The Conference on the Future of Europe was supposed to be a driving force for European unification. However, there is still strong resistance to treaty changes. But the conditions for reform are better than they have been for a long time, according to Thu Nguyen and Nils Redeker of the Jacques Delors Centre. In their Opinion, they show the German government ways in which it could use the impetus for stronger security policy cooperation and better financial resources for the EU.
You can see Redeker and Nguyen at our digital conference Europe.Decisions on Wednesday. On the topic “Putin’s war – Europe’s options for politics, business & science”, we present 30 high-level speakers in 150 minutes in cooperation with the Jacques Delors Centre. Don’t miss the opportunity to sign up!
As of today, the EU’s current agenda will once again be Birgit Schmeitzner‘s central topic. As the new head of the press office of the Commission’s representation in Germany, she will translate the agency’s policies for the media. In her Profile, Ulrike Christl summarizes the former correspondent’s most important past engagements – from assignments in Moscow to postings in Brussels.
In Brussels, climate neutrality will be the focus of the Environment Committee’s deliberations tomorrow. However, net zero can only be achieved if CO2 is not only avoided but also removed from the atmosphere. One of the most frequently mentioned but also most controversial solutions is bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS). Timo Landenberger analyzes what scientists and parliament think of the technology.
The new proposals on electricity prices would go even further than plans made in March. “A temporary extension of the scope of regulated retail prices could be envisaged to cover also small and medium-sized enterprises,” says a draft communication on energy prices, which the Commission plans to present with the REPowerEU package on Wednesday.
The first communication on REPowerEU in March already contained the Commission’s interpretation of the Internal Electricity Market Directive. Article 5 allows state-regulated prices in certain cases for household customers and under even narrower conditions for micro-enterprises. The extension now proposed to small and medium-sized enterprises would greatly expand the group of beneficiaries. “This extension would have to be limited in terms of quantities covered to not lead to an increase in consumption,” the Commission’s draft therefore says.
The paper also looks at proposals for longer-term reform of the electricity markets. Household customers have recently had to contend with the bankruptcy of a whole series of suppliers who speculated on persistently low electricity prices and had not hedged their risks.
The Commission is now proposing requirements for electricity suppliers to secure part of their obligations. Suppliers could also be required to offer contracts with price guarantees. The directive on the internal electricity market already contains a similar requirement for dynamic tariffs.
However, the Commission has not yet completed its opinion-forming process on the reform of the electricity markets and has announced an impact assessment and a dialog with stakeholders and the national regulatory authorities.
More concrete are the considerations in the event of a far-reaching Russian gas supply freeze. The EU Commission proposes government price caps. “One possibility would be to limit price formation during this disruption scenario by imposing a price cap on the European gas exchanges.” Such a temporary measure, however, might require substantial sums.
In addition, such a measure would pose challenges. “It would have to be ensured that the introduction of such a price cap would not worsen EU access to gas and LNG supplies.” There had already been long and hard wrangling over the issue at an EU summit in March. In the end, there were only exceptions for Spain and Portugal. Countries such as Germany and the Netherlands rejected such market intervention at the time.
MEP Michael Bloss criticized the idea. “Capping the price of gas is not a solution; by doing so, we are throwing billions of taxpayers’ money down Putin’s and other gas suppliers’ throats,” the Green politician said. Instead of paying the “exaggeratedly high” gas prices, there needs to be a buyers’ cartel. The price of gas would fall if, for example, the group of leading democratic industrial nations (G7) only bought gas for a low price.
So far, the Commission only wants to set up a joint procurement platform for the EU states and the members of the European Energy Community, such as Ukraine. However, participation is voluntary, the Commission emphasizes in the current paper.
The Commission also acknowledges that the SoS regulation could reach its limit in the event of a complete loss of Russian gas supplies. Solidarity mechanisms are designed for national gas shortages, it said. “In case of further gas supply disruptions affecting several member states at the same time, additional measures might be necessary,” the draft states. Legislative changes might then also have to be considered.
With another draft of the Commission on REPowerEU, plans of the Commission had already become known to identify important consumers in the economy who are worthy of protection and to develop criteria for a coordinated approach in the event of a Union-wide gas shortage. with dpa
The goal is clear: By 2050, the European Union wants to be climate-neutral. But even beyond that, there will be emissions that cannot be avoided, for example, in agriculture, in the transport sector, but also in some branches of industry. The need for so-called negative emissions is, therefore, not a new insight. For a long time, however, it was assumed in climate policy that natural sinks, together with measures for reforestation or the rewetting of peatlands, would be sufficient to filter enough greenhouse gases out of the air.
In the meantime, the result of numerous studies is that we need technological solutions for the extraction of CO2 and subsequent geological storage. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) also points to the importance of carbon capture and storage. Otherwise, the 1.5 degree target can hardly be achieved.
One method frequently mentioned and much discussed in the IPCC reports is called BECCS – bio energy with carbon capture and storage. This involves the large-scale cultivation of plant biomass, which naturally filters CO2 from the atmosphere. The harvested plants are utilized in biogas plants, burned to generate electricity or heat, or used to produce biofuels for the transport sector.
The stored carbon dioxide is released again. However, a large part of it can be technically captured and either stored underground (CCS) – for example in former gas or oil reservoirs or under the seabed – or it is reused as a basic material in the chemical industry (CCU).
However, even though the climate targets are difficult to achieve without CCS technologies, they have so far played hardly any role in the EU’s mix of instruments. The measures of the Fit for 55 package are primarily aimed at reducing CO2 emissions. Negative emissions are only addressed in the LULUCF (Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry) sector, which focuses on natural sinks. Technical options are largely excluded.
For Norbert Lins (CDU), Chairman of the Agriculture Committee in the EU Parliament, this is difficult to understand. “In our report on LULUCF, we are open to technical solutions such as BECCS.” However, due to the Environment Committee’s leadership, the Parliament’s position here will be cautious. “Relying only on natural sinks can be a dangerous game.”
Finally, LULUCF sink performance has been declining for years and was only 249 million metric tons of CO2 in 2019. About 100 million tons less than 15 years ago. The reason for this is the age structure of forests, droughts and pests. This trend must first be reversed, Lins said. The goal of the LULUCF regulation, which will be voted on Tuesday in the Environment Committee: 310 million tons of sink power by 2030. By 2035, the agricultural and forestry sectors together are to be climate neutral. After that, additional natural sink power is to help offset residual emissions.
Meanwhile, the European Commission is more open to technical solutions for CO2 capture and storage. Thus, the authority wants to contribute to the development of an internal market for the capture, use and storage of CO2 and to the provision of the necessary cross-border CO2 transport infrastructure.
The goal: By 2030, five million metric tons of CO2 should be removed from the atmosphere each year and permanently stored with the help of technical solutions. In the short term, the innovation fund financed from the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) will be the main financing instrument for these technologies. The BECCS method is also part of the Commission’s plans. The first comprehensive projects in Sweden are already being subsidized with EU funding.
It is still completely unclear whether the current BECCS concepts are even scalable and how long the captured CO2 will actually remain in the underground storage sites, criticizes Jutta Paulus, MEP for the Greens. A Heinrich Böll Foundation position paper says: “Fantasy technologies like BECCS are the perfect excuse for polluting industries to continue using fossil fuels and rely on negative emissions technologies to remove emissions at a sufficient scale in the future.”
The large amount of land required is also a problem. Especially if fast-growing energy crops such as reeds or eucalyptus are to be cultivated for BECCS, which would impair the fertility and water balance of the soils as well as biodiversity, scientists fear.
“There is a significant gap here between the assumed biomass use and the amounts available that are sustainable and do not conflict with higher-value uses such as food production or ecosystem conservation. This gap is sometimes as high as 60 percent,” says Lars Walloe of the Science Advisory Council of the European Academies (EASAC). EASAC’s recommendation: “Until benefits and feasibility of BECCS are proven, the EU and national governments should not offer subsidies for it.”
The German Bioenergy Association takes a different view. Rather, the political goals of greenhouse gas sinks should be formulated in such a way that all negative emissions can be accounted for and credited, it says in a position paper. Executive director Gerolf Bücheler: “The unique selling point of bioenergy among renewable energies is that it is integrated into the natural CO2 cycle and can therefore not only flexibly provide renewable energy, but there are opportunities for CO2 sinks along the entire chain.”
The German government is “still in talks on this topic”, according to a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK). Accordingly, no details can yet be given. However, the BMWK is funding technologies for CO2 capture and utilization with around €10 million per year as part of applied energy research.
With quite a bombastic and at times slightly weird plenary, the Conference on the Future of Europe officially ended last week. For one year, 800 randomly selected citizens had discussed necessary reforms for the EU. Now they are calling for changes, some of them far-reaching, such as the end of the unanimity principle in EU foreign and security policy, more financial resources for the EU, and a stronger role for the European Parliament.
The Conference has thus succeeded in initiating a discussion. The European Parliament already called for a constitutional convention to implement the ideas of the citizens. The Italian Prime Minister has pledged his support to parts of the agenda. Emmanuel Macron, at whose behest the Conference was launched a year ago, also supports treaty changes and the German chancellor signaled openness, at least in principle, last Monday.
Admittedly, there is much to suggest that these fireworks could end up as a flash in the pan. The Conference looked ill-fated from the beginning. Due to the pandemic and a power struggle between the European institutions, the project was unable to begin for a long time, and was eventually shortened from two years to twelve months. In March 2021, before the official start of the Conference, 12 member states announced that they would not commit to the results under any circumstances. After that, the Conference, overshadowed by pandemic and war, remained largely under the public radar.
Now, at the end of the Conference, there is renewed resistance to its proposals, with 13 member states having explicitly spoken out against treaty changes on Monday. This may not look like a good starting point, particularly in light of the geopolitical situation, leading many to wonder whether the EU does not have more urgent tasks at hand than implementing grassroots democratic experiments.
Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to declare the results of the Conference to be merely a collection of speaking points for European-policy sermons in the years to come. First, the Russian war of aggression shows how urgently the EU needs reform to act effectively: Comprehensive sanctions against Russia are currently failing due to the veto of individual member states. To quickly become independent from Russian energy exports, the EU would need joint investments in infrastructure and the energy industry. However, there is still a lack of funding for this at the European level. In addition, it does not take a military strategist to see that arming 27 member states in parallel is waste of financial resources and will lead to logistical problems. None of these problems is new, but the Conference points out issues that currently seem to hit especially close to home.
Secondly, the framework conditions for reform steps currently are more favorable than they have been a very long time. The reelection of Emmanuel Macron means that France will for the foreseeable future remain governed by a president whose political standing also hinges on his European policy successes. In Italy, the former president of the European Central Bank is governing with a clearly pro-European course and so far has succeeded in outcompeting most anti-EU challengers. The latest election results in the Czech Republic and Slovenia, the clearly more integration-friendly course of the new Dutch government, and the growing isolation of Victor Orbán all show that reforms for deeper unity seem to be in actual reach.
Despite all its weaknesses, the Conference therefore opens a window of opportunity. The German government should have the courage to seize it. Two things are necessary for this: First, the EU needs treaty changes. Real capacity to act in common security and foreign policy or a right of initiative for the European Parliament cannot be implemented within the current treaties. After years of stalemate, the Convention that has been called for, and the support of the French president finally offer an opportunity to make real progress in this area.
In response to the Conference the German Chancellor has so far merely stated that he would not stand in the way of treaty changes. If that remains the attitude, it would be quite underwhelming. All governing parties have been calling for treaty changes for a very long time. In the current coalition agreement, they have also decided to actively work toward them. If the German government wants to live up to its own European policy ambitions, it cannot simply cheer from the sideline. If the Ampelkoalition is serious about Europe, it must now use all its weight to convince sceptics in other member states.
Secondly, as important as these treaty changes are, it is also clear that they will take time. There is a real danger that this will lead the EU and its member states to get lost in principled debates with little reforms progress in the short-run. That must not happen. In parallel with the Convention, the German government should therefore start to develop a constructive agenda for the continent based on those proposals of the Conference on the Future of Europe that do not require treaty changes. There are plenty of options for doing so.
In recent years, for example, better funding of the EU budget has often failed, not because of the treaties, but primarily because of resistance from the member states, not least that of Germany. In view of the urgent need for more investment, funds could be raised quickly with the necessary political will. Similarly, a strengthening of European democracy through a reform of EU electoral law and the introduction of transnational lists, as called for by the Conference, is already underway, following approval by the European Parliament in early May.
Now it is up to the national governments to support and implement these reforms. Finally, the continent’s security capabilities could also be strengthened through joint military projects and procurement, even before treaty changes. Three years of the coronavirus pandemic and economic crisis, as well as the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, have shown how much depends on an EU capable to act. There is currently a unique opportunity to strengthen this ability. For that, time is a decisive factor. This is why the German government should take up the impetus provided by the Conference. And it should do so before the political winds shift again.
As of today, the press office of the EU Commission Representation in Germany has a new head. Birgit Schmeitzner, the longtime correspondent for Bayerischer Rundfunk in the ARD capital studio, will thus no longer sit with all the questions, as she has in the past, but will have to provide answers and explain EU policy. “That means I will also have to hand over my vanity at the front door,” says Schmeitzner, who has spent more than 20 years in the public eye as a journalist and has more than 11,000 followers on Twitter.
“New job, new role – so the content here will also change,” she wrote on Twitter on Friday. Being even closer to political decisions in the future, translating the information from the commission for journalists – is the challenge that excites her about her new job. In the process, she always wants to be transparent, build trust “and never lie”.
Schmeitzner, born in 1969, joined Bayerischer Rundfunk’s radio news department in 1998 and has held positions including chief of staff, news anchor, anchorwoman, and deputy news director.
From 2009 to 2014, she worked and lived as a BR correspondent in Brussels, a time she still remembers very vividly: “Brussels is so diverse and dazzling, I really enjoyed living there.” Working as a correspondent, she says, was “terrific”. Thanks to her experience, she has no qualms about interacting with the vast EU apparatus – which will probably make it easier for her to adjust to her new job.
She also felt that her time as a freelance journalist in Moscow until 2016 was enlightening and that it broadened her horizons. Her understanding of how Russian politics works and of “what makes people in Russia tick” now enables her to assess the war and the current situation. In 2014, she was in Ukraine on the Maidan. She still maintains contact with both countries.
This was followed by five and a half years at ARD’s capital city studio in Berlin, where she covered federal politics. Her focus here: defense, agriculture, the Federal President, and the political party AfD. “I am pleased that with Birgit Schmeitzner we have managed to win a highly experienced journalist and excellent connoisseur of German and European politics to head our press department,” says Jörg Wojahn, representative of the European Commission in Germany.
Before starting her new job, Birgit Schmeitzner took a few months off. “I wanted to have some distance and to ask myself whether I am still authentic if I do this.” She answered this question unequivocally in the affirmative. “I feel European through and through.” She is therefore unlikely to have any conflicts of conscience about her change of sides from the one asking questions to the one answering them. Ulrike Christl
The Conference on the Future of Europe was supposed to be a driving force for European unification. However, there is still strong resistance to treaty changes. But the conditions for reform are better than they have been for a long time, according to Thu Nguyen and Nils Redeker of the Jacques Delors Centre. In their Opinion, they show the German government ways in which it could use the impetus for stronger security policy cooperation and better financial resources for the EU.
You can see Redeker and Nguyen at our digital conference Europe.Decisions on Wednesday. On the topic “Putin’s war – Europe’s options for politics, business & science”, we present 30 high-level speakers in 150 minutes in cooperation with the Jacques Delors Centre. Don’t miss the opportunity to sign up!
As of today, the EU’s current agenda will once again be Birgit Schmeitzner‘s central topic. As the new head of the press office of the Commission’s representation in Germany, she will translate the agency’s policies for the media. In her Profile, Ulrike Christl summarizes the former correspondent’s most important past engagements – from assignments in Moscow to postings in Brussels.
In Brussels, climate neutrality will be the focus of the Environment Committee’s deliberations tomorrow. However, net zero can only be achieved if CO2 is not only avoided but also removed from the atmosphere. One of the most frequently mentioned but also most controversial solutions is bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS). Timo Landenberger analyzes what scientists and parliament think of the technology.
The new proposals on electricity prices would go even further than plans made in March. “A temporary extension of the scope of regulated retail prices could be envisaged to cover also small and medium-sized enterprises,” says a draft communication on energy prices, which the Commission plans to present with the REPowerEU package on Wednesday.
The first communication on REPowerEU in March already contained the Commission’s interpretation of the Internal Electricity Market Directive. Article 5 allows state-regulated prices in certain cases for household customers and under even narrower conditions for micro-enterprises. The extension now proposed to small and medium-sized enterprises would greatly expand the group of beneficiaries. “This extension would have to be limited in terms of quantities covered to not lead to an increase in consumption,” the Commission’s draft therefore says.
The paper also looks at proposals for longer-term reform of the electricity markets. Household customers have recently had to contend with the bankruptcy of a whole series of suppliers who speculated on persistently low electricity prices and had not hedged their risks.
The Commission is now proposing requirements for electricity suppliers to secure part of their obligations. Suppliers could also be required to offer contracts with price guarantees. The directive on the internal electricity market already contains a similar requirement for dynamic tariffs.
However, the Commission has not yet completed its opinion-forming process on the reform of the electricity markets and has announced an impact assessment and a dialog with stakeholders and the national regulatory authorities.
More concrete are the considerations in the event of a far-reaching Russian gas supply freeze. The EU Commission proposes government price caps. “One possibility would be to limit price formation during this disruption scenario by imposing a price cap on the European gas exchanges.” Such a temporary measure, however, might require substantial sums.
In addition, such a measure would pose challenges. “It would have to be ensured that the introduction of such a price cap would not worsen EU access to gas and LNG supplies.” There had already been long and hard wrangling over the issue at an EU summit in March. In the end, there were only exceptions for Spain and Portugal. Countries such as Germany and the Netherlands rejected such market intervention at the time.
MEP Michael Bloss criticized the idea. “Capping the price of gas is not a solution; by doing so, we are throwing billions of taxpayers’ money down Putin’s and other gas suppliers’ throats,” the Green politician said. Instead of paying the “exaggeratedly high” gas prices, there needs to be a buyers’ cartel. The price of gas would fall if, for example, the group of leading democratic industrial nations (G7) only bought gas for a low price.
So far, the Commission only wants to set up a joint procurement platform for the EU states and the members of the European Energy Community, such as Ukraine. However, participation is voluntary, the Commission emphasizes in the current paper.
The Commission also acknowledges that the SoS regulation could reach its limit in the event of a complete loss of Russian gas supplies. Solidarity mechanisms are designed for national gas shortages, it said. “In case of further gas supply disruptions affecting several member states at the same time, additional measures might be necessary,” the draft states. Legislative changes might then also have to be considered.
With another draft of the Commission on REPowerEU, plans of the Commission had already become known to identify important consumers in the economy who are worthy of protection and to develop criteria for a coordinated approach in the event of a Union-wide gas shortage. with dpa
The goal is clear: By 2050, the European Union wants to be climate-neutral. But even beyond that, there will be emissions that cannot be avoided, for example, in agriculture, in the transport sector, but also in some branches of industry. The need for so-called negative emissions is, therefore, not a new insight. For a long time, however, it was assumed in climate policy that natural sinks, together with measures for reforestation or the rewetting of peatlands, would be sufficient to filter enough greenhouse gases out of the air.
In the meantime, the result of numerous studies is that we need technological solutions for the extraction of CO2 and subsequent geological storage. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) also points to the importance of carbon capture and storage. Otherwise, the 1.5 degree target can hardly be achieved.
One method frequently mentioned and much discussed in the IPCC reports is called BECCS – bio energy with carbon capture and storage. This involves the large-scale cultivation of plant biomass, which naturally filters CO2 from the atmosphere. The harvested plants are utilized in biogas plants, burned to generate electricity or heat, or used to produce biofuels for the transport sector.
The stored carbon dioxide is released again. However, a large part of it can be technically captured and either stored underground (CCS) – for example in former gas or oil reservoirs or under the seabed – or it is reused as a basic material in the chemical industry (CCU).
However, even though the climate targets are difficult to achieve without CCS technologies, they have so far played hardly any role in the EU’s mix of instruments. The measures of the Fit for 55 package are primarily aimed at reducing CO2 emissions. Negative emissions are only addressed in the LULUCF (Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry) sector, which focuses on natural sinks. Technical options are largely excluded.
For Norbert Lins (CDU), Chairman of the Agriculture Committee in the EU Parliament, this is difficult to understand. “In our report on LULUCF, we are open to technical solutions such as BECCS.” However, due to the Environment Committee’s leadership, the Parliament’s position here will be cautious. “Relying only on natural sinks can be a dangerous game.”
Finally, LULUCF sink performance has been declining for years and was only 249 million metric tons of CO2 in 2019. About 100 million tons less than 15 years ago. The reason for this is the age structure of forests, droughts and pests. This trend must first be reversed, Lins said. The goal of the LULUCF regulation, which will be voted on Tuesday in the Environment Committee: 310 million tons of sink power by 2030. By 2035, the agricultural and forestry sectors together are to be climate neutral. After that, additional natural sink power is to help offset residual emissions.
Meanwhile, the European Commission is more open to technical solutions for CO2 capture and storage. Thus, the authority wants to contribute to the development of an internal market for the capture, use and storage of CO2 and to the provision of the necessary cross-border CO2 transport infrastructure.
The goal: By 2030, five million metric tons of CO2 should be removed from the atmosphere each year and permanently stored with the help of technical solutions. In the short term, the innovation fund financed from the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) will be the main financing instrument for these technologies. The BECCS method is also part of the Commission’s plans. The first comprehensive projects in Sweden are already being subsidized with EU funding.
It is still completely unclear whether the current BECCS concepts are even scalable and how long the captured CO2 will actually remain in the underground storage sites, criticizes Jutta Paulus, MEP for the Greens. A Heinrich Böll Foundation position paper says: “Fantasy technologies like BECCS are the perfect excuse for polluting industries to continue using fossil fuels and rely on negative emissions technologies to remove emissions at a sufficient scale in the future.”
The large amount of land required is also a problem. Especially if fast-growing energy crops such as reeds or eucalyptus are to be cultivated for BECCS, which would impair the fertility and water balance of the soils as well as biodiversity, scientists fear.
“There is a significant gap here between the assumed biomass use and the amounts available that are sustainable and do not conflict with higher-value uses such as food production or ecosystem conservation. This gap is sometimes as high as 60 percent,” says Lars Walloe of the Science Advisory Council of the European Academies (EASAC). EASAC’s recommendation: “Until benefits and feasibility of BECCS are proven, the EU and national governments should not offer subsidies for it.”
The German Bioenergy Association takes a different view. Rather, the political goals of greenhouse gas sinks should be formulated in such a way that all negative emissions can be accounted for and credited, it says in a position paper. Executive director Gerolf Bücheler: “The unique selling point of bioenergy among renewable energies is that it is integrated into the natural CO2 cycle and can therefore not only flexibly provide renewable energy, but there are opportunities for CO2 sinks along the entire chain.”
The German government is “still in talks on this topic”, according to a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK). Accordingly, no details can yet be given. However, the BMWK is funding technologies for CO2 capture and utilization with around €10 million per year as part of applied energy research.
With quite a bombastic and at times slightly weird plenary, the Conference on the Future of Europe officially ended last week. For one year, 800 randomly selected citizens had discussed necessary reforms for the EU. Now they are calling for changes, some of them far-reaching, such as the end of the unanimity principle in EU foreign and security policy, more financial resources for the EU, and a stronger role for the European Parliament.
The Conference has thus succeeded in initiating a discussion. The European Parliament already called for a constitutional convention to implement the ideas of the citizens. The Italian Prime Minister has pledged his support to parts of the agenda. Emmanuel Macron, at whose behest the Conference was launched a year ago, also supports treaty changes and the German chancellor signaled openness, at least in principle, last Monday.
Admittedly, there is much to suggest that these fireworks could end up as a flash in the pan. The Conference looked ill-fated from the beginning. Due to the pandemic and a power struggle between the European institutions, the project was unable to begin for a long time, and was eventually shortened from two years to twelve months. In March 2021, before the official start of the Conference, 12 member states announced that they would not commit to the results under any circumstances. After that, the Conference, overshadowed by pandemic and war, remained largely under the public radar.
Now, at the end of the Conference, there is renewed resistance to its proposals, with 13 member states having explicitly spoken out against treaty changes on Monday. This may not look like a good starting point, particularly in light of the geopolitical situation, leading many to wonder whether the EU does not have more urgent tasks at hand than implementing grassroots democratic experiments.
Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to declare the results of the Conference to be merely a collection of speaking points for European-policy sermons in the years to come. First, the Russian war of aggression shows how urgently the EU needs reform to act effectively: Comprehensive sanctions against Russia are currently failing due to the veto of individual member states. To quickly become independent from Russian energy exports, the EU would need joint investments in infrastructure and the energy industry. However, there is still a lack of funding for this at the European level. In addition, it does not take a military strategist to see that arming 27 member states in parallel is waste of financial resources and will lead to logistical problems. None of these problems is new, but the Conference points out issues that currently seem to hit especially close to home.
Secondly, the framework conditions for reform steps currently are more favorable than they have been a very long time. The reelection of Emmanuel Macron means that France will for the foreseeable future remain governed by a president whose political standing also hinges on his European policy successes. In Italy, the former president of the European Central Bank is governing with a clearly pro-European course and so far has succeeded in outcompeting most anti-EU challengers. The latest election results in the Czech Republic and Slovenia, the clearly more integration-friendly course of the new Dutch government, and the growing isolation of Victor Orbán all show that reforms for deeper unity seem to be in actual reach.
Despite all its weaknesses, the Conference therefore opens a window of opportunity. The German government should have the courage to seize it. Two things are necessary for this: First, the EU needs treaty changes. Real capacity to act in common security and foreign policy or a right of initiative for the European Parliament cannot be implemented within the current treaties. After years of stalemate, the Convention that has been called for, and the support of the French president finally offer an opportunity to make real progress in this area.
In response to the Conference the German Chancellor has so far merely stated that he would not stand in the way of treaty changes. If that remains the attitude, it would be quite underwhelming. All governing parties have been calling for treaty changes for a very long time. In the current coalition agreement, they have also decided to actively work toward them. If the German government wants to live up to its own European policy ambitions, it cannot simply cheer from the sideline. If the Ampelkoalition is serious about Europe, it must now use all its weight to convince sceptics in other member states.
Secondly, as important as these treaty changes are, it is also clear that they will take time. There is a real danger that this will lead the EU and its member states to get lost in principled debates with little reforms progress in the short-run. That must not happen. In parallel with the Convention, the German government should therefore start to develop a constructive agenda for the continent based on those proposals of the Conference on the Future of Europe that do not require treaty changes. There are plenty of options for doing so.
In recent years, for example, better funding of the EU budget has often failed, not because of the treaties, but primarily because of resistance from the member states, not least that of Germany. In view of the urgent need for more investment, funds could be raised quickly with the necessary political will. Similarly, a strengthening of European democracy through a reform of EU electoral law and the introduction of transnational lists, as called for by the Conference, is already underway, following approval by the European Parliament in early May.
Now it is up to the national governments to support and implement these reforms. Finally, the continent’s security capabilities could also be strengthened through joint military projects and procurement, even before treaty changes. Three years of the coronavirus pandemic and economic crisis, as well as the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, have shown how much depends on an EU capable to act. There is currently a unique opportunity to strengthen this ability. For that, time is a decisive factor. This is why the German government should take up the impetus provided by the Conference. And it should do so before the political winds shift again.
As of today, the press office of the EU Commission Representation in Germany has a new head. Birgit Schmeitzner, the longtime correspondent for Bayerischer Rundfunk in the ARD capital studio, will thus no longer sit with all the questions, as she has in the past, but will have to provide answers and explain EU policy. “That means I will also have to hand over my vanity at the front door,” says Schmeitzner, who has spent more than 20 years in the public eye as a journalist and has more than 11,000 followers on Twitter.
“New job, new role – so the content here will also change,” she wrote on Twitter on Friday. Being even closer to political decisions in the future, translating the information from the commission for journalists – is the challenge that excites her about her new job. In the process, she always wants to be transparent, build trust “and never lie”.
Schmeitzner, born in 1969, joined Bayerischer Rundfunk’s radio news department in 1998 and has held positions including chief of staff, news anchor, anchorwoman, and deputy news director.
From 2009 to 2014, she worked and lived as a BR correspondent in Brussels, a time she still remembers very vividly: “Brussels is so diverse and dazzling, I really enjoyed living there.” Working as a correspondent, she says, was “terrific”. Thanks to her experience, she has no qualms about interacting with the vast EU apparatus – which will probably make it easier for her to adjust to her new job.
She also felt that her time as a freelance journalist in Moscow until 2016 was enlightening and that it broadened her horizons. Her understanding of how Russian politics works and of “what makes people in Russia tick” now enables her to assess the war and the current situation. In 2014, she was in Ukraine on the Maidan. She still maintains contact with both countries.
This was followed by five and a half years at ARD’s capital city studio in Berlin, where she covered federal politics. Her focus here: defense, agriculture, the Federal President, and the political party AfD. “I am pleased that with Birgit Schmeitzner we have managed to win a highly experienced journalist and excellent connoisseur of German and European politics to head our press department,” says Jörg Wojahn, representative of the European Commission in Germany.
Before starting her new job, Birgit Schmeitzner took a few months off. “I wanted to have some distance and to ask myself whether I am still authentic if I do this.” She answered this question unequivocally in the affirmative. “I feel European through and through.” She is therefore unlikely to have any conflicts of conscience about her change of sides from the one asking questions to the one answering them. Ulrike Christl
