune, a close confidant of President Emmanuel Macron, warned, “It will be one of the most difficult days we’ve seen”. And Beaune is convinced that “the strikes will not stop on March 7”. The government is campaigning against the strikes because, in its view, they are a burden on the working population.
The background to the demonstrations planned for today, Tuesday, is the pension reform planned by Macron’s government, under which the retirement age is to rise from the current 62 to 64 by 2030. It is already the 6th day of strikes against the reform. Macron has so far made no concessions. The strikes have been called by a coalition of eight unions and five youth protection organizations. The unions expect more than a million participants. And they are threatening that the demonstrations and work stoppages could last longer.
Today, public transport in Paris is said to be barely functioning. Long-distance train services will be severely restricted, with only one train out of five scheduled to run. Train services with Germany and Spain will be canceled altogether. Many teachers will strike, and strikes have also been announced at energy companies, airports, ports and slaughterhouses. Additionally, truck drivers want to block roads.
So far, according to polls, 71 percent of the population is against the reform. All unions have united in the fight, which has not been the case for years. “It’s a very tough reform that the population rejects. Public opinion is a plus for the strike and especially for a long-lasting strike,” says historian and sociologist Stéphane Sirot, who specializes in strikes and unions. The timing is also well chosen, he adds. The school vacations are over, and the next ones won’t come until April. This guarantees that the unions will not quickly turn the French against themselves.
Pressure on the government is growing. The CGT union, which has a majority in the energy companies, ducked the head of state: “Emmanuel Macron, if you continue like this, you’ll go dark.” It announced a “black week” starting Monday.
Bertrand Dumont, the Solidaires union representative at the Paris transport operator RATP, stressed, “If Macron and his government put their project on the back burner Tuesday night, we’ll be back at work Wednesday.” He expects that three consecutive days of strikes will be enough for the government to withdraw the reform. “All sectors are going together against it,” he said.
But this could fail because of Macron’s determination. There are several reasons why he is adamant about raising the retirement age from 62 to 64. The pension reform is the most ambitious project of his two terms in office. He cannot be re-elected after two terms and therefore has nothing to lose. He would only be a loser if the pension reform does not go through in the second attempt either.
He already made a first attempt in 2019, but then the pandemic intervened. Sociologist Vincent Tiberj, a professor at Sciences Po in Bordeaux, thinks Macron is unlikely to back down. “He’s gone too far to take the risk”.
Macron is taking a strategic approach. First, he diverted attention from the reform by traveling to Africa for four days before the strike day. Asked on the spot about the pension issue, the president said only that he had “not much new to say.” Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne is also holding back at the moment because things are going better in the Senate than in the National Assembly, where there have been heated debates with the Left.
The Senate must conclude the debate by midnight on March 12. The actual point of contention, raising the retirement age, was postponed until the days after the general strike so as not to inflame the protests. The Senate is dominated by the conservatives, who even want to tighten the reform.
The conservatives are important for Macron because they will decide whether the reform is adopted or not. He has to get them on his side because he does not have an absolute majority in the National Assembly.
The conservatives want to abolish the special pension systems faster than the government. These special pension systems mean large benefits for various divisions, such as employees of the SNCF railroad and the Paris RATP. Macron wants to keep the old pension rules for employees and change them only for new hires. The conservatives, on the other hand, are proposing a slow adjustment for those already employed as well, just as they did for everyone else in France with the pension reform.
The government has so far spoken out against this. Macron’s 2019 reform was about quickly abolishing precisely these special regimes. The protests against it dragged on for weeks. The daily newspaper Le Monde commented that the government hoped the movement would fizzle out and did not want to fuel the strikes.
The Republicans’ proposal holds potential for conflict, but Macron wants to push through the reform as quickly as possible. This will determine how much room for maneuvering he has for the remaining four years of his term.
The window of opportunity for a deal between Switzerland and the EU is closing slowly but surely. Swiss State Secretary Livia Leu is coming to Brussels today for the eighth round of exploratory talks with the EU Commission. It is not likely to be the last. The talks are about a new basis for the bilateral relationship, so far enshrined in a complex web of more than 120 agreements. This is the second attempt after the Swiss government unilaterally broke off talks on a virtually completed so-called framework agreement in May 2021, to the annoyance of the EU.
Why are Switzerland and the EU having such a hard time? The bilateral agreements have so far secured Switzerland sectoral access to the single market. This is a tailor-made solution that the EU once granted Switzerland in anticipation of full accession to the club at a later date.
An offer that the EU now regrets. The Swiss economy benefits more than average from this privileged access to the world’s largest single market. In Brussels, the Swiss have the reputation of being “cherry pickers”. The government in Bern has long since withdrawn its application for membership.
The problem for the EU is that the agreements with Switzerland are static, whereas EU law develops dynamically. From the EU’s perspective, the homogeneity of internal market law is no longer guaranteed. There is also a lack of dispute resolution. For example, SMEs from southern Germany have been protesting in vain for years against bureaucratic obstacles when they want to accept orders in Switzerland. Brussels sees certain Swiss wage protection measures as contradicting the bilateral agreements.
The dispute over Swiss wage protection, the rights of EU citizens in Switzerland and the role of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in dispute settlement already caused the framework agreement to fail almost two years ago. Since then, the EU has been exerting pressure by no longer updating certain agreements, such as the one on technical barriers to trade. In addition, Brussels has so far refused Switzerland full association with the EU’s Horizon Europe research program.
The exploratory talks have been focusing on the same issues for a year now. This time, the EU wants to play it safe and set out mutual concessions in a joint declaration. The actual negotiations could then go quickly – at least theoretically.
This time, the Swiss government is seeking a package solution. In addition to the so-called institutional issues such as dispute settlement or the dynamic adoption of law, this should include new market access agreements in areas such as electricity and health. In Bern, it is hoped to gain more maneuvering power and better chances in a later referendum. However, the package raises new questions. For example, in the case of an electricity agreement, the government in Bern would have to commit to following the EU’s liberalization steps in the electricity market – something that is highly controversial in Switzerland.
Following the exploratory meeting of the Secretary of State in Brussels, Maroš Šefčovič, Vice President of the EU Commission, will travel to Switzerland next week to meet Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis. The meeting came about only at the urging of Brussels.
Time is running out because both chambers of Parliament will be newly elected in Switzerland in the fall. The negotiations would also have to be concluded before the mandate of the current EU Commission expires in 2024. Observers consider the timetable unrealistic. It is also unclear whether the Swiss government will even want to set a course on the thorny European dossier in an election year. Switzerland has an all-party government, blocked by internal contradictions. There are some indications that the seven Federal Councillors with equal rights do not want to burn their fingers on the European dossier in an election year.
The uncertainty surrounding Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine should actually be an incentive for Switzerland to stabilize its relationship with its most important partner and sales market. But Switzerland is having a hard time with its “turn of the times”. The country was long considered an oligarch’s paradise and the most important hub for Russian commodity trading.
After a brief hesitation, the government in Bern adopted the EU sanctions almost in full a year ago. In the meantime, there is growing criticism of the implementation. So far, the authorities have blocked only CHF 7.5 billion, out of an estimated CHF 200 billion in assets held by Russian clients in Swiss banks.
The government is also in a dilemma with regard to the supply of military equipment. Requests from Germany, Spain and Denmark for the re-export of armaments from Swiss manufacturers to Ukraine have already been rejected in Bern, to the incomprehension of the European partners. Germany and the Czech Republic are currently interested in Leopard 2 tanks, 96 of which are stored in a secret location in eastern Switzerland.
The request is a new test for the government in Bern. The Leopards are not to be delivered to Ukraine, but will fill gaps in the two EU states. Defense Minister Viola Amherd signaled Monday that Switzerland could do without some of the tanks. The talk is of a dozen pieces. But this will not be possible quickly either way. And supporters of strict Swiss neutrality are already voicing their opposition.
In the civil service, things sometimes happen very quickly. A transfer brought Christoph Roth to Brussels. From the representation of the Saarland in Berlin to its European counterpart. Another city, another country, but the basic task remained the same: to accommodate Saarland interests. That is not always so easy for a federal state that is not a “big player”. And yet Roth says, “I was surprised how open they are in Brussels to the interests of the regions“.
Roth felt right at home in Brussels. French characterizes his everyday life, and the francophone has accompanied him for years. After studying philosophy in Berlin, he studied at the Sorbonne in Paris. Then he went back to Berlin, where he continued to work diligently on his French, as he explains. Working abroad in Europe has always been a dream, he says. Eventually, however, a vacancy just happened to bring him to the heart of the EU policy-making business in Belgium.
Now he is on the road a lot. Roth is in Saarland to find out what is important to people and companies. In Brussels, the representation is to bring pragmatism to EU negotiations. And in Berlin, it’s a matter of reporting on the current debates in the EU. Although the negotiations on Saarland’s interests at the European level take place in Brussels, concrete decisions are made in Berlin via the Bundesrat.
The exchange is important, he states. “The capitals are far away, so it’s not easy to know what’s happening at the EU level and what the regions need,” says Roth, referring not only to Saarland. After all, the regions are in the same boat, and have similar interests and problems.
That’s why the cooperation between Saarland, the French region of Grand Est, Luxembourg and regions of Belgium has existed since 1995. “We are a well-coordinated team.” The representation even shares an office with its French colleagues, and not only in Brussels. In Berlin and Paris, too, the representations keep rooms free for the teams from the other country. “A small piece of Europe in action,” says Roth.
It is remnants of the Corona pandemic that move the regions. “With full force” many European laws are hitting the greater region. With 250,000 commuters a day, this affects many administrative areas, he said: Employment contracts, short-time work or home office regulations. “Often it’s small pragmatic things, but they became real problems during the lockdowns,” Roth says.
However, as a federal state with energy-intensive companies, Saarland is also strongly affected by the Green Deal. The decisive factor is how the Green Deal can be implemented locally without having to cut back on the competitiveness of industrial production. The representation was also involved in the processes surrounding the plans for one of the world’s largest silicon carbide semiconductor factories in Saarland. Among other things, Brussels had been made aware of the need to speed up inspections.
It’s European topics like these that Roth likes to talk about, rather than about himself. But he does reveal a little about his life in Brussels. His life takes place away from the hustle and bustle of Brussels politics. Instead of the typical EU neighborhoods, Roth lives downtown. “It was a big worry of mine whether I would stay only in this one bubble.” Downtown, however, is bustling. He especially enjoys hanging out in the Italian community, he says. “It gives me a chance to open up to Europeans without being in politics all the time”. Katharina Kausche
French trade unions are fiercely resisting the plans of French President Emmanuel Macron. Massive strikes have again been announced for today, which marks the 6th day of strikes against the pension reform, Macron’s most ambitious plan. Transport Minister Clément Beaune, a close confidant of the president, already said: “The strikes will not stop on March 7”. But Macron has nothing to lose, writes Tanja Kuchenbecker.
Swiss State Secretary Livia Leu arrives in Brussels today for the eighth round of exploratory talks with the EU Commission. It is unlikely to be the last: Talks on a new basis for the bilateral relationship have been tough; the exploratory talks have been about the same issues over and over again for the past year. And that’s despite the fact that time is running out. Stephan Israel analyzes why the EU and Switzerland are having such a hard time with each other.
Limit values that are more closely aligned with WHO recommendations and emergency measures in the event of particularly bad air: Javi López (S&D), the Parliamentary negotiator for the Air Quality Directive, wants to tighten up the Commission’s proposal. Find out exactly what he plans in the News.
France is once again facing massive protests against pension reform. Train and air traffic will probably be hit hardest. Transport Minister Clément Beaune, a close confidant of President Emmanuel Macron, warned, “It will be one of the most difficult days we’ve seen”. And Beaune is convinced that “the strikes will not stop on March 7”. The government is campaigning against the strikes because, in its view, they are a burden on the working population.
The background to the demonstrations planned for today, Tuesday, is the pension reform planned by Macron’s government, under which the retirement age is to rise from the current 62 to 64 by 2030. It is already the 6th day of strikes against the reform. Macron has so far made no concessions. The strikes have been called by a coalition of eight unions and five youth protection organizations. The unions expect more than a million participants. And they are threatening that the demonstrations and work stoppages could last longer.
Today, public transport in Paris is said to be barely functioning. Long-distance train services will be severely restricted, with only one train out of five scheduled to run. Train services with Germany and Spain will be canceled altogether. Many teachers will strike, and strikes have also been announced at energy companies, airports, ports and slaughterhouses. Additionally, truck drivers want to block roads.
So far, according to polls, 71 percent of the population is against the reform. All unions have united in the fight, which has not been the case for years. “It’s a very tough reform that the population rejects. Public opinion is a plus for the strike and especially for a long-lasting strike,” says historian and sociologist Stéphane Sirot, who specializes in strikes and unions. The timing is also well chosen, he adds. The school vacations are over, and the next ones won’t come until April. This guarantees that the unions will not quickly turn the French against themselves.
Pressure on the government is growing. The CGT union, which has a majority in the energy companies, ducked the head of state: “Emmanuel Macron, if you continue like this, you’ll go dark.” It announced a “black week” starting Monday.
Bertrand Dumont, the Solidaires union representative at the Paris transport operator RATP, stressed, “If Macron and his government put their project on the back burner Tuesday night, we’ll be back at work Wednesday.” He expects that three consecutive days of strikes will be enough for the government to withdraw the reform. “All sectors are going together against it,” he said.
But this could fail because of Macron’s determination. There are several reasons why he is adamant about raising the retirement age from 62 to 64. The pension reform is the most ambitious project of his two terms in office. He cannot be re-elected after two terms and therefore has nothing to lose. He would only be a loser if the pension reform does not go through in the second attempt either.
He already made a first attempt in 2019, but then the pandemic intervened. Sociologist Vincent Tiberj, a professor at Sciences Po in Bordeaux, thinks Macron is unlikely to back down. “He’s gone too far to take the risk”.
Macron is taking a strategic approach. First, he diverted attention from the reform by traveling to Africa for four days before the strike day. Asked on the spot about the pension issue, the president said only that he had “not much new to say.” Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne is also holding back at the moment because things are going better in the Senate than in the National Assembly, where there have been heated debates with the Left.
The Senate must conclude the debate by midnight on March 12. The actual point of contention, raising the retirement age, was postponed until the days after the general strike so as not to inflame the protests. The Senate is dominated by the conservatives, who even want to tighten the reform.
The conservatives are important for Macron because they will decide whether the reform is adopted or not. He has to get them on his side because he does not have an absolute majority in the National Assembly.
The conservatives want to abolish the special pension systems faster than the government. These special pension systems mean large benefits for various divisions, such as employees of the SNCF railroad and the Paris RATP. Macron wants to keep the old pension rules for employees and change them only for new hires. The conservatives, on the other hand, are proposing a slow adjustment for those already employed as well, just as they did for everyone else in France with the pension reform.
The government has so far spoken out against this. Macron’s 2019 reform was about quickly abolishing precisely these special regimes. The protests against it dragged on for weeks. The daily newspaper Le Monde commented that the government hoped the movement would fizzle out and did not want to fuel the strikes.
The Republicans’ proposal holds potential for conflict, but Macron wants to push through the reform as quickly as possible. This will determine how much room for maneuvering he has for the remaining four years of his term.
The window of opportunity for a deal between Switzerland and the EU is closing slowly but surely. Swiss State Secretary Livia Leu is coming to Brussels today for the eighth round of exploratory talks with the EU Commission. It is not likely to be the last. The talks are about a new basis for the bilateral relationship, so far enshrined in a complex web of more than 120 agreements. This is the second attempt after the Swiss government unilaterally broke off talks on a virtually completed so-called framework agreement in May 2021, to the annoyance of the EU.
Why are Switzerland and the EU having such a hard time? The bilateral agreements have so far secured Switzerland sectoral access to the single market. This is a tailor-made solution that the EU once granted Switzerland in anticipation of full accession to the club at a later date.
An offer that the EU now regrets. The Swiss economy benefits more than average from this privileged access to the world’s largest single market. In Brussels, the Swiss have the reputation of being “cherry pickers”. The government in Bern has long since withdrawn its application for membership.
The problem for the EU is that the agreements with Switzerland are static, whereas EU law develops dynamically. From the EU’s perspective, the homogeneity of internal market law is no longer guaranteed. There is also a lack of dispute resolution. For example, SMEs from southern Germany have been protesting in vain for years against bureaucratic obstacles when they want to accept orders in Switzerland. Brussels sees certain Swiss wage protection measures as contradicting the bilateral agreements.
The dispute over Swiss wage protection, the rights of EU citizens in Switzerland and the role of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in dispute settlement already caused the framework agreement to fail almost two years ago. Since then, the EU has been exerting pressure by no longer updating certain agreements, such as the one on technical barriers to trade. In addition, Brussels has so far refused Switzerland full association with the EU’s Horizon Europe research program.
The exploratory talks have been focusing on the same issues for a year now. This time, the EU wants to play it safe and set out mutual concessions in a joint declaration. The actual negotiations could then go quickly – at least theoretically.
This time, the Swiss government is seeking a package solution. In addition to the so-called institutional issues such as dispute settlement or the dynamic adoption of law, this should include new market access agreements in areas such as electricity and health. In Bern, it is hoped to gain more maneuvering power and better chances in a later referendum. However, the package raises new questions. For example, in the case of an electricity agreement, the government in Bern would have to commit to following the EU’s liberalization steps in the electricity market – something that is highly controversial in Switzerland.
Following the exploratory meeting of the Secretary of State in Brussels, Maroš Šefčovič, Vice President of the EU Commission, will travel to Switzerland next week to meet Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis. The meeting came about only at the urging of Brussels.
Time is running out because both chambers of Parliament will be newly elected in Switzerland in the fall. The negotiations would also have to be concluded before the mandate of the current EU Commission expires in 2024. Observers consider the timetable unrealistic. It is also unclear whether the Swiss government will even want to set a course on the thorny European dossier in an election year. Switzerland has an all-party government, blocked by internal contradictions. There are some indications that the seven Federal Councillors with equal rights do not want to burn their fingers on the European dossier in an election year.
The uncertainty surrounding Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine should actually be an incentive for Switzerland to stabilize its relationship with its most important partner and sales market. But Switzerland is having a hard time with its “turn of the times”. The country was long considered an oligarch’s paradise and the most important hub for Russian commodity trading.
After a brief hesitation, the government in Bern adopted the EU sanctions almost in full a year ago. In the meantime, there is growing criticism of the implementation. So far, the authorities have blocked only CHF 7.5 billion, out of an estimated CHF 200 billion in assets held by Russian clients in Swiss banks.
The government is also in a dilemma with regard to the supply of military equipment. Requests from Germany, Spain and Denmark for the re-export of armaments from Swiss manufacturers to Ukraine have already been rejected in Bern, to the incomprehension of the European partners. Germany and the Czech Republic are currently interested in Leopard 2 tanks, 96 of which are stored in a secret location in eastern Switzerland.
The request is a new test for the government in Bern. The Leopards are not to be delivered to Ukraine, but will fill gaps in the two EU states. Defense Minister Viola Amherd signaled Monday that Switzerland could do without some of the tanks. The talk is of a dozen pieces. But this will not be possible quickly either way. And supporters of strict Swiss neutrality are already voicing their opposition.
In the civil service, things sometimes happen very quickly. A transfer brought Christoph Roth to Brussels. From the representation of the Saarland in Berlin to its European counterpart. Another city, another country, but the basic task remained the same: to accommodate Saarland interests. That is not always so easy for a federal state that is not a “big player”. And yet Roth says, “I was surprised how open they are in Brussels to the interests of the regions“.
Roth felt right at home in Brussels. French characterizes his everyday life, and the francophone has accompanied him for years. After studying philosophy in Berlin, he studied at the Sorbonne in Paris. Then he went back to Berlin, where he continued to work diligently on his French, as he explains. Working abroad in Europe has always been a dream, he says. Eventually, however, a vacancy just happened to bring him to the heart of the EU policy-making business in Belgium.
Now he is on the road a lot. Roth is in Saarland to find out what is important to people and companies. In Brussels, the representation is to bring pragmatism to EU negotiations. And in Berlin, it’s a matter of reporting on the current debates in the EU. Although the negotiations on Saarland’s interests at the European level take place in Brussels, concrete decisions are made in Berlin via the Bundesrat.
The exchange is important, he states. “The capitals are far away, so it’s not easy to know what’s happening at the EU level and what the regions need,” says Roth, referring not only to Saarland. After all, the regions are in the same boat, and have similar interests and problems.
That’s why the cooperation between Saarland, the French region of Grand Est, Luxembourg and regions of Belgium has existed since 1995. “We are a well-coordinated team.” The representation even shares an office with its French colleagues, and not only in Brussels. In Berlin and Paris, too, the representations keep rooms free for the teams from the other country. “A small piece of Europe in action,” says Roth.
It is remnants of the Corona pandemic that move the regions. “With full force” many European laws are hitting the greater region. With 250,000 commuters a day, this affects many administrative areas, he said: Employment contracts, short-time work or home office regulations. “Often it’s small pragmatic things, but they became real problems during the lockdowns,” Roth says.
However, as a federal state with energy-intensive companies, Saarland is also strongly affected by the Green Deal. The decisive factor is how the Green Deal can be implemented locally without having to cut back on the competitiveness of industrial production. The representation was also involved in the processes surrounding the plans for one of the world’s largest silicon carbide semiconductor factories in Saarland. Among other things, Brussels had been made aware of the need to speed up inspections.
It’s European topics like these that Roth likes to talk about, rather than about himself. But he does reveal a little about his life in Brussels. His life takes place away from the hustle and bustle of Brussels politics. Instead of the typical EU neighborhoods, Roth lives downtown. “It was a big worry of mine whether I would stay only in this one bubble.” Downtown, however, is bustling. He especially enjoys hanging out in the Italian community, he says. “It gives me a chance to open up to Europeans without being in politics all the time”. Katharina Kausche
