Regarding climate protection, good-sounding targets are not enough. Not only do they have to be legally binding but ultimately enforceable. But that’s hardly possible in many EU countries, and it applies especially to reduction targets that are not covered by European emissions trading, which means that all member countries must achieve them individually, as my colleague Lukas Scheid explains.
More refugees are arriving via the Balkan route again. On Friday, EU Interior Ministers in Luxembourg will discuss how candidate countries like Serbia must adjust their visa requirements to limit illegal immigration. Details are provided by Hans-Peter Siebenhaar and Stephan Israel.
Diversification instead of complete decoupling from the Chinese market – Chancellor Olaf Scholz reiterated this approach at yesterday’s engineering summit of the German Engineering Federation (VDMA) in Berlin. Similar tones came from the EU Commission and the German Foreign Office. Nevertheless, Scholz’s stopover to Beijing in November will not be marked by any new attempts at diplomacy. It is questionable why he is going to Xi Jinping alone, write Amelie Richter and Till Hoppe in their analysis.
Yesterday, Scholz also publicly supported an acceleration of the ratification of negotiated free trade agreements for the first time, as proposed by the EU Commission and the EU Parliament. Instead of ratification by all countries, one should consider whether “EU only is not the better option for such trade agreements,” he said.
Article 4 of the Effort Sharing Regulation (ESR) stipulates that all EU countries must reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by an individually defined percentage by 2030. With the Fit-for-55-package, the EU Commission proposed a raise to these reduction targets once again. For example, Germany was previously expected to achieve a reduction of 38 percent compared with 2005, but now the reduction target is to be raised to 50 percent. Overall, the EU member states are to jointly reduce their emissions in the ESR sectors by 40 percent by 2030.
Although the reduction targets are binding for the member states under EU law, they are not enforceable by civil society in the EU. This is less acute in Germany where environmental associations can sue for the implementation of applicable environmental law in national courts. If convicted, the German government would have to act.
However, this is not the case everywhere in the EU, writes the European Environmental Bureau (EEB) in a statement. “Many national legal systems have no or not sufficiently strong provisions enabling the public to go to court over environmental decisions.” In practice, it is thus often difficult for NGOs and citizens to prevail in court, the EEB says.
The EU Parliament would therefore like to include wording to this effect in the ESR Regulation: “Member States shall ensure, in accordance with the relevant national legal systems, members of the public concerned, […] organizations or groups, have access to a review procedure before a court.” According to EEB, such an addition to the ESR would be “a safeguard against legal obligations becoming empty promises.”
However, neither the Commission’s proposal nor the Council’s general approach provide for such an addition to access to justice. This will be a substantial issue in the trialogue negotiations, which continued on Tuesday after the summer break. Nils Meyer-Ohlendorf, Senior Fellow for European Governance at Ecologic Institute, estimates that it is completely open whether the Parliament will be able to push through such a compliance regulation.
This is because it is not conclusively decided whether the Commission is even able to oblige the member states of granting the right to sue against the effort-sharing targets in their procedural law. This is “a gray area,” Meyer-Ohlendorf says. But he says there are similar precedents in which the Commission has made such provisions for a right of action.
Comparable rights of action already exist in the 2010 Industrial Emissions Directive and the 2011 Environmental Impact Assessment Directive, where the Commission and member states agreed to a right of action before national courts. Probably for this reason, the Parliament resorted to almost identical wording as in the two previous regulations for revising the ESR in its proposal. The Parliament hopes this will improve the article’s chances of surviving the trialogue.
Without it, the options for getting member states to comply with ESR targets are much more limited. It is true that compliance regulations already exist in the ESR: Member states must reduce a correspondingly higher amount in the following year if they exceed their allowed emissions, and they can temporarily be prohibited from transferring parts of their emissions allocation to another member state. But beyond that, there is only the unpopular infringement procedure.
Meyer-Ohlendorf of Ecologic Institute believes that access to national courts in the ESR is all the more important. “It could fundamentally change things, as there is another civil society plaintiff besides the Commission.” This would significantly increase the pressure on national governments. He thus believes it entirely possible that the courts would also join the action by environmental associations in such a case.
The Western Balkans route from Greece via northern Macedonia and Serbia to Hungary and Austria is back in the headlines for the first time since the refugee crisis peaked. The issue is on the agenda of EU Interior Ministers in Luxembourg this Friday. “In Austria, we are likely to reach the same number of illegal border crossings this year as in 2015,” predicts Michael Spindelegger, Director General of the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD) in Vienna.
“In the past year, there has been a massive increase of refugees on the Western Balkans route from northern Macedonia via Serbia and Hungary to Austria and Germany. On the Western Balkans route, compared to 2021 we have seen an increase of 190 percent this year. This is an alarm signal,” the former Austrian Vice Chancellor and Foreign Minister summarizes.
The international organization ICMPD, which has 500 employees and 30 offices worldwide, is made up of 19 states, including Austria and Germany. In his alarm call, Spindelegger refers to the latest figures of the EU border protection agency Frontex. With 86,581 illegal border crossings on the Western Balkans route from January to August this year, there was almost a doubling in numbers.
Most refugees came from Syria, Afghanistan, Turkey, India, and Egypt. As the pandemic recedes, the migration problem is also growing for the entire EU. In total, there were 188,200 illegal border crossings into the Schengen area between January and August. This represents an increase of 75 percent.
The ICMPD’s migration experts advocate stronger border protection and rapid rejection of asylum seekers who have no chance of having their reasons for fleeing recognized. In this way, 62-year-old Spindelegger gives side protection to his party colleague Chancellor Karl Nehammer (ÖVP). The latter discovered growing illegal immigration as a political issue for himself. “Austria is currently massively burdened by illegal migration. The solidarity contribution we make in Europe is disproportionately high,” says the Head of Government.
Nehammer is moving closer to the line of Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. The right-wing populist Prime Minister recently invited Nehammer and Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić to an asylum summit in Budapest. The trio saw an urgent need for action in light of sharply rising numbers of irregular refugees on the Balkan route.
“As long as the fight against illegal migration & smuggling as well as repatriations does not work at EU level, we have to do everything to protect the borders together,” Nehammer tweeted after the meeting. “As long as the EU does not intervene with efficient measures, we need to help ourselves. Therefore, Austria is doing everything to protect itself.”
Thus, Serbia is urged to change its visa policy so that migrants do not enter the Balkan country legally and then continue to travel illegally to Austria and Germany. “Alignment with EU rules in Serbia would be a big step. This is a good initiative, if Serbia cooperates with neighboring Hungary and Austria,” Spindelegger said in an interview with Europe.Table.
This is where the EU Interior Ministers want to start on Friday in Luxembourg. As candidates for accession, all states in the Western Balkans are obliged to adapt their visa policies to those of the EU, say diplomats in Brussels. At least Serbia held out the prospect of an adjustment at the tripartite summit with Hungary and Austria in Budapest. At present, it is still possible to fly to Belgrade without a visa from countries such as India, Indonesia, Egypt, or Burundi. However, all six Western Balkan states are behind schedule in their visa policies, EU diplomats stress.
Since September, Indians have been the largest group of illegal migrants, according to the Migration Center. The exact reasons are unknown. At the same time, their chances of recognition are “close to zero,” as Spindelegger notes.
But the Balkan countries’ visa policies are not the only cause of rising numbers on the migration route. In view of next year’s elections, the Turkish leadership is increasing the pressure on refugees in the country to return home. Many Syrians and Afghans are thus making their way toward Europe.
Spindelegger called on the EU and member countries to allow more legal migration and prevent illegal immigration. “We don’t have to be afraid of migration if we organize it well and guide it into the appropriate channels,” he said. “We need to create legal opportunities to address labor shortages, for example.”
In view of a renewed increase in refugee numbers via the Balkan route, Germany extended border controls with Austria beyond November for another six months. It was important to ensure a limit, said Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser after a meeting with representatives of states and municipalities in Berlin on Tuesday. At the same time, she said, dragnet controls in the German-Czech border area had been strengthened. Austria and the Czech Republic also agreed to introduce controls on the Slovakian border. with Stephan Israel
After a Covid break of just over three years, a German government leader will once again travel to China. Social democratic Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s (SPD) stopover in Beijing in early November is expected to be the official starting signal for a resumption of face-to-face diplomacy between the European Union and the People’s Republic – and thus also an opportunity to recalibrate relations.
However, Scholz’s first visit will probably not result in any major changes in Germany’s posture vis-à-vis China. The duration of the trip is too short, and the timing just after the CP Congress is problematic. And the biggest problem: Neither Berlin nor Brussels currently speaks with a unified voice.
At the engineering summit of the German Mechanical Engineering Industry Association (VDMA) on Tuesday, the Chancellor spoke out clearly against decoupling from the People’s Republic: “Globalization has been a success story that enabled prosperity for many people. We must defend it,” said Scholz. A policy change, as some voices in the coalition partners are urging, sounds different.
The right answer, according to Scholz, is diversification. “I say emphatically we must continue to do business with China. But we also have to ensure that we trade with the rest of the world, look at the rest of Asia, Africa, South America – that’s the opportunity.” Executive Vice President of the European Commission, Valdis Dombrovskis, on Tuesday also urged European Companies not to withdraw from the Chinese market. “Decoupling from China is not an option for companies in the European Union: China is an important growth market and an important supplier of affordable inputs.”
Similar tones are coming from the German Foreign Office, where the first China strategy of the German government is currently being drafted. “Reducing economic dependencies does not mean that we want to completely decouple ourselves from China,” explains Petra Sigmund, head of the Asia department, according to the German business newspaper Handelsblatt. “It’s about risk management, not decoupling.” Accordingly, Sigmund stresses that Germany wants to continue working with China. “But we agree in the German government that there will be no simple ‘carry on like this.'” So far, so united.
On other issues, however, such as the position toward Taiwan, the ideas within the German “traffic light” government differ greatly: While the Greens and the liberal FDP are rhetorically taking up arms against China, the chancellor’s office blocks any significant change of course. It remains to be seen how this will reflect in the China strategy. The paper is not expected until spring 2023 at the earliest. The conservative CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the German parliament submitted a minor interpellation on Tuesday about the current progress on the strategy.
The last German delegation visited Wuhan in September 2019 with then Chancellor Angela Merkel. During the pandemic, there were no stand-alone bilateral meetings in China with the EU. Poland’s President Andrzej Duda was the only EU leader to travel to the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in February this year. Besides Duda, Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vučić and the Grand Duke of Luxembourg, Henri, also arrived from Europe. The EU-China video summit in April proved fruitless. For the time being, personal trips by high-ranking Brussels representatives to the People’s Republic are not planned, according to EU circles.
Because in Brussels, too, opinions are currently divided on the bloc’s China strategy. While Economic Affairs Commissioner Dombrovskis opposes decoupling, Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign policy chief, gave what is, by EU standards, an almost fiery and unusually direct speech about a world in which cooperation with China can no longer be expected. The EU has relied too much on cheap energy from Russia and the huge market in the People’s Republic, Borrell said.
“People are not aware of that but the fact that Russia and China are no longer the ones that [they] were for our economic development will require a strong restructuring of our economy,” Borrell told the present EU ambassadors on Monday. “China and Russia – provided the basis of our prosperity. This is a world that is no longer there.” Borrell also warned about a general tendency toward autocracies around the world. Europe can no longer rely on US protection in this regard, either, he said.
Whether Borrell’s remarkable speech will also translate into practice will show in the coming week: EU foreign ministers will meet next Monday, with China on the agenda – coinciding with the start of the CP Congress in Beijing on Sunday. The ministers are also expected to take a look at the EU’s China strategy. On Thursday and Friday, EU leaders will then have “Asia” on their agenda at the summit. According to EU circles, there was not enough time to prepare for a more in-depth debate on China.
The fact that Scholz visited Beijing alone and not with EU representatives or French President Emmanuel Macron to show greater unity was not a good decision in general, believes Alicia García-Herrero, China expert at the Brussels-based think tank Bruegel, in conversation with China.Table. The appearance and timing for the visit were not well-thought-out, she said. Right after the CP Congress, Scholz’s visit seems like courting Xi Jinping. “Of course he’s going to have to congratulate him on being confirmed in office,” García-Herrero says. “Why didn’t he just meet him on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Bali, like US President Biden did, for example?”
As far as the content of the bilateral meeting is concerned, the analyst has no high expectations. Scholz is expected to travel without a large delegation. “The question is what Scholz will put on the table there. Will he warn that China is losing European companies?” But that would require Scholz to be invited to Beijing to “speak and not just listen,” according to García-Herrero. The chancellor will meet a Chinese president who does not actually have to listen to anyone at the moment. After the party congress, Xi will be at the pinnacle of power.
According to media reports, Xi had already extended the invitation to Scholz for November back in July. The reactions to this were rather reserved, as Xi is theoretically not supposed to be confirmed in office until October. Beijing definitely wanted the visit, says Joerg Wuttke, head of the EU Chamber of Commerce. The intention was to show that China is once again playing “in the concert of the big players.”
“The Scholz visit before the G20 meeting shows that the world is returning to China,” says Wuttke. He also points to the personal sacrifices China’s representatives have to make for the chancellor’s one-day trip: “What is not mentioned, of course, is that Chinese dignitaries are thus burdened with a seven-day quarantine.” Collaboration: Till Hoppe
Following the resignation of Ska Keller, a “generational change” is to take place today at the head of the Green Party in the European Parliament. Yet the two candidates in question are of one generation, and a comparatively young one at that: The 40-year-old Keller from Brandenburg steps down, and the 35-year-old Terry (Teresa) Reintke from the Ruhr area steps in. She is the only candidate to run in the election in the parliamentary group, with 72 members.
She should get a good result because there is no other candidate. It is certain, that Reintke will not get Keller’s vote. Keller is on a delegation trip to Mexico and will not witness Reintke jubilation.
As is usual for the Greens, Reintke will lead the group together with one man: But Belgian Philippe Lamberts already announced his retirement for 2024. It is not yet possible to predict who might succeed him. The only thing certain is that he will not be German.
Reintke embodies a type of politician that is particularly popular among the Greens. Reintke has tailored her professional profile almost exclusively to one issue. Her issue is linked closely to her identity as a person. She is a feminist, fighting above all for women’s rights.
She has already made quite a difference. For example, she can claim to have brought the Me Too movement from the USA to Europe. She brought it right into the heart of the European Parliament. In a very personal appearance at a plenary in 2017, she described how she had been a victim of sexual violence herself. She also denounced harassment in the corridors of the House and encouraged women who are victims not to remain silent but to stand up against it. She also addressed the economic dependencies of parliamentary assistants, who are exploited by fellow deputies to start sexual relationships.
She also pushed through changes. For example, complaints offices were set up in the European Parliament. There are now seminars in which new members of Parliament are trained and sensitized. They are actively taken on by newly elected representatives of the people – only the interest among Christian Democrats leaves something to be desired, one hears.
She demands equal rights for everyone whose sexual identity is queer. She does not make a sharp distinction between her political and private life. For example, she tweets when she celebrates an anniversary in her relationship with her female partner. And many at the party celebrate the couple.
Her partner is the high-ranking Green politician Mélanie Vogel from France. Vogel is a member of the Senate, the upper House of the National Assembly of France. The two met in the European Parliament. It remains to be seen whether the party will be offended by the accumulation of so much Green power in just one household.
Reintke entered the European Parliament in 2014 at the age of 27. She belongs to the party’s left wing in the inner-party dynamics within the Greens. She completed part of her political studies in Scotland and was active early on in the Green Youth’s junior organization, including the European level. There she established the networks on which she can build, now, that she is standing for election in the European Parliament. It is expected that she will also succeed Keller at the European level and run for first place in Europe as a top candidate in the 2024 European elections.
No other party than the Greens has so many politicians in its ranks where the boundaries between activist and parliamentarian are this fluid. Trendsetter was Attack founder Sven Giegold, who has led the German Green members of the European Parliament until 2021. His working style includes running campaigns in close cooperation with NGOs in addition to traditional parliamentary work in committees. Younger MEPs like Reintke have taken their cue from this. Michael Bloss from Stuttgart, who has a close relationship with the climate protection movement, and Daniel Freund, whose topic is anti-corruption, work similarly.
In the future, Reintke will have to broaden her spectrum. Soon she will sit in the front row in Parliament, allowed to respond as the first member of her group, for example, when a head of state or government has given his speech in Strasbourg. She will also have to build working relationships with the leadership staff of the other groups.
Politics requires staging. Reintke has considerable talent in this area. Her social media appearances are staged professionally. She has invested a lot of energy in persuading the British to remain in the EU. From the European Parliament, she has supported the Remainer movement. And when the UK’s exit was final, and the plenary adopted the divorce document, the British Withdrawal Treaty, on January 29, 2020, she sang the old Scottish song “Auld Lang Syn” as a farewell. It was a moving moment in Parliament, with many singing along and some shedding tears of emotion. Markus Grabitz
Regarding climate protection, good-sounding targets are not enough. Not only do they have to be legally binding but ultimately enforceable. But that’s hardly possible in many EU countries, and it applies especially to reduction targets that are not covered by European emissions trading, which means that all member countries must achieve them individually, as my colleague Lukas Scheid explains.
More refugees are arriving via the Balkan route again. On Friday, EU Interior Ministers in Luxembourg will discuss how candidate countries like Serbia must adjust their visa requirements to limit illegal immigration. Details are provided by Hans-Peter Siebenhaar and Stephan Israel.
Diversification instead of complete decoupling from the Chinese market – Chancellor Olaf Scholz reiterated this approach at yesterday’s engineering summit of the German Engineering Federation (VDMA) in Berlin. Similar tones came from the EU Commission and the German Foreign Office. Nevertheless, Scholz’s stopover to Beijing in November will not be marked by any new attempts at diplomacy. It is questionable why he is going to Xi Jinping alone, write Amelie Richter and Till Hoppe in their analysis.
Yesterday, Scholz also publicly supported an acceleration of the ratification of negotiated free trade agreements for the first time, as proposed by the EU Commission and the EU Parliament. Instead of ratification by all countries, one should consider whether “EU only is not the better option for such trade agreements,” he said.
Article 4 of the Effort Sharing Regulation (ESR) stipulates that all EU countries must reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by an individually defined percentage by 2030. With the Fit-for-55-package, the EU Commission proposed a raise to these reduction targets once again. For example, Germany was previously expected to achieve a reduction of 38 percent compared with 2005, but now the reduction target is to be raised to 50 percent. Overall, the EU member states are to jointly reduce their emissions in the ESR sectors by 40 percent by 2030.
Although the reduction targets are binding for the member states under EU law, they are not enforceable by civil society in the EU. This is less acute in Germany where environmental associations can sue for the implementation of applicable environmental law in national courts. If convicted, the German government would have to act.
However, this is not the case everywhere in the EU, writes the European Environmental Bureau (EEB) in a statement. “Many national legal systems have no or not sufficiently strong provisions enabling the public to go to court over environmental decisions.” In practice, it is thus often difficult for NGOs and citizens to prevail in court, the EEB says.
The EU Parliament would therefore like to include wording to this effect in the ESR Regulation: “Member States shall ensure, in accordance with the relevant national legal systems, members of the public concerned, […] organizations or groups, have access to a review procedure before a court.” According to EEB, such an addition to the ESR would be “a safeguard against legal obligations becoming empty promises.”
However, neither the Commission’s proposal nor the Council’s general approach provide for such an addition to access to justice. This will be a substantial issue in the trialogue negotiations, which continued on Tuesday after the summer break. Nils Meyer-Ohlendorf, Senior Fellow for European Governance at Ecologic Institute, estimates that it is completely open whether the Parliament will be able to push through such a compliance regulation.
This is because it is not conclusively decided whether the Commission is even able to oblige the member states of granting the right to sue against the effort-sharing targets in their procedural law. This is “a gray area,” Meyer-Ohlendorf says. But he says there are similar precedents in which the Commission has made such provisions for a right of action.
Comparable rights of action already exist in the 2010 Industrial Emissions Directive and the 2011 Environmental Impact Assessment Directive, where the Commission and member states agreed to a right of action before national courts. Probably for this reason, the Parliament resorted to almost identical wording as in the two previous regulations for revising the ESR in its proposal. The Parliament hopes this will improve the article’s chances of surviving the trialogue.
Without it, the options for getting member states to comply with ESR targets are much more limited. It is true that compliance regulations already exist in the ESR: Member states must reduce a correspondingly higher amount in the following year if they exceed their allowed emissions, and they can temporarily be prohibited from transferring parts of their emissions allocation to another member state. But beyond that, there is only the unpopular infringement procedure.
Meyer-Ohlendorf of Ecologic Institute believes that access to national courts in the ESR is all the more important. “It could fundamentally change things, as there is another civil society plaintiff besides the Commission.” This would significantly increase the pressure on national governments. He thus believes it entirely possible that the courts would also join the action by environmental associations in such a case.
The Western Balkans route from Greece via northern Macedonia and Serbia to Hungary and Austria is back in the headlines for the first time since the refugee crisis peaked. The issue is on the agenda of EU Interior Ministers in Luxembourg this Friday. “In Austria, we are likely to reach the same number of illegal border crossings this year as in 2015,” predicts Michael Spindelegger, Director General of the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD) in Vienna.
“In the past year, there has been a massive increase of refugees on the Western Balkans route from northern Macedonia via Serbia and Hungary to Austria and Germany. On the Western Balkans route, compared to 2021 we have seen an increase of 190 percent this year. This is an alarm signal,” the former Austrian Vice Chancellor and Foreign Minister summarizes.
The international organization ICMPD, which has 500 employees and 30 offices worldwide, is made up of 19 states, including Austria and Germany. In his alarm call, Spindelegger refers to the latest figures of the EU border protection agency Frontex. With 86,581 illegal border crossings on the Western Balkans route from January to August this year, there was almost a doubling in numbers.
Most refugees came from Syria, Afghanistan, Turkey, India, and Egypt. As the pandemic recedes, the migration problem is also growing for the entire EU. In total, there were 188,200 illegal border crossings into the Schengen area between January and August. This represents an increase of 75 percent.
The ICMPD’s migration experts advocate stronger border protection and rapid rejection of asylum seekers who have no chance of having their reasons for fleeing recognized. In this way, 62-year-old Spindelegger gives side protection to his party colleague Chancellor Karl Nehammer (ÖVP). The latter discovered growing illegal immigration as a political issue for himself. “Austria is currently massively burdened by illegal migration. The solidarity contribution we make in Europe is disproportionately high,” says the Head of Government.
Nehammer is moving closer to the line of Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. The right-wing populist Prime Minister recently invited Nehammer and Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić to an asylum summit in Budapest. The trio saw an urgent need for action in light of sharply rising numbers of irregular refugees on the Balkan route.
“As long as the fight against illegal migration & smuggling as well as repatriations does not work at EU level, we have to do everything to protect the borders together,” Nehammer tweeted after the meeting. “As long as the EU does not intervene with efficient measures, we need to help ourselves. Therefore, Austria is doing everything to protect itself.”
Thus, Serbia is urged to change its visa policy so that migrants do not enter the Balkan country legally and then continue to travel illegally to Austria and Germany. “Alignment with EU rules in Serbia would be a big step. This is a good initiative, if Serbia cooperates with neighboring Hungary and Austria,” Spindelegger said in an interview with Europe.Table.
This is where the EU Interior Ministers want to start on Friday in Luxembourg. As candidates for accession, all states in the Western Balkans are obliged to adapt their visa policies to those of the EU, say diplomats in Brussels. At least Serbia held out the prospect of an adjustment at the tripartite summit with Hungary and Austria in Budapest. At present, it is still possible to fly to Belgrade without a visa from countries such as India, Indonesia, Egypt, or Burundi. However, all six Western Balkan states are behind schedule in their visa policies, EU diplomats stress.
Since September, Indians have been the largest group of illegal migrants, according to the Migration Center. The exact reasons are unknown. At the same time, their chances of recognition are “close to zero,” as Spindelegger notes.
But the Balkan countries’ visa policies are not the only cause of rising numbers on the migration route. In view of next year’s elections, the Turkish leadership is increasing the pressure on refugees in the country to return home. Many Syrians and Afghans are thus making their way toward Europe.
Spindelegger called on the EU and member countries to allow more legal migration and prevent illegal immigration. “We don’t have to be afraid of migration if we organize it well and guide it into the appropriate channels,” he said. “We need to create legal opportunities to address labor shortages, for example.”
In view of a renewed increase in refugee numbers via the Balkan route, Germany extended border controls with Austria beyond November for another six months. It was important to ensure a limit, said Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser after a meeting with representatives of states and municipalities in Berlin on Tuesday. At the same time, she said, dragnet controls in the German-Czech border area had been strengthened. Austria and the Czech Republic also agreed to introduce controls on the Slovakian border. with Stephan Israel
After a Covid break of just over three years, a German government leader will once again travel to China. Social democratic Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s (SPD) stopover in Beijing in early November is expected to be the official starting signal for a resumption of face-to-face diplomacy between the European Union and the People’s Republic – and thus also an opportunity to recalibrate relations.
However, Scholz’s first visit will probably not result in any major changes in Germany’s posture vis-à-vis China. The duration of the trip is too short, and the timing just after the CP Congress is problematic. And the biggest problem: Neither Berlin nor Brussels currently speaks with a unified voice.
At the engineering summit of the German Mechanical Engineering Industry Association (VDMA) on Tuesday, the Chancellor spoke out clearly against decoupling from the People’s Republic: “Globalization has been a success story that enabled prosperity for many people. We must defend it,” said Scholz. A policy change, as some voices in the coalition partners are urging, sounds different.
The right answer, according to Scholz, is diversification. “I say emphatically we must continue to do business with China. But we also have to ensure that we trade with the rest of the world, look at the rest of Asia, Africa, South America – that’s the opportunity.” Executive Vice President of the European Commission, Valdis Dombrovskis, on Tuesday also urged European Companies not to withdraw from the Chinese market. “Decoupling from China is not an option for companies in the European Union: China is an important growth market and an important supplier of affordable inputs.”
Similar tones are coming from the German Foreign Office, where the first China strategy of the German government is currently being drafted. “Reducing economic dependencies does not mean that we want to completely decouple ourselves from China,” explains Petra Sigmund, head of the Asia department, according to the German business newspaper Handelsblatt. “It’s about risk management, not decoupling.” Accordingly, Sigmund stresses that Germany wants to continue working with China. “But we agree in the German government that there will be no simple ‘carry on like this.'” So far, so united.
On other issues, however, such as the position toward Taiwan, the ideas within the German “traffic light” government differ greatly: While the Greens and the liberal FDP are rhetorically taking up arms against China, the chancellor’s office blocks any significant change of course. It remains to be seen how this will reflect in the China strategy. The paper is not expected until spring 2023 at the earliest. The conservative CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the German parliament submitted a minor interpellation on Tuesday about the current progress on the strategy.
The last German delegation visited Wuhan in September 2019 with then Chancellor Angela Merkel. During the pandemic, there were no stand-alone bilateral meetings in China with the EU. Poland’s President Andrzej Duda was the only EU leader to travel to the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in February this year. Besides Duda, Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vučić and the Grand Duke of Luxembourg, Henri, also arrived from Europe. The EU-China video summit in April proved fruitless. For the time being, personal trips by high-ranking Brussels representatives to the People’s Republic are not planned, according to EU circles.
Because in Brussels, too, opinions are currently divided on the bloc’s China strategy. While Economic Affairs Commissioner Dombrovskis opposes decoupling, Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign policy chief, gave what is, by EU standards, an almost fiery and unusually direct speech about a world in which cooperation with China can no longer be expected. The EU has relied too much on cheap energy from Russia and the huge market in the People’s Republic, Borrell said.
“People are not aware of that but the fact that Russia and China are no longer the ones that [they] were for our economic development will require a strong restructuring of our economy,” Borrell told the present EU ambassadors on Monday. “China and Russia – provided the basis of our prosperity. This is a world that is no longer there.” Borrell also warned about a general tendency toward autocracies around the world. Europe can no longer rely on US protection in this regard, either, he said.
Whether Borrell’s remarkable speech will also translate into practice will show in the coming week: EU foreign ministers will meet next Monday, with China on the agenda – coinciding with the start of the CP Congress in Beijing on Sunday. The ministers are also expected to take a look at the EU’s China strategy. On Thursday and Friday, EU leaders will then have “Asia” on their agenda at the summit. According to EU circles, there was not enough time to prepare for a more in-depth debate on China.
The fact that Scholz visited Beijing alone and not with EU representatives or French President Emmanuel Macron to show greater unity was not a good decision in general, believes Alicia García-Herrero, China expert at the Brussels-based think tank Bruegel, in conversation with China.Table. The appearance and timing for the visit were not well-thought-out, she said. Right after the CP Congress, Scholz’s visit seems like courting Xi Jinping. “Of course he’s going to have to congratulate him on being confirmed in office,” García-Herrero says. “Why didn’t he just meet him on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Bali, like US President Biden did, for example?”
As far as the content of the bilateral meeting is concerned, the analyst has no high expectations. Scholz is expected to travel without a large delegation. “The question is what Scholz will put on the table there. Will he warn that China is losing European companies?” But that would require Scholz to be invited to Beijing to “speak and not just listen,” according to García-Herrero. The chancellor will meet a Chinese president who does not actually have to listen to anyone at the moment. After the party congress, Xi will be at the pinnacle of power.
According to media reports, Xi had already extended the invitation to Scholz for November back in July. The reactions to this were rather reserved, as Xi is theoretically not supposed to be confirmed in office until October. Beijing definitely wanted the visit, says Joerg Wuttke, head of the EU Chamber of Commerce. The intention was to show that China is once again playing “in the concert of the big players.”
“The Scholz visit before the G20 meeting shows that the world is returning to China,” says Wuttke. He also points to the personal sacrifices China’s representatives have to make for the chancellor’s one-day trip: “What is not mentioned, of course, is that Chinese dignitaries are thus burdened with a seven-day quarantine.” Collaboration: Till Hoppe
Following the resignation of Ska Keller, a “generational change” is to take place today at the head of the Green Party in the European Parliament. Yet the two candidates in question are of one generation, and a comparatively young one at that: The 40-year-old Keller from Brandenburg steps down, and the 35-year-old Terry (Teresa) Reintke from the Ruhr area steps in. She is the only candidate to run in the election in the parliamentary group, with 72 members.
She should get a good result because there is no other candidate. It is certain, that Reintke will not get Keller’s vote. Keller is on a delegation trip to Mexico and will not witness Reintke jubilation.
As is usual for the Greens, Reintke will lead the group together with one man: But Belgian Philippe Lamberts already announced his retirement for 2024. It is not yet possible to predict who might succeed him. The only thing certain is that he will not be German.
Reintke embodies a type of politician that is particularly popular among the Greens. Reintke has tailored her professional profile almost exclusively to one issue. Her issue is linked closely to her identity as a person. She is a feminist, fighting above all for women’s rights.
She has already made quite a difference. For example, she can claim to have brought the Me Too movement from the USA to Europe. She brought it right into the heart of the European Parliament. In a very personal appearance at a plenary in 2017, she described how she had been a victim of sexual violence herself. She also denounced harassment in the corridors of the House and encouraged women who are victims not to remain silent but to stand up against it. She also addressed the economic dependencies of parliamentary assistants, who are exploited by fellow deputies to start sexual relationships.
She also pushed through changes. For example, complaints offices were set up in the European Parliament. There are now seminars in which new members of Parliament are trained and sensitized. They are actively taken on by newly elected representatives of the people – only the interest among Christian Democrats leaves something to be desired, one hears.
She demands equal rights for everyone whose sexual identity is queer. She does not make a sharp distinction between her political and private life. For example, she tweets when she celebrates an anniversary in her relationship with her female partner. And many at the party celebrate the couple.
Her partner is the high-ranking Green politician Mélanie Vogel from France. Vogel is a member of the Senate, the upper House of the National Assembly of France. The two met in the European Parliament. It remains to be seen whether the party will be offended by the accumulation of so much Green power in just one household.
Reintke entered the European Parliament in 2014 at the age of 27. She belongs to the party’s left wing in the inner-party dynamics within the Greens. She completed part of her political studies in Scotland and was active early on in the Green Youth’s junior organization, including the European level. There she established the networks on which she can build, now, that she is standing for election in the European Parliament. It is expected that she will also succeed Keller at the European level and run for first place in Europe as a top candidate in the 2024 European elections.
No other party than the Greens has so many politicians in its ranks where the boundaries between activist and parliamentarian are this fluid. Trendsetter was Attack founder Sven Giegold, who has led the German Green members of the European Parliament until 2021. His working style includes running campaigns in close cooperation with NGOs in addition to traditional parliamentary work in committees. Younger MEPs like Reintke have taken their cue from this. Michael Bloss from Stuttgart, who has a close relationship with the climate protection movement, and Daniel Freund, whose topic is anti-corruption, work similarly.
In the future, Reintke will have to broaden her spectrum. Soon she will sit in the front row in Parliament, allowed to respond as the first member of her group, for example, when a head of state or government has given his speech in Strasbourg. She will also have to build working relationships with the leadership staff of the other groups.
Politics requires staging. Reintke has considerable talent in this area. Her social media appearances are staged professionally. She has invested a lot of energy in persuading the British to remain in the EU. From the European Parliament, she has supported the Remainer movement. And when the UK’s exit was final, and the plenary adopted the divorce document, the British Withdrawal Treaty, on January 29, 2020, she sang the old Scottish song “Auld Lang Syn” as a farewell. It was a moving moment in Parliament, with many singing along and some shedding tears of emotion. Markus Grabitz
