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Today, Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz is traveling to the Republic of Moldova. He will meet with President Maia Sandu and Prime Minister Dorin Recean in Chișinău. The talks are expected to focus not only on bilateral relations between the two countries, security policy and the impact of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine on the landlocked country directly bordering Moldova. Moldova’s planned accession to the EU will also be discussed.
Olivér Várhelyi, EU Commissioner for Neighborhood and Enlargement, paid an official visit to Moldova in July. This visit took place following the Intergovernmental Conference, which gave the go-ahead for accession negotiations with Moldova in June.
Commissioner Várhelyi initiated the bilateral screening procedure for EU accession with Moldova. The bilateral screening is the first step in the negotiations. The candidate country is invited to present its current status of preparations for the adoption and implementation of EU legislation. It is also invited to present the steps it intends to take to further harmonize its legislation with that of the EU.
Chancellor Scholz’s visit comes at a crucial time for the Republic of Moldova. The country is worried about becoming a victim of Russian aggression itself. An espionage affair is straining the already tense relations between Chișinău and Moscow. The pro-Western President Maia Sandu is standing for re-election in October. Some Western countries accuse Russia of trying to influence this decision with disinformation campaigns. For its part, the government in Chișinău accuses Russia of wanting to destabilize the country. It could therefore use some support.
Get the day off to a good start!
Taiwanese semiconductor giant TSMC broke ground Tuesday on a massive new plant in Dresden, its first in Europe and a marker of the continent’s newfound chip ambitions.
The factory – formally called European Semiconductor Manufacturing Company – is a collaboration between TSMC and three established European partners: Infineon, Bosch, and NXP.
Leaders who symbolically shoveled dirt at the groundbreaking ceremony Tuesday hailed the project as a tentpole in Germany and Europe’s efforts to catch up in the critical sector of semiconductors.
“This is more than a groundbreaking ceremony,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said. “It is an endorsement for Europe as a global innovation powerhouse.”
The 10-billion-euro plant – partly funded by 5 billion euros in subsidies from the German government that were unlocked through the European Chips Act – represents one of the single largest investments in Saxony’s history, and will focus on making chips that power Germany’s strong automotive industry. TSMC CEO C.C. Wei said the company chose to expand to Germany to be “close to our customers.”
Saxony is already critical to European chipmaking, with a third of the continent’s semiconductors manufactured in the Dresden area. It’s branded itself as “Silicon Saxony.”
The factory, scheduled to start operations in 2027, is expected to create about 2,000 high-tech jobs, and local officials estimate the surrounding supply chain will generate more jobs.
Pandemic-era supply chain disruptions, which hurt Germany’s critical automotive sector, woke up EU leaders to the reality that the continent needs to be a critical player in the chip industry.
The European Chips Act, which went into effect last September, puts 43 billion euros toward chip manufacturing, with a goal of increasing the EU’s share of the global microchips market from 10% to 20% by 2030.
“We must remove all the obstacles that are still slowing us down and we must invest more in what makes Europe so attractive,” von der Leyen said. “The global race for the technologies of tomorrow is on, and I want Europe really to switch gear.”
Scholz called chips “the crude oil of the 21st century.”
The central question is whether the public investment is enough for Germany and Europe to catch up. Despite the rosy outlook presented Tuesday, some of Europe’s recent chip ventures have been rocky.
In Magdeburg, construction on Intel’s 30-billion-euro chip fab, initially slated to start in 2023, is now delayed until next year because crews have to remove and relocate black soil at the site. And a chip fab in Saarland, announced in 2023 by US company Wolfspeed, was also delayed. Intel also recently halted plans to build microchip plants in France and Italy.
Europe is in competition with other governments that are also offering generous subsidies to companies to set up shop. And the total earmarked for the EU’s Chip Act is far less funding than other governments, like the US and South Korea, are offering their semiconductor sectors.
“If you really want to catch up, more has to be done,” said Frank Bösenberg, the head of Silicon Saxony, a local microelectronics business group.
Looking around at the groundbreaking, Bösenberg said: “Without any doubt this will boost our region and we will grow. But the market also grows, so therefore to catch up, even more has to happen.”
Looming over the sector’s future in Germany are threats that were only briefly alluded to during the optimistic speeches at the groundbreaking: Though he didn’t mention China by name, Scholz tied the new plant to Germany’s strategy of economically “derisking” from the geopolitical volatile superpower.
“We should not be dependent in the supply of our semiconductors,” the chancellor said.
And von der Leyen pointed out that “at a time of growing geopolitical tensions, TSMC will also benefit from geographic diversification to Europe.” The company has been caught in the crosshairs of US-China tensions, with its stock price dropping last month after US presidential candidate Donald Trump said Taiwan should pay for US protection.
Much of the business sector also worries that the rise of the German far-right could make the country less appealing to skilled foreign workers who are desperately needed in the microelectronics sector. Experts worry there will be a deficit between the number of high-tech roles in the region – Dresden business groups predict the jobs could total 100,000 by 2030 – and the number of qualified people who can fill them.
Scholz said Germany needs to create the “social and political conditions” that invites investment, and have “no isolation, no anxiety about the future.”
“We need a pro-European and cosmopolitan Germany,” he said, likely a dig at Euro-skeptic populist parties.
On Tuesday, the EU Commission presented the draft final report on the anti-subsidy investigation into Chinese EV imports. The investigation was initiated in October because the EU Commission suspected the heavily subsidized Chinese car industry of damaging the European market. In July, the Commission imposed provisional countervailing duties.
Based on car manufacturers’ feedback, the Commission has now slightly adjusted the planned countervailing duties:
The countervailing duty is levied in addition to the existing duty of ten percent.
The adjustment primarily benefits Tesla. According to Commission officials, the US company requested a separate assessment from the Commission instead of being subject to the general countervailing duty of cooperating manufacturers.
The official justified the favorable decision for Tesla with the company’s simple structure – it is the only wholly non-Chinese company examined. Moreover, Tesla does not obtain its financing from China and therefore cannot benefit from Chinese financial subsidies.
The Commission slightly raised the countervailing duty for manufacturers that were not evaluated separately but cooperated with the investigation. According to an EU official, the reason for this was an error made by the Commission when it calculated the provisional countervailing duties. The rate was calculated from a weighted average and a mistake in the original version distorted the result. This error has now been corrected with the upward revision of the countervailing duty.
The EU Commission also decided that the provisional duties levied since July will not be enforced. Commission officials say that the legal condition for this – specifically that the European market has already suffered material damage – has not been met and there is still only a “risk” of damage. For the same reason, the EU will also refrain from retroactively applying the countervailing duties.
The companies affected by the countervailing duties now have ten days to respond to the proposed countervailing duties. China also has the opportunity to intervene at any time, said an EU official: “It is up to China to propose a solution,” he said.
The Commission will present its final assessment to the member states within the next two months, which will then enter into force – unless the member states vote against it with a qualified majority. The deadline for the countervailing duties to enter into force is October 30.
By the end of 2026, around 560,000 SMEs in Germany will be looking for a successor. According to DIHK forecasts, only a third will succeed in passing the business on within the family. According to estimates, 190,000 will leave the market without a successor. Sometimes there are no children, sometimes there are too many, and sometimes the children are not interested.
This is why politicians and academics have been discussing the creation of a new legal form, a “company with tied assets”, for years. The idea is to tie up the company’s assets so that successors cannot personally enrich themselves. So far, this goal can only be achieved with the complicated model of a double foundation. Bosch, for example, has gone down this route. In the coalition agreement, the traffic light coalition agreed to create a corresponding legal basis, and this was most recently confirmed in July as part of the growth initiative.
Table.Briefings has obtained exclusive access to the key issues paper drawn up by the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Financial Affairs. It is to be expected that there will still be fierce debate about this: The proposals fall short of the expectations of parliamentarians from the SPD, Greens and FDP, who are committed to the idea. The CDU/CSU also sees a need for action.
According to the key issues paper, a “reinvesting corporation” is to be created. It is to be based on the law of the GmbH, supplemented by special regulations. These stipulate “that the shareholders cannot withdraw or distribute profits, either openly or covertly, and cannot revoke this by amending the articles of association”. However, the six-page paper primarily lists problems and difficulties which, in the opinion of the authors, can only be solved by supplementary regulations and measures – especially in tax law. A lean, unbureaucratic solution is clearly not the aim.
Legally, the sticking point is the question of whether and how the conversion options for the company are restricted. Due to the European Mobility Directive, German corporations can transform themselves into other European corporations. The German GmbH, for example, can be transformed into a French S.A.R.L.. The decisive factor is whether the assets can be untied as a result of the transformation: In other words, whether a conversion is also possible into a foreign legal form that does not recognize the asset lock (“perpetual asset lock”).
According to the BMJ and BMF – both led by FDP politicians – this possibility must not be restricted. Otherwise, the standard would “very probably violate EU law and could therefore lead to infringement proceedings”. The Green-led BMWK takes a different view. State Secretary Sven Giegold, a long-standing MEP, told Table.Briefings: “We do not share the concern that the restriction of conversion options could be contrary to European law. There is already a similar regulation in other countries.” According to reports, the BMWK has nevertheless not vetoed the key issues paper. Otherwise, nothing would come of it in this legislative period for reasons of time alone.
It is possible that the parliamentarians will still be working on it. Katharina Beck from the Greens considers the restriction of conversion options to be a key element, as otherwise there would be a lack of trust in asset retention. “The decisive innovation for a meaningful regulation is the unalterable one hundred percent asset commitment”, the Member of Parliament told Table.Briefings. In a press release from July, which was also coordinated with FDP MEP Otto Fricke and Esra Limbacher from the SPD, it states that the “irreversible asset commitment” must also be “secured under European law”. Conversions should only be permitted into other legal forms with an equivalent asset commitment.
This is also the aim of a draft law drawn up by a group of professors led by Anne Sanders, a corporate law expert at Bielefeld University. It is due to be published in September. The legal experts have come to the conclusion that supplementing the law on limited liability companies is only the second best option. They advocate a combination of elements of cooperative law, GmbH law and limited partnership law.
“A separate legal form makes it possible to develop tailor-made rules instead of laboriously bending GmbH law to fit”, Sanders told Table.Briefings. “This includes governance that reliably secures the asset commitment against circumvention.” Sanders makes it clear that the freedom of entrepreneurial decisions is not restricted despite the asset commitment: The shareholders of a window construction company could, for example, decide to focus on solar systems in the future.
According to a study by the Allensbach Institute, 72% of family businesses support the introduction of the new company form. The start-up scene is also strongly in favor of it. Verena Pausder, head of the start-up association, expressed her motivation for the new form of a company last year as follows: “The old grid that you can only be a family entrepreneur if you are born into it no longer fits. Family businesses can also remain family businesses if you expand the concept of family to include people who have been working there for a very long time and share the values.” The new legal form is intended to make it easier for employees to participate in companies so that they do not have to buy shares in the company at a high price, as was previously the case. According to the Responsible Ownership Foundation, as of June, around 950 companies have registered on a waiting list for the new legal form.
However, the association “Die Familienunternehmer” is skeptical. It fears a dilution of responsibility, risk and liability if shareholders are more like salaried managing directors. There is also a risk that a self-interested profit-making intention could be considered morally inferior in the future.
Proponents of the new legal form therefore tend to avoid the term “responsible ownership”, which initially dominated the debate. Katharina Beck from the Greens explained: “It is simply an expansion of options. Nothing is being taken away from anyone.”
Today, Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz is traveling to the Republic of Moldova. He will meet with President Maia Sandu and Prime Minister Dorin Recean in Chișinău. The talks are expected to focus not only on bilateral relations between the two countries, security policy and the impact of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine on the landlocked country directly bordering Moldova. Moldova’s planned accession to the EU will also be discussed.
Olivér Várhelyi, EU Commissioner for Neighborhood and Enlargement, paid an official visit to Moldova in July. This visit took place following the Intergovernmental Conference, which gave the go-ahead for accession negotiations with Moldova in June.
Commissioner Várhelyi initiated the bilateral screening procedure for EU accession with Moldova. The bilateral screening is the first step in the negotiations. The candidate country is invited to present its current status of preparations for the adoption and implementation of EU legislation. It is also invited to present the steps it intends to take to further harmonize its legislation with that of the EU.
Chancellor Scholz’s visit comes at a crucial time for the Republic of Moldova. The country is worried about becoming a victim of Russian aggression itself. An espionage affair is straining the already tense relations between Chișinău and Moscow. The pro-Western President Maia Sandu is standing for re-election in October. Some Western countries accuse Russia of trying to influence this decision with disinformation campaigns. For its part, the government in Chișinău accuses Russia of wanting to destabilize the country. It could therefore use some support.
Get the day off to a good start!
Taiwanese semiconductor giant TSMC broke ground Tuesday on a massive new plant in Dresden, its first in Europe and a marker of the continent’s newfound chip ambitions.
The factory – formally called European Semiconductor Manufacturing Company – is a collaboration between TSMC and three established European partners: Infineon, Bosch, and NXP.
Leaders who symbolically shoveled dirt at the groundbreaking ceremony Tuesday hailed the project as a tentpole in Germany and Europe’s efforts to catch up in the critical sector of semiconductors.
“This is more than a groundbreaking ceremony,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said. “It is an endorsement for Europe as a global innovation powerhouse.”
The 10-billion-euro plant – partly funded by 5 billion euros in subsidies from the German government that were unlocked through the European Chips Act – represents one of the single largest investments in Saxony’s history, and will focus on making chips that power Germany’s strong automotive industry. TSMC CEO C.C. Wei said the company chose to expand to Germany to be “close to our customers.”
Saxony is already critical to European chipmaking, with a third of the continent’s semiconductors manufactured in the Dresden area. It’s branded itself as “Silicon Saxony.”
The factory, scheduled to start operations in 2027, is expected to create about 2,000 high-tech jobs, and local officials estimate the surrounding supply chain will generate more jobs.
Pandemic-era supply chain disruptions, which hurt Germany’s critical automotive sector, woke up EU leaders to the reality that the continent needs to be a critical player in the chip industry.
The European Chips Act, which went into effect last September, puts 43 billion euros toward chip manufacturing, with a goal of increasing the EU’s share of the global microchips market from 10% to 20% by 2030.
“We must remove all the obstacles that are still slowing us down and we must invest more in what makes Europe so attractive,” von der Leyen said. “The global race for the technologies of tomorrow is on, and I want Europe really to switch gear.”
Scholz called chips “the crude oil of the 21st century.”
The central question is whether the public investment is enough for Germany and Europe to catch up. Despite the rosy outlook presented Tuesday, some of Europe’s recent chip ventures have been rocky.
In Magdeburg, construction on Intel’s 30-billion-euro chip fab, initially slated to start in 2023, is now delayed until next year because crews have to remove and relocate black soil at the site. And a chip fab in Saarland, announced in 2023 by US company Wolfspeed, was also delayed. Intel also recently halted plans to build microchip plants in France and Italy.
Europe is in competition with other governments that are also offering generous subsidies to companies to set up shop. And the total earmarked for the EU’s Chip Act is far less funding than other governments, like the US and South Korea, are offering their semiconductor sectors.
“If you really want to catch up, more has to be done,” said Frank Bösenberg, the head of Silicon Saxony, a local microelectronics business group.
Looking around at the groundbreaking, Bösenberg said: “Without any doubt this will boost our region and we will grow. But the market also grows, so therefore to catch up, even more has to happen.”
Looming over the sector’s future in Germany are threats that were only briefly alluded to during the optimistic speeches at the groundbreaking: Though he didn’t mention China by name, Scholz tied the new plant to Germany’s strategy of economically “derisking” from the geopolitical volatile superpower.
“We should not be dependent in the supply of our semiconductors,” the chancellor said.
And von der Leyen pointed out that “at a time of growing geopolitical tensions, TSMC will also benefit from geographic diversification to Europe.” The company has been caught in the crosshairs of US-China tensions, with its stock price dropping last month after US presidential candidate Donald Trump said Taiwan should pay for US protection.
Much of the business sector also worries that the rise of the German far-right could make the country less appealing to skilled foreign workers who are desperately needed in the microelectronics sector. Experts worry there will be a deficit between the number of high-tech roles in the region – Dresden business groups predict the jobs could total 100,000 by 2030 – and the number of qualified people who can fill them.
Scholz said Germany needs to create the “social and political conditions” that invites investment, and have “no isolation, no anxiety about the future.”
“We need a pro-European and cosmopolitan Germany,” he said, likely a dig at Euro-skeptic populist parties.
On Tuesday, the EU Commission presented the draft final report on the anti-subsidy investigation into Chinese EV imports. The investigation was initiated in October because the EU Commission suspected the heavily subsidized Chinese car industry of damaging the European market. In July, the Commission imposed provisional countervailing duties.
Based on car manufacturers’ feedback, the Commission has now slightly adjusted the planned countervailing duties:
The countervailing duty is levied in addition to the existing duty of ten percent.
The adjustment primarily benefits Tesla. According to Commission officials, the US company requested a separate assessment from the Commission instead of being subject to the general countervailing duty of cooperating manufacturers.
The official justified the favorable decision for Tesla with the company’s simple structure – it is the only wholly non-Chinese company examined. Moreover, Tesla does not obtain its financing from China and therefore cannot benefit from Chinese financial subsidies.
The Commission slightly raised the countervailing duty for manufacturers that were not evaluated separately but cooperated with the investigation. According to an EU official, the reason for this was an error made by the Commission when it calculated the provisional countervailing duties. The rate was calculated from a weighted average and a mistake in the original version distorted the result. This error has now been corrected with the upward revision of the countervailing duty.
The EU Commission also decided that the provisional duties levied since July will not be enforced. Commission officials say that the legal condition for this – specifically that the European market has already suffered material damage – has not been met and there is still only a “risk” of damage. For the same reason, the EU will also refrain from retroactively applying the countervailing duties.
The companies affected by the countervailing duties now have ten days to respond to the proposed countervailing duties. China also has the opportunity to intervene at any time, said an EU official: “It is up to China to propose a solution,” he said.
The Commission will present its final assessment to the member states within the next two months, which will then enter into force – unless the member states vote against it with a qualified majority. The deadline for the countervailing duties to enter into force is October 30.
By the end of 2026, around 560,000 SMEs in Germany will be looking for a successor. According to DIHK forecasts, only a third will succeed in passing the business on within the family. According to estimates, 190,000 will leave the market without a successor. Sometimes there are no children, sometimes there are too many, and sometimes the children are not interested.
This is why politicians and academics have been discussing the creation of a new legal form, a “company with tied assets”, for years. The idea is to tie up the company’s assets so that successors cannot personally enrich themselves. So far, this goal can only be achieved with the complicated model of a double foundation. Bosch, for example, has gone down this route. In the coalition agreement, the traffic light coalition agreed to create a corresponding legal basis, and this was most recently confirmed in July as part of the growth initiative.
Table.Briefings has obtained exclusive access to the key issues paper drawn up by the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Financial Affairs. It is to be expected that there will still be fierce debate about this: The proposals fall short of the expectations of parliamentarians from the SPD, Greens and FDP, who are committed to the idea. The CDU/CSU also sees a need for action.
According to the key issues paper, a “reinvesting corporation” is to be created. It is to be based on the law of the GmbH, supplemented by special regulations. These stipulate “that the shareholders cannot withdraw or distribute profits, either openly or covertly, and cannot revoke this by amending the articles of association”. However, the six-page paper primarily lists problems and difficulties which, in the opinion of the authors, can only be solved by supplementary regulations and measures – especially in tax law. A lean, unbureaucratic solution is clearly not the aim.
Legally, the sticking point is the question of whether and how the conversion options for the company are restricted. Due to the European Mobility Directive, German corporations can transform themselves into other European corporations. The German GmbH, for example, can be transformed into a French S.A.R.L.. The decisive factor is whether the assets can be untied as a result of the transformation: In other words, whether a conversion is also possible into a foreign legal form that does not recognize the asset lock (“perpetual asset lock”).
According to the BMJ and BMF – both led by FDP politicians – this possibility must not be restricted. Otherwise, the standard would “very probably violate EU law and could therefore lead to infringement proceedings”. The Green-led BMWK takes a different view. State Secretary Sven Giegold, a long-standing MEP, told Table.Briefings: “We do not share the concern that the restriction of conversion options could be contrary to European law. There is already a similar regulation in other countries.” According to reports, the BMWK has nevertheless not vetoed the key issues paper. Otherwise, nothing would come of it in this legislative period for reasons of time alone.
It is possible that the parliamentarians will still be working on it. Katharina Beck from the Greens considers the restriction of conversion options to be a key element, as otherwise there would be a lack of trust in asset retention. “The decisive innovation for a meaningful regulation is the unalterable one hundred percent asset commitment”, the Member of Parliament told Table.Briefings. In a press release from July, which was also coordinated with FDP MEP Otto Fricke and Esra Limbacher from the SPD, it states that the “irreversible asset commitment” must also be “secured under European law”. Conversions should only be permitted into other legal forms with an equivalent asset commitment.
This is also the aim of a draft law drawn up by a group of professors led by Anne Sanders, a corporate law expert at Bielefeld University. It is due to be published in September. The legal experts have come to the conclusion that supplementing the law on limited liability companies is only the second best option. They advocate a combination of elements of cooperative law, GmbH law and limited partnership law.
“A separate legal form makes it possible to develop tailor-made rules instead of laboriously bending GmbH law to fit”, Sanders told Table.Briefings. “This includes governance that reliably secures the asset commitment against circumvention.” Sanders makes it clear that the freedom of entrepreneurial decisions is not restricted despite the asset commitment: The shareholders of a window construction company could, for example, decide to focus on solar systems in the future.
According to a study by the Allensbach Institute, 72% of family businesses support the introduction of the new company form. The start-up scene is also strongly in favor of it. Verena Pausder, head of the start-up association, expressed her motivation for the new form of a company last year as follows: “The old grid that you can only be a family entrepreneur if you are born into it no longer fits. Family businesses can also remain family businesses if you expand the concept of family to include people who have been working there for a very long time and share the values.” The new legal form is intended to make it easier for employees to participate in companies so that they do not have to buy shares in the company at a high price, as was previously the case. According to the Responsible Ownership Foundation, as of June, around 950 companies have registered on a waiting list for the new legal form.
However, the association “Die Familienunternehmer” is skeptical. It fears a dilution of responsibility, risk and liability if shareholders are more like salaried managing directors. There is also a risk that a self-interested profit-making intention could be considered morally inferior in the future.
Proponents of the new legal form therefore tend to avoid the term “responsible ownership”, which initially dominated the debate. Katharina Beck from the Greens explained: “It is simply an expansion of options. Nothing is being taken away from anyone.”