German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has once again stressed the importance of diplomacy in the Ukraine conflict. “Those who talk, don’t shoot,” the Green Party politician said. Nevertheless, a strong set of sanctions against Russia in the event of an invasion is currently in preparation with partners. Everything is on the table – including to freeze the Nord Stream 2 Baltic Sea pipeline. On the other hand, the European Union is highly dependent on Russian gas imports, which in turn is used by the Kremlin as a geopolitical lever. In the worst case, a supply stop would hit the European economy hard, a study by the think tank Bruegel shows. Read more in the news section.
Improved exchange of health data and patient records could not only improve cross-border medical care. The ability to access relevant data sets is also important for research and sound political decisions. However, very few EU countries have a sufficiently digitized healthcare system; Germany in particular is lagging far behind in international comparison, and there is a lack of appropriate legal frameworks. Finland, however, sets a good example. Eugenie Ankowitsch analyzed how the Scandinavian country can serve as a blueprint for the European Health Data Space (EHDS), for which the Commission plans to present a draft regulation in April.
Whether DIN, ISO, or EN: Norms and standards are omnipresent in both the private and business environment and are essential for the free trade of goods and services. While most people have a fairly precise idea of the shape of a DIN A4 page, things get considerably more complicated in the telecommunications sector. However, it is no less important. For decades, Europe set the tone for technical norms and standards. But other players, especially China, are now threatening to overtake the EU in the area of future technologies. Till Hoppe has summarized what the EU Commission is planning to do about this with its new standardization strategy.
In February 2020, the EU Commission adopted the European Data Strategy. The Health Data Space envisaged in this framework is intended, for example, to enable the exchange of electronic patient records, genomics data, or data from patient registers safely across the borders of EU countries in accordance with uniform standards. The aim is not only to provide better healthcare (primary use), but also to achieve improvements in healthcare research and healthcare policy (secondary use). The European Commission is currently working on a legislative proposal to be presented in April 2022.
For the cross-border exchange of e-prescriptions and basic patient data, the already existing MyHealth@EU infrastructure is used in some EU countries. In the course of the EHDS expansion, the Commission intends to add further applications such as medical image data, laboratory results, and hospital discharge reports in the coming years.
Under MyHealth@EU, the EU offers member states a common ICT infrastructure and cross-cutting services (terminology, interoperability, etc.). The EU countries connect their systems through national eHealth contact nodes (NCPeH). Finland, France, Portugal, and the Czech Republic are among the countries using these services. The German NCP is not scheduled to begin operations until mid-2023.
But being able to quickly access large amounts of high-quality data is also important for research and sound political decision-making. The secondary use of health data is therefore a particular focus of the EU Commission.
In designing the EHDS, the Commission apparently wants to take its cue from Finland, Denmark, France, and Norway. Finland in particular has a highly digitized healthcare system and has therefore been able to establish a healthcare data room with high data quality and data structure within just a few years. The Finnish health data space could thus serve as a blueprint. This is also indicated by the fact that the Finnish innovation fund SITRA, which played a key role in initiating the Health Data Space, is also coordinating the “Joint Action Towards the European Health Data Space” (TEHDAS). This is an EU-wide initiative that advises the EU Commission.
Within the framework of the Finnish Health Data Space, scientists, as well as industry, can access anonymized or pseudonymized health data. These are not only fed from all kinds of registers, but also from electronic patient records used throughout the country. The medical data can also be merged with social and civil register data as well as data from epidemiological studies, as the analysts at Empirica explain in a study commissioned by the German Association of Research-Based Pharmaceutical Companies (vfa). This data is compiled via a personal citizen ID.
The basis was a law from 2019. The Health Data Use Act describes in detail which data may be used for which purposes and under which data protection regulations. For example, it defines the following usage criteria:
– Scientific research
– Statistics
– Development and innovation measures
– Control and monitoring by authorities
– Planning and reporting obligation of an authority
– Education
– Knowledge management
With Findata, a separate authority has been established to act as a central application center. It reviews applications from academia, government agencies, and industry for data use, requests data, prepares it, and then provides access in a secure virtual environment. With Findata, Finland is pursuing the so-called “one-stop-shop” approach.
Data is only stored in the cloud as long as it is needed for the respective purpose and then erased. In specific cases, the data is also directly electronically transmitted to the applicant. During the application procedure, the latter are obliged to state to what extent the legal requirements for data security and anonymity are to be implemented.
Findata also receives data donations from citizens. Under the MyKanta health services, individuals can feed in so-called lifestyle data, for example from fitness trackers or other mobile applications, and make it available for research.
Other countries are nowhere near as far along. Germany, in particular, is lagging behind in an international comparison of digital healthcare systems. This was the conclusion by the German Council of Experts on the Assessment of Developments in the Health Care System in a report and the international comparative study “Smart Health Systems” published by the Bertelsmann Foundation in 2018.
Although health data research has also been expanded in Germany since the Digital Health Care Act (DVG) was passed in 2019, it has faced many bitter setbacks, such as most recently with the e-prescription. The further use of health data is primarily about the billing data of health insurance companies. The Patient Data Protection Act therefore stipulates that patients can donate data from their electronic patient records. With the research data center planned for 2023, a service provider is to be established who will provide access to the health data for specific actors.
For routine data, the German National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Funds acts as the data collection center. The data of the insured individuals is collected and pseudonymized in cooperation with an independent trust center and the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) and forwarded to the Research Data Center. This center is responsible for ensuring the overall data quality, creating an application register, and providing training opportunities for authorized users.
Given the different starting points in the EU countries, one of the biggest challenges will be to coordinate the European data room projects in the best possible way. The current structure of the Union is not capable of supporting the comprehensive use of such data in member states. This is the result of one of the reports of the Joint Action TEHDAS. Governance structures and infrastructural framework conditions must be designed to enable not only national but also cross-border analyses.
The authors criticize that, while the numerous actors currently managing different types of data serve their specific purpose, their current mandate could not support the creation of a single market for health data or its broader use for research, innovation, and decision-making.
Rather there are different approaches to the access and use of health data in the member states. Different and often contradictory national laws would hinder cross-border access to data and progress in digital health and the free movement of EU citizens.
In one of its other reports, TEHDAS proposes a possible EHDS architecture. This proposal envisions a network of nodes. These nodes represent organizations and authorities, such as Findata in Finland, the Health Data Hub HDH in France, and EU agencies such as the EMA and the ECDC. These services are used by data consumers, including public or private research institutions. These nodes are in turn connected to multiple data providers, such as hospitals or data registries. The data is to be made available in secure data processing environments. A similar infrastructure is included in a presentation by the EU Commission on the EHDS.
The planned EU regulatory framework still has to answer many open questions in the areas of governance, data quality, and interoperability. Each in itself is anything but trivial. A good indicator of the interoperability of a healthcare system, for example, is the proportion of structured data available. According to Empirica’s analysis, the proportion of structured data in Germany is less than 25 percent. In Finland, almost all data is structured. As a rule, this also indicates high data quality.
The realization of political visions to derive tangible benefits for patients, health care systems and society from the use of data depends to a large extent on the creation of uniform structures that can be used by the actors.
Europe is still a major power when it comes to setting technical norms and standards (European standards). However, its dominance, which was founded in the industrial age, is visibly crumbling: Within the framework of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), Europe has recently “been left out in the cold” when it comes to awarding secretariats for quantum computing, augmented reality, brain-computer interfaces, and lithium, said Reinhard Buetikofer, a Green Party industrial policy expert.
China in particular is working hard to transfer its growing economic importance to the international standardization organizations, thus giving its companies a head start in new technologies. The EU Commission recognizes the danger and wants to react: Next Wednesday, Vice President Margrethe Vestager and Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton will present their new standardization strategy.
The paper itself has not yet been released to the public, but the direction of the proposals is already clear: Norms and standards are to be defined in a more European, strategic, and faster manner.
In this way, the Commission wants to push back the influence of Chinese or US companies in the standards organization ETSI. There is considerable concern within the authority that foreign corporations such as Huawei have too much weight in the organization responsible for telecommunications standards. This is because voting rights in the bodies there are measured by the amount of membership fees. This favors large companies, most of which come from the USA and Asia.
The Commission wants to counteract this: Experts from national standards organizations of the EU states are to be given more influence in ETSI committees, according to Brussels. To this end, the Commission will propose an amendment to the standardization regulation.
The strategy should also recommend abandoning the bottom-up approach that has prevailed in Europe to some extent. For decades, industry representatives have been negotiating technical specifications and procedures in standardization bodies, largely unhindered by politics. In the future, however, the Commission, member states, and industry are to jointly identify key technologies such as green hydrogen and initiate standardization projects there at an early stage, which should also be led by European experts in the international bodies, if possible.
Experts believe the push for more political influence is the right approach: In China, standardization is approached very strategically, says Sibylle Gabler, Head of Government Relations at the German Institute for Standardization (DIN). “In Germany and Europe, we should do the same.” For Buetikofer, the yardstick for the success of the new standardization strategy will be “whether we succeed in making cooperation between industry and politics more efficient.”
The German Electrical and Digital Manufacturers’ Association (ZVEI) is also open to combining the established approach of market-driven standards with a “political-strategic top-down approach”. “To this end, a continuous exchange between the EU Commission, member states, European standards organizations, and industry must be initiated,” wrote Jochen Reinschmidt, Head of the Innovation Policy department at ZVEI, in a recent article for Europe.Table.
In this context, the industry is also calling for more financial support from the government. It is expensive for companies to send employees to international standardization bodies. Standardization should therefore be seen as part of innovation policy, and active participation should be subsidized, according to the ZVEI. The Commission seems to be open to this.
The authority also wants to speed up standardization processes. At the moment, it takes too long, says ZVEI President Gunther Kegel: “We will then be kicked out of the standards race by the Americans, or, much worse, by the Chinese“ Especially in standardization at the European level, in the organizations CEN and CENELEC, numerous stakeholders would have to be involved.
However, Kegel also sees the responsibility with the Commission: With the so-called Harmonised Standards Consultants, the Commission has created another step that extends the processes even further. HAS consultants check on behalf of the Commission whether standards adopted by CEN and others are compatible with the original mandate of the authority and the relevant EU law.
The background to this are court rulings such as the James Elliott case. In its 2016 ruling, the ECJ held the Commission jointly responsible for the standards that had been developed by European organizations on its behalf. The authority, therefore, protects itself by having the finished standards reviewed by external consultants once more. However, Kegel criticizes that this further prolongs the process. For this reason, they are trying to convince the Commission that the HAS consultants should be involved in the standardization process from the very beginning.
In addition, the authority is likely to present a so-called non-paper, which is viewed very critically by national organizations such as DIN: It is aimed at so-called common specifications, which are increasingly being used by the Commission as an alternative to standards and norms. For example, the authority defines technical specifications within the framework of the Medical Devices Directive or the Battery Regulation, which products must meet in order to receive market approval. To justify this, it points out that harmonized standards do not yet exist in these areas.
DIN and other authorities, however, see this as an attempt by the Commission to dig deep into their territory. “The Commission should not try to establish a parallel system to the existing standardization organizations via Common Specifications,” says DIN representative Gabler. “That would risk fraying an established system and putting new specifications at odds with existing standards.” In collaboration with Amelie Richter
She is one of Europe’s top mobility experts: Meike Jipp has headed the Institute of Transport Research at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Berlin for just under a year. Together with her team of 80 employees, she is designing the vision of a modern and sustainable transportation system. The job is more challenging than ever. That’s because the demands for sustainability are constantly increasing. “Actually, we should restrict traffic in the interests of the climate,” says Jipp. “On the other hand, mobility is a basic human need that we have to satisfy in the long term. We have to cut through this Gordian knot.”
But how? Jipp has her own idea, independent of the much-vaunted scenarios involving air cabs, such as those planned by Urban-Air Port in major European cities, self-driving cars, or automated truck convoys. “Technology alone is not enough; it is only a means to an end,” she says. The 42-year-old is convinced that the transport revolution in Europe can only succeed if it is seen as a cross-sectional task involving various disciplines.
That’s why her institute employs not only traffic experts, but also computer scientists, mathematicians, and geographers. She herself holds a doctorate in psychology. She herself holds a Ph.D. in psychology. Growing up in the German Black Forest, she originally wanted to study marine biology, but then decided to study psychology in Mannheim. There she also delved into engineering. Marine biology, psychology, engineering? How does that go together? “I’ve always been interested in systems and organizations,” she says. “I want to figure out how they work and how to improve them.” It helps to connect the knowledge of one system with that of the other.
Jipp knows that people will only accept new technology in traffic if they are prepared to break with familiar patterns of thinking and behavior. For her, one key to a successful traffic turnaround is therefore the right psychological approach. “Mobility is a matter of routine. We tend to stick with one mode of transport once it has become established,” she says. “We therefore first need to change people’s awareness.”
For her, one way to break up routines, for example among drivers, is the principle of reward and punishment. Jipp recommends apps, for example, that record how many kilometers a road user has traveled by public transport. The more kilometers, the more points. If a certain number of points is reached, the user receives discounts or vouchers from the app provider’s partners. However, those who do not sustainably use public transport should be “punished” with high parking fees or a city toll, for example. The new willingness to change the mode of transport should then be met with technically improved transport services.
Among other things, Jipp envisions mobility hubs. Here, a wide range of services is to be provided. “Anyone getting off a train at a station should be able to use additional means of transportation there, for example, via bike-sharing with an electrically powered cargo bike or a car-sharing battery-electric vehicle.” In addition, she envisions co-working spaces at these transfer stations. “The concept has to be to integrate as many services as possible and think holistically,” she says.
Holistic also means something else: beyond national borders. In Europe, improved awareness of a common transport policy is gradually developing. The “Fit for 55” climate program is setting the right tone, says Jipp. Now it is up to the countries to implement it. A start has been made. In December 2021, the commission adopted four proposals from the state transport ministers, including a new framework for urban mobility. Among other things, the plan calls for mobility hubs like the one Jipp describes.
At DLR, she is working on a project to design scenarios for the mobile city of 2050. Wherever possible, she wants to develop and test the traffic of the future hand in hand with the population. The idea is: “People can only judge whether they like a technology if they experience it.” At DLR, she therefore wants to use holograms to show how urban spaces change, for example, when parking lots become meeting places or drones deliver packages.
In her private life, she rather tries to escape from modern technology. She devotes herself to classical music on the piano. Or she goes hiking with her partner. She has already explored the Harz mountains. For a good 1,000 kilometers, she received the local Wanderkaiser award. Now she has set her sights on a new project: walking around Berlin. Her daily quota? Around 30 kilometers. “There always has to be a bit of a challenge,” she says. Andreas Schulte
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has once again stressed the importance of diplomacy in the Ukraine conflict. “Those who talk, don’t shoot,” the Green Party politician said. Nevertheless, a strong set of sanctions against Russia in the event of an invasion is currently in preparation with partners. Everything is on the table – including to freeze the Nord Stream 2 Baltic Sea pipeline. On the other hand, the European Union is highly dependent on Russian gas imports, which in turn is used by the Kremlin as a geopolitical lever. In the worst case, a supply stop would hit the European economy hard, a study by the think tank Bruegel shows. Read more in the news section.
Improved exchange of health data and patient records could not only improve cross-border medical care. The ability to access relevant data sets is also important for research and sound political decisions. However, very few EU countries have a sufficiently digitized healthcare system; Germany in particular is lagging far behind in international comparison, and there is a lack of appropriate legal frameworks. Finland, however, sets a good example. Eugenie Ankowitsch analyzed how the Scandinavian country can serve as a blueprint for the European Health Data Space (EHDS), for which the Commission plans to present a draft regulation in April.
Whether DIN, ISO, or EN: Norms and standards are omnipresent in both the private and business environment and are essential for the free trade of goods and services. While most people have a fairly precise idea of the shape of a DIN A4 page, things get considerably more complicated in the telecommunications sector. However, it is no less important. For decades, Europe set the tone for technical norms and standards. But other players, especially China, are now threatening to overtake the EU in the area of future technologies. Till Hoppe has summarized what the EU Commission is planning to do about this with its new standardization strategy.
In February 2020, the EU Commission adopted the European Data Strategy. The Health Data Space envisaged in this framework is intended, for example, to enable the exchange of electronic patient records, genomics data, or data from patient registers safely across the borders of EU countries in accordance with uniform standards. The aim is not only to provide better healthcare (primary use), but also to achieve improvements in healthcare research and healthcare policy (secondary use). The European Commission is currently working on a legislative proposal to be presented in April 2022.
For the cross-border exchange of e-prescriptions and basic patient data, the already existing MyHealth@EU infrastructure is used in some EU countries. In the course of the EHDS expansion, the Commission intends to add further applications such as medical image data, laboratory results, and hospital discharge reports in the coming years.
Under MyHealth@EU, the EU offers member states a common ICT infrastructure and cross-cutting services (terminology, interoperability, etc.). The EU countries connect their systems through national eHealth contact nodes (NCPeH). Finland, France, Portugal, and the Czech Republic are among the countries using these services. The German NCP is not scheduled to begin operations until mid-2023.
But being able to quickly access large amounts of high-quality data is also important for research and sound political decision-making. The secondary use of health data is therefore a particular focus of the EU Commission.
In designing the EHDS, the Commission apparently wants to take its cue from Finland, Denmark, France, and Norway. Finland in particular has a highly digitized healthcare system and has therefore been able to establish a healthcare data room with high data quality and data structure within just a few years. The Finnish health data space could thus serve as a blueprint. This is also indicated by the fact that the Finnish innovation fund SITRA, which played a key role in initiating the Health Data Space, is also coordinating the “Joint Action Towards the European Health Data Space” (TEHDAS). This is an EU-wide initiative that advises the EU Commission.
Within the framework of the Finnish Health Data Space, scientists, as well as industry, can access anonymized or pseudonymized health data. These are not only fed from all kinds of registers, but also from electronic patient records used throughout the country. The medical data can also be merged with social and civil register data as well as data from epidemiological studies, as the analysts at Empirica explain in a study commissioned by the German Association of Research-Based Pharmaceutical Companies (vfa). This data is compiled via a personal citizen ID.
The basis was a law from 2019. The Health Data Use Act describes in detail which data may be used for which purposes and under which data protection regulations. For example, it defines the following usage criteria:
– Scientific research
– Statistics
– Development and innovation measures
– Control and monitoring by authorities
– Planning and reporting obligation of an authority
– Education
– Knowledge management
With Findata, a separate authority has been established to act as a central application center. It reviews applications from academia, government agencies, and industry for data use, requests data, prepares it, and then provides access in a secure virtual environment. With Findata, Finland is pursuing the so-called “one-stop-shop” approach.
Data is only stored in the cloud as long as it is needed for the respective purpose and then erased. In specific cases, the data is also directly electronically transmitted to the applicant. During the application procedure, the latter are obliged to state to what extent the legal requirements for data security and anonymity are to be implemented.
Findata also receives data donations from citizens. Under the MyKanta health services, individuals can feed in so-called lifestyle data, for example from fitness trackers or other mobile applications, and make it available for research.
Other countries are nowhere near as far along. Germany, in particular, is lagging behind in an international comparison of digital healthcare systems. This was the conclusion by the German Council of Experts on the Assessment of Developments in the Health Care System in a report and the international comparative study “Smart Health Systems” published by the Bertelsmann Foundation in 2018.
Although health data research has also been expanded in Germany since the Digital Health Care Act (DVG) was passed in 2019, it has faced many bitter setbacks, such as most recently with the e-prescription. The further use of health data is primarily about the billing data of health insurance companies. The Patient Data Protection Act therefore stipulates that patients can donate data from their electronic patient records. With the research data center planned for 2023, a service provider is to be established who will provide access to the health data for specific actors.
For routine data, the German National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Funds acts as the data collection center. The data of the insured individuals is collected and pseudonymized in cooperation with an independent trust center and the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) and forwarded to the Research Data Center. This center is responsible for ensuring the overall data quality, creating an application register, and providing training opportunities for authorized users.
Given the different starting points in the EU countries, one of the biggest challenges will be to coordinate the European data room projects in the best possible way. The current structure of the Union is not capable of supporting the comprehensive use of such data in member states. This is the result of one of the reports of the Joint Action TEHDAS. Governance structures and infrastructural framework conditions must be designed to enable not only national but also cross-border analyses.
The authors criticize that, while the numerous actors currently managing different types of data serve their specific purpose, their current mandate could not support the creation of a single market for health data or its broader use for research, innovation, and decision-making.
Rather there are different approaches to the access and use of health data in the member states. Different and often contradictory national laws would hinder cross-border access to data and progress in digital health and the free movement of EU citizens.
In one of its other reports, TEHDAS proposes a possible EHDS architecture. This proposal envisions a network of nodes. These nodes represent organizations and authorities, such as Findata in Finland, the Health Data Hub HDH in France, and EU agencies such as the EMA and the ECDC. These services are used by data consumers, including public or private research institutions. These nodes are in turn connected to multiple data providers, such as hospitals or data registries. The data is to be made available in secure data processing environments. A similar infrastructure is included in a presentation by the EU Commission on the EHDS.
The planned EU regulatory framework still has to answer many open questions in the areas of governance, data quality, and interoperability. Each in itself is anything but trivial. A good indicator of the interoperability of a healthcare system, for example, is the proportion of structured data available. According to Empirica’s analysis, the proportion of structured data in Germany is less than 25 percent. In Finland, almost all data is structured. As a rule, this also indicates high data quality.
The realization of political visions to derive tangible benefits for patients, health care systems and society from the use of data depends to a large extent on the creation of uniform structures that can be used by the actors.
Europe is still a major power when it comes to setting technical norms and standards (European standards). However, its dominance, which was founded in the industrial age, is visibly crumbling: Within the framework of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), Europe has recently “been left out in the cold” when it comes to awarding secretariats for quantum computing, augmented reality, brain-computer interfaces, and lithium, said Reinhard Buetikofer, a Green Party industrial policy expert.
China in particular is working hard to transfer its growing economic importance to the international standardization organizations, thus giving its companies a head start in new technologies. The EU Commission recognizes the danger and wants to react: Next Wednesday, Vice President Margrethe Vestager and Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton will present their new standardization strategy.
The paper itself has not yet been released to the public, but the direction of the proposals is already clear: Norms and standards are to be defined in a more European, strategic, and faster manner.
In this way, the Commission wants to push back the influence of Chinese or US companies in the standards organization ETSI. There is considerable concern within the authority that foreign corporations such as Huawei have too much weight in the organization responsible for telecommunications standards. This is because voting rights in the bodies there are measured by the amount of membership fees. This favors large companies, most of which come from the USA and Asia.
The Commission wants to counteract this: Experts from national standards organizations of the EU states are to be given more influence in ETSI committees, according to Brussels. To this end, the Commission will propose an amendment to the standardization regulation.
The strategy should also recommend abandoning the bottom-up approach that has prevailed in Europe to some extent. For decades, industry representatives have been negotiating technical specifications and procedures in standardization bodies, largely unhindered by politics. In the future, however, the Commission, member states, and industry are to jointly identify key technologies such as green hydrogen and initiate standardization projects there at an early stage, which should also be led by European experts in the international bodies, if possible.
Experts believe the push for more political influence is the right approach: In China, standardization is approached very strategically, says Sibylle Gabler, Head of Government Relations at the German Institute for Standardization (DIN). “In Germany and Europe, we should do the same.” For Buetikofer, the yardstick for the success of the new standardization strategy will be “whether we succeed in making cooperation between industry and politics more efficient.”
The German Electrical and Digital Manufacturers’ Association (ZVEI) is also open to combining the established approach of market-driven standards with a “political-strategic top-down approach”. “To this end, a continuous exchange between the EU Commission, member states, European standards organizations, and industry must be initiated,” wrote Jochen Reinschmidt, Head of the Innovation Policy department at ZVEI, in a recent article for Europe.Table.
In this context, the industry is also calling for more financial support from the government. It is expensive for companies to send employees to international standardization bodies. Standardization should therefore be seen as part of innovation policy, and active participation should be subsidized, according to the ZVEI. The Commission seems to be open to this.
The authority also wants to speed up standardization processes. At the moment, it takes too long, says ZVEI President Gunther Kegel: “We will then be kicked out of the standards race by the Americans, or, much worse, by the Chinese“ Especially in standardization at the European level, in the organizations CEN and CENELEC, numerous stakeholders would have to be involved.
However, Kegel also sees the responsibility with the Commission: With the so-called Harmonised Standards Consultants, the Commission has created another step that extends the processes even further. HAS consultants check on behalf of the Commission whether standards adopted by CEN and others are compatible with the original mandate of the authority and the relevant EU law.
The background to this are court rulings such as the James Elliott case. In its 2016 ruling, the ECJ held the Commission jointly responsible for the standards that had been developed by European organizations on its behalf. The authority, therefore, protects itself by having the finished standards reviewed by external consultants once more. However, Kegel criticizes that this further prolongs the process. For this reason, they are trying to convince the Commission that the HAS consultants should be involved in the standardization process from the very beginning.
In addition, the authority is likely to present a so-called non-paper, which is viewed very critically by national organizations such as DIN: It is aimed at so-called common specifications, which are increasingly being used by the Commission as an alternative to standards and norms. For example, the authority defines technical specifications within the framework of the Medical Devices Directive or the Battery Regulation, which products must meet in order to receive market approval. To justify this, it points out that harmonized standards do not yet exist in these areas.
DIN and other authorities, however, see this as an attempt by the Commission to dig deep into their territory. “The Commission should not try to establish a parallel system to the existing standardization organizations via Common Specifications,” says DIN representative Gabler. “That would risk fraying an established system and putting new specifications at odds with existing standards.” In collaboration with Amelie Richter
She is one of Europe’s top mobility experts: Meike Jipp has headed the Institute of Transport Research at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Berlin for just under a year. Together with her team of 80 employees, she is designing the vision of a modern and sustainable transportation system. The job is more challenging than ever. That’s because the demands for sustainability are constantly increasing. “Actually, we should restrict traffic in the interests of the climate,” says Jipp. “On the other hand, mobility is a basic human need that we have to satisfy in the long term. We have to cut through this Gordian knot.”
But how? Jipp has her own idea, independent of the much-vaunted scenarios involving air cabs, such as those planned by Urban-Air Port in major European cities, self-driving cars, or automated truck convoys. “Technology alone is not enough; it is only a means to an end,” she says. The 42-year-old is convinced that the transport revolution in Europe can only succeed if it is seen as a cross-sectional task involving various disciplines.
That’s why her institute employs not only traffic experts, but also computer scientists, mathematicians, and geographers. She herself holds a doctorate in psychology. She herself holds a Ph.D. in psychology. Growing up in the German Black Forest, she originally wanted to study marine biology, but then decided to study psychology in Mannheim. There she also delved into engineering. Marine biology, psychology, engineering? How does that go together? “I’ve always been interested in systems and organizations,” she says. “I want to figure out how they work and how to improve them.” It helps to connect the knowledge of one system with that of the other.
Jipp knows that people will only accept new technology in traffic if they are prepared to break with familiar patterns of thinking and behavior. For her, one key to a successful traffic turnaround is therefore the right psychological approach. “Mobility is a matter of routine. We tend to stick with one mode of transport once it has become established,” she says. “We therefore first need to change people’s awareness.”
For her, one way to break up routines, for example among drivers, is the principle of reward and punishment. Jipp recommends apps, for example, that record how many kilometers a road user has traveled by public transport. The more kilometers, the more points. If a certain number of points is reached, the user receives discounts or vouchers from the app provider’s partners. However, those who do not sustainably use public transport should be “punished” with high parking fees or a city toll, for example. The new willingness to change the mode of transport should then be met with technically improved transport services.
Among other things, Jipp envisions mobility hubs. Here, a wide range of services is to be provided. “Anyone getting off a train at a station should be able to use additional means of transportation there, for example, via bike-sharing with an electrically powered cargo bike or a car-sharing battery-electric vehicle.” In addition, she envisions co-working spaces at these transfer stations. “The concept has to be to integrate as many services as possible and think holistically,” she says.
Holistic also means something else: beyond national borders. In Europe, improved awareness of a common transport policy is gradually developing. The “Fit for 55” climate program is setting the right tone, says Jipp. Now it is up to the countries to implement it. A start has been made. In December 2021, the commission adopted four proposals from the state transport ministers, including a new framework for urban mobility. Among other things, the plan calls for mobility hubs like the one Jipp describes.
At DLR, she is working on a project to design scenarios for the mobile city of 2050. Wherever possible, she wants to develop and test the traffic of the future hand in hand with the population. The idea is: “People can only judge whether they like a technology if they experience it.” At DLR, she therefore wants to use holograms to show how urban spaces change, for example, when parking lots become meeting places or drones deliver packages.
In her private life, she rather tries to escape from modern technology. She devotes herself to classical music on the piano. Or she goes hiking with her partner. She has already explored the Harz mountains. For a good 1,000 kilometers, she received the local Wanderkaiser award. Now she has set her sights on a new project: walking around Berlin. Her daily quota? Around 30 kilometers. “There always has to be a bit of a challenge,” she says. Andreas Schulte
