It is a surprising turn of events. The money was actually supposed to be used for the reconstruction of Ukraine. But now EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell wants to propose today that the so-called windfall profits on the frozen Russian central bank funds be used for arms purchases for Ukraine.
A good €3 billion is at stake, which will be used from the interest every year. 90 percent of the funds could flow into the Peace Facility Fund (EPF), from which the member states co-finance arms deliveries for Kyiv. The remaining ten percent would be channeled into the EU budget and will be used in future to strengthen the defense industry in Ukraine.
Why the change of heart? If the Europeans use the money to help strengthen Ukraine’s defense capabilities, the Russian attackers will also be able to destroy less. Less destruction means less reconstruction later on, which is currently out of the question anyway. This is how Borrell is likely to argue today at the presentation of the Commission’s proposal.
For the EU, this would have the positive side effect that the scarce funds in the Peace Facility and the new program to strengthen the European Defense Industry (EDIP) could be increased. Whether the reallocation is legally viable is also likely to be discussed intensively at the summit starting tomorrow, Thursday. In addition to Hungary, there are also reservations in Malta and Austria about using the funds for armaments.
At the request of the communist faction in the French Senate, the upper house of the French Parliament will vote on the ratification of the trade agreement between Canada and the EU this Thursday morning (March 21). In 2019, the lower house of parliament, the National Assembly, gave its green light.
The Communist Party hopes that it can gather a majority in the Senate against the ratification of CETA, as the free trade agreement has opponents on both sides of the political spectrum. On March 13, the Senate’s Foreign Affairs Committee also came out against the agreement.
In their opinion, the economic benefits since the provisional application in 2017 are limited and do not outweigh the disadvantages for French agriculture. In particular, it criticizes the lack of “mirror clauses” that would apply European agricultural standards to Canadian products.
France has experienced massive farmers protests in recent months, which have hardened the rhetoric on free trade agreements across the political spectrum. France’s rural population is disproportionately represented in the Senate.
If the Senate rejects ratification, the matter will return to the National Assembly. In contrast to 2019, Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance Party no longer has a majority in the National Assembly. It is therefore possible that ratification will also be shipwrecked there.
If both chambers of parliament reject ratification, the French government would have to decide whether to formally inform Brussels of the non-ratification. David Kleimann, Senior Research Associate at think tank ODI Europe, says the government could have some room for maneuver. Instead of notifying Brussels immediately, it could also try to get the ratification through parliament again later.
If the French government formally informs Brussels of the non-ratification, the ball is in the Council’s court. When the trade agreement was signed in 2017, the Council decided unanimously that it would decide to end the provisional application of the CETA agreement in the event of definitive non-ratification.
However, according to Kleimann, this decision would have to be taken by a qualified majority, “and it is questionable whether the current members of the Council feel bound by a Council statement from 2017.” If the vote fails, CETA could remain in a provisional application for an indefinite period, says Kleimann.
The expert on European trade law also mentions another conceivable scenario: the EU Commission could renegotiate the agreement with Canada, but limit the scope of application to those parts that fall within the exclusive competence of the EU. The Commission could then submit this “CETA-light” to the European Parliament and the Council.
“The Council would then vote by qualified majority and – if the Parliament has given its consent – conclude the agreement and could thus overrule the French opposition,” explains Kleimann.
At a press conference in Brussels, Bernd Lange, Chairman of the European Parliament’s Trade Committee, expressed his confidence that a solution could be found. “If a country cannot ratify the agreement, we may have to wait a little longer. I would not say that this would mean the failure of CETA,” he said.
And if CETA did fail, a slightly adapted version of the agreement could probably be renegotiated and re-ratified. “I don’t expect such an important agreement that works so well to simply be cut off,” said Lange.
CETA was fiercely contested even before it was signed. In 2016, the Parliament of Wallonia opposed CETA and thus delayed the signing. In Germany, there were concerns about investment protection. The EU and Canada only just agreed on additional provisions for investment protection in February.
The European export control regime is designed for functioning multilateralism. The EU states mainly follow the control lists of the Wassenaar Arrangement. Under this arrangement, the 42 participating states jointly decide which products should be subject to export controls. This has the advantage of an internationally coordinated procedure. However, the Wassenaar Arrangement has one central disadvantage: Russia is one of the participating states.
This was already a problem before the second Russian invasion of Ukraine, says Mathieu Duchâtel, Director of International Studies at the Montaigne Institute think tank. Since the second invasion, the system has become almost completely dysfunctional. “It has become extremely difficult to update the list,” says Duchâtel.
“Russia’s policy of prevention in the regime is leading to a fragmentation of international export control regulations,” says Nikolas Keßels, Deputy Head of Foreign Trade Policy at the BDI.
The EU responded to this fragmentation by adapting its dual-use regulation. EU member states can now share their national export control lists. The idea behind this is that the member states do this collaboratively and adapt their control lists to each other.
This only had little impact so far. The Netherlands, Finland, Spain, Lithuania and France have expanded their export control lists unilaterally in recent months, without any significant European coordination. According to the EU Commission, this is because the regulation does not force the member states to consult each other before making a decision.
The fragmented export control policy is not very effective in the single market, as it is either easy to circumvent or creates barriers to the single market. This annoys companies that expect planning security. Chip manufacturer Intel, for example, is calling for European governments to improve the coordination of their export control policies. “A common EU approach is necessary,” a spokesperson told Table.Briefings.
“How countries currently define their national and economic security can be very inconsistent and lead to unilateral restrictions and different interpretations,” the Intel spokesperson continued.
However, the Europeanization that companies want remains challenging. In January, the EU Commission set out some possible approaches in a white paper.
Regarding the problem of the Wassenaar blockade, it suggests that the EU export control list could be expanded to include those goods on which the member states are actually in agreement but which are blocked by Russia in the Wassenaar process. The Commission could even decide this by delegated act if the member states can confirm that they have made these export control commitments in an international forum. The idea behind this is to establish a kind of “Wassenaar-minus-one” with the members of the Wassenaar Arrangement without Russia, which would be able to function again.
Keßels calls the idea of this parallel structure without Russia “not ideal, but an improvement to the current situation.” An EU diplomat told Table.Briefings that Wassenaar-minus-one was “worth a try.”
This will take time. The other approaches proposed by the Commission in its white paper will not have a quick effect either:
“Of course, it would be great if we were already further along than the white paper. But export controls are traditionally a very difficult area due to national security concerns,” explains an EU diplomat. It is good that it raises the minimum level of discussion in all 27 member states. “We have to move forward in small steps, it will be a long process,” he says.
But even if the EU develops an export control policy over the coming years that can deal with Russia’s blockade, there will still be problems with EU export controls. While there is concern with classic dual-use goods that should not fall into the hands of the Russian army, the situation is different in the case of the USA and China.
“The USA is much more willing to see export controls as part of its industrial policy,” says Mathieu Duchâtel. The Dutch government experienced this first-hand when the US government put pressure on it to introduce export controls for chip production machines. The Dutch company ASML should no longer supply its most advanced lithography machines to China, according to the US.
According to Duchâtel, the USA is not only interested in keeping these machines and their products out of reach of the Chinese military but also in slowing down China’s economic and technological development in general. The EU is still a long way from this understanding of export controls.
“The export control discussion in the EU is completely disconnected from the discussion on industrial competitiveness,” says Duchâtel, adding: “Military end-users should still be the main target, but we should be a little less hesitant about using export controls as a tool of industrial policy as well.”
It is doubtful that it will ever get that far. “We will never be able to do what China and the US are doing,” an EU diplomat told Table.Briefings. The EU is “structurally incapable” of doing this. Moreover, the risk of unintended side effects is very high.
Ursula von der Leyen smiled amiably into the cameras at the weekend: the EU Commission President had struck a deal with the Egyptian ruler and former general Abd al-Fattah as-Sisi. He urgently needs money, and the EU is offering it to him: €7.4 billion, €200 million of which is for migration programs. In return, the Egyptian autocrat is supposed to keep the refugees off Europe’s back.
This is not the first attempt at migration agreements – and not the first time that the President of the European Commission, together with EU heads of government, has paid a visit to a dictator because of the refugee situation. However, there is little to suggest that the regulations that have been put in place so far will be effective in preventing refugees from fleeing to Europe.
1.1 million asylum applications were made in the EU in 2023 – not counting Ukrainians, who have their own legal option. “Migration agreements with countries of origin and transit countries are nothing new and can make sense,” says Alexander Throm, spokesperson on domestic policy for the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag. However, on closer inspection, there are major differences between what they are supposed to achieve and what they can achieve.
The controversial agreement with Turkey under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, for example, only works to a very limited extent. Comparatively few refugees come directly to the EU via Turkey. But there have been no returns for years. Instead, more and more Turkish citizens are fleeing to the EU to apply for asylum – mostly unsuccessfully. In 2023, they made up the second largest group of applicants in Germany at over 19 percent – after Syrians and even before Afghans.
What does this mean for migration agreements? “The example of Turkey shows that no miracles can be expected from them,” says Alexander Throm. “It is always important that Europe also demands compliance with and implementation of these partnerships. And that we do not allow ourselves to be blackmailed by the interests of certain autocrats.”
However, this is exactly what happened with another migration agreement, namely with Tunisia last summer. The EU’s aim was for the country to take back all refugees arriving in the EU from Tunisia. But despite the EU’s offers, President Kais Saïed, whose rule has autocratic traits, insisted that his country was not a destination for migration and that it decides on its own immigration and borders. Only a trickle of money subsequently flowed into Tunisia. Saïed then rejected the money in October 2023 – he did not want any handouts or charity from the EU.
As is so often the case, Brussels and the capitals were surprised. But the agreement would hardly have changed anything anyway. This is because the Memorandum of Understanding only includes the readmission of Tunisian citizens, says Green MEP Erik Marquardt. Yet they only make up a fraction of the asylum seekers arriving via Tunisia. “They are trying to use sleight of hand to cover up the failure of the agreement with Tunisia, which took 10 years to negotiate,” says Marquardt.
It is also doubtful that Egypt, which is much more powerful and has a larger population, would allow the EU to impose too many conditions on it.
A few months before the election, most politicians are reluctant to come clean with citizens. “The Common European Asylum System is the key to managing and organizing migration as a whole, protecting humanitarian standards for refugees and limiting irregular migration,” said Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) when the reform of EU asylum law was agreed in December. However, until the changes really take effect, many refugees will still drown in the Mediterranean and repatriations will fail.
“The new European asylum rules will not take effect until 2026 at the earliest and even then will only be a drop in the ocean,” says CDU interior politician Alexander Throm. Politically, they are worlds apart, but analytically, Throm and Green MEP Erik Marquardt are in agreement. He, too, does not expect the new rules to take effect quickly. Nor does he expect them to solve the problems in the long term.
In fact, a two-year deadline has been set for the complex revision of the regulations in many areas before the new requirements actually take effect. The EU Commission intends to present its own implementation plan in September, and the member states are to submit national implementation plans by the end of 2024.
Only a few people have understood the new rules so far. And how they are to be applied under the rule of law will be disputed for years, if not decades. This is because the standardization of the asylum system in Europe also means that many previous rulings by national and European courts will no longer be applicable.
One case in which the courts are likely to have a lot to do is the so-called border procedure. According to the so-called screening regulation, a decision is to be made within the first three to seven days as to whether asylum seekers end up in this procedure, which should last a maximum of three months, or are transferred to the regular procedure, which should last a maximum of six months. The border procedure was highly controversial, as it came very close to detention.
The possibility of asylum procedures directly at the external borders is a good step, says CDU politician Alexander Throm. In fact, the planned border procedures are highly sensitive. Contrary to what the name suggests, there is no provision that these must actually take place at the EU’s external border, as senior officials from DG Home confirm. Border procedures in Kassel or Paris, far away from all borders? The asylum reform will make this possible.
But isn’t it a good thing if asylum seekers are given clarity in quick procedures? In the negotiations, Germany has pushed for “functioning responsibility determination procedures with the longest possible responsibilities and transfer periods,” explained a spokesperson for the Federal Ministry of the Interior upon request.
The aim: “On the one hand, to ensure that responsibilities are transferred less quickly between member states and, on the other, that transfers are possible for longer, for example, if those seeking protection evade them.” The system of initial responsibility currently works little: a total of 5053 returns took place in 2023 – most of them to Austria.
There is widespread criticism of the specific regulations. “If the EU decides in the laws that the external border states will only remain responsible for an asylum seeker rejected there for 15 months, this blatantly contradicts German interests,” says CDU interior politician Alexander Throm. “This would open the door to secondary migration and even more rejected asylum seekers would be able to seek their fortune in Germany.”
Contrary to popular claims, the border procedures would not automatically result in faster repatriation, says Green MEP Erik Marquardt: “Rejection in these procedures is not usually followed by repatriation, but rather entry into an EU country and then an additional, regular asylum procedure.”
This only multiplies the workload but does not provide any relief. The German figures seem to confirm this: there were 16,430 deportations last year – with 1448 to Georgia, 1314 to Austria and 1177 to North Macedonia, none of the top countries of origin are among them.
And the so-called solidarity mechanism, which is often praised by the negotiators, is also unconvincing on closer inspection. On the surface, it obliges all member states to take in a proportion of refugees. This means that 30,000 refugees are to be redistributed according to population and economic strength. These can come from the regular or border procedure.
However, member states can buy their way out without this being directly related to the costs for the refugees: A lump sum is set – and all payments under the so-called Asylum and Migration Fund (AMIF) also count as a solidarity contribution.
The fund currently supports all sorts of things – from return counseling for the 70-year-old Iraqi who has lived in Germany for 30 years to help in recruiting skilled workers in Kosovo. And it gets even more abstruse: “The fact that Hungary can now say that we pay third countries, for example for migration management in Sudan, is obviously not solidarity,” says Green MEP Erik Marquardt.
“At the moment, it is too economically and politically profitable not to take in refugees.” Economically, this is also worthwhile because the EU Commission hardly ever holds those states that do not adhere to the common rules accountable with serious procedures.
However, Erik Marquardt sees the main problem in a dishonest view of reality. Most refugees have objectively good reasons to set off, as the figures show. Where they go depends primarily on language barriers and integration prospects: While Venezuelans and Colombians sought refuge in Spain, Egyptians mainly fled to Italy, Guineans and Ivorians to France and Turks primarily to Germany, as current figures from the EU Asylum Agency (EUAA) show. In other words, to places where there are already relevant groups from the respective countries.
The new system is wrongly designed from the outset: “We are assuming normality with small fantasy figures,” says Marquardt. This is a mistake: “People have been telling themselves for years that all they need is a few additional deterrent measures and then hardly anyone will come to Europe. But that will not happen. The system has to be built so that it works for realistic numbers and not just in a nice parallel world.”
For Alexander Throm, the solution does not primarily lie in Europe. Protection must be granted as close to the home countries as possible, he believes. “There is no right to choose the country of protection at will. That is why Commission President von der Leyen’s initiative is absolutely right. Unfortunately, Olaf Scholz has not shown any commitment in this regard; he is neither in talks with Turkey nor with other relevant countries.” Given the lack of real success in the EU deals to date, this is perhaps the wiser choice politically.
Sometimes Florian Bieberbach thinks: Guys, you’re completely unworldly. This one draft from the EU Commission, for example, a directive on the construction of buildings. It stated that new houses should no longer be connected to the electricity grid. Houses should be self-sufficient, with solar panels on the roof and other forms of energy. That might work for detached houses in the countryside. “But in the city, it does not make sense not to connect a new building to the electricity grid.” Completely unworldly.
You have to dig your heels in, and that’s what the 50-year-old does. He is the head of Munich’s municipal utilities and also President of CEDEC, the umbrella organization of regional energy suppliers in Brussels. Bieberbach is actually a lobbyist. “When companies influence political decisions, people take a critical view,” says Bieberbach. “Often rightly so.” On the other hand, if companies do not have a say at all, the law sometimes contains unworldly ideas. Bieberbach therefore believes it is important to make statements and discuss them with politicians. However, he rejects backroom deals.
In general, a lobbyist is imagined somewhat differently: louder, more emphatic. Florian Bieberbach speaks calmly, he likes to let his interlocutor take the lead. A slight Munich “Schmäh” (a kind of sarcasm or snide humor) adorns his words and sentences. “I’m a confessed country bumpkin, and I’m rooted where I live,” he says. He lives in Schäftlarn, a small community near Munich. He sits on the local council and is involved in the volunteer fire department. Perhaps that is what European politics sometimes lacks: a country bumpkin who can tell you what is going on in small towns and villages. Bieberbach says that he rarely has to go to Brussels, as a lot is done digitally. Plus, Brussels is difficult to reach from Munich.
Florian Bieberbach has been moving between Upper Bavaria and the world for a long time. When he was at the Technical University of Munich – for an IT degree and subsequent Ph.D. – he got involved with the Young Socialists. An argument he had with a representative of the Junge Union was printed and read. A manager at Deutsche Bank was so impressed that he recruited him. Bieberbach went to London, where he was an analyst for two years. “London is fascinating,” says Bieberbach. “But I realized that I couldn’t live permanently in such a cosmopolitan city.” So, he returned to Munich, which is said to be the largest village in the world.
At Stadtwerke, he first took care of IT – he did not know his way around electricity and gas yet. He studied again alongside his job, this time in energy management. And worked his way up. He became Managing Director in 2013. The position at CEDEC was added in 2019. He is also an honorary professor at his old university and a member of the council of the Agora Energiewende think tank.
Bieberbach represents 1,500 municipal companies from Norway to southern Italy for CEDEC. The big goal is the same everywhere: carbon emissions must fall. But the local conditions are different everywhere. Municipal utilities in Scandinavia have to keep buildings warm, while in southern Italy they have to keep them cool. Bieberbach is familiar with both. Munich knows ice-cold winters and hot summers, and the municipal utilities operate heating and cooling networks. It is therefore only natural that a Munich resident should head up CEDEC, says Bieberbach. After all, Munich is kind of in the middle of Europe.
Florian Bieberbach was recently in Stockholm and Vienna for CEDEC meetings. He is also often in Paris or Rome. And then he is back on the local council in Schäftlarn. Bieberbach is not really a cosmopolitan. But not really a country bumpkin either. Maximilian Münster
It is a surprising turn of events. The money was actually supposed to be used for the reconstruction of Ukraine. But now EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell wants to propose today that the so-called windfall profits on the frozen Russian central bank funds be used for arms purchases for Ukraine.
A good €3 billion is at stake, which will be used from the interest every year. 90 percent of the funds could flow into the Peace Facility Fund (EPF), from which the member states co-finance arms deliveries for Kyiv. The remaining ten percent would be channeled into the EU budget and will be used in future to strengthen the defense industry in Ukraine.
Why the change of heart? If the Europeans use the money to help strengthen Ukraine’s defense capabilities, the Russian attackers will also be able to destroy less. Less destruction means less reconstruction later on, which is currently out of the question anyway. This is how Borrell is likely to argue today at the presentation of the Commission’s proposal.
For the EU, this would have the positive side effect that the scarce funds in the Peace Facility and the new program to strengthen the European Defense Industry (EDIP) could be increased. Whether the reallocation is legally viable is also likely to be discussed intensively at the summit starting tomorrow, Thursday. In addition to Hungary, there are also reservations in Malta and Austria about using the funds for armaments.
At the request of the communist faction in the French Senate, the upper house of the French Parliament will vote on the ratification of the trade agreement between Canada and the EU this Thursday morning (March 21). In 2019, the lower house of parliament, the National Assembly, gave its green light.
The Communist Party hopes that it can gather a majority in the Senate against the ratification of CETA, as the free trade agreement has opponents on both sides of the political spectrum. On March 13, the Senate’s Foreign Affairs Committee also came out against the agreement.
In their opinion, the economic benefits since the provisional application in 2017 are limited and do not outweigh the disadvantages for French agriculture. In particular, it criticizes the lack of “mirror clauses” that would apply European agricultural standards to Canadian products.
France has experienced massive farmers protests in recent months, which have hardened the rhetoric on free trade agreements across the political spectrum. France’s rural population is disproportionately represented in the Senate.
If the Senate rejects ratification, the matter will return to the National Assembly. In contrast to 2019, Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance Party no longer has a majority in the National Assembly. It is therefore possible that ratification will also be shipwrecked there.
If both chambers of parliament reject ratification, the French government would have to decide whether to formally inform Brussels of the non-ratification. David Kleimann, Senior Research Associate at think tank ODI Europe, says the government could have some room for maneuver. Instead of notifying Brussels immediately, it could also try to get the ratification through parliament again later.
If the French government formally informs Brussels of the non-ratification, the ball is in the Council’s court. When the trade agreement was signed in 2017, the Council decided unanimously that it would decide to end the provisional application of the CETA agreement in the event of definitive non-ratification.
However, according to Kleimann, this decision would have to be taken by a qualified majority, “and it is questionable whether the current members of the Council feel bound by a Council statement from 2017.” If the vote fails, CETA could remain in a provisional application for an indefinite period, says Kleimann.
The expert on European trade law also mentions another conceivable scenario: the EU Commission could renegotiate the agreement with Canada, but limit the scope of application to those parts that fall within the exclusive competence of the EU. The Commission could then submit this “CETA-light” to the European Parliament and the Council.
“The Council would then vote by qualified majority and – if the Parliament has given its consent – conclude the agreement and could thus overrule the French opposition,” explains Kleimann.
At a press conference in Brussels, Bernd Lange, Chairman of the European Parliament’s Trade Committee, expressed his confidence that a solution could be found. “If a country cannot ratify the agreement, we may have to wait a little longer. I would not say that this would mean the failure of CETA,” he said.
And if CETA did fail, a slightly adapted version of the agreement could probably be renegotiated and re-ratified. “I don’t expect such an important agreement that works so well to simply be cut off,” said Lange.
CETA was fiercely contested even before it was signed. In 2016, the Parliament of Wallonia opposed CETA and thus delayed the signing. In Germany, there were concerns about investment protection. The EU and Canada only just agreed on additional provisions for investment protection in February.
The European export control regime is designed for functioning multilateralism. The EU states mainly follow the control lists of the Wassenaar Arrangement. Under this arrangement, the 42 participating states jointly decide which products should be subject to export controls. This has the advantage of an internationally coordinated procedure. However, the Wassenaar Arrangement has one central disadvantage: Russia is one of the participating states.
This was already a problem before the second Russian invasion of Ukraine, says Mathieu Duchâtel, Director of International Studies at the Montaigne Institute think tank. Since the second invasion, the system has become almost completely dysfunctional. “It has become extremely difficult to update the list,” says Duchâtel.
“Russia’s policy of prevention in the regime is leading to a fragmentation of international export control regulations,” says Nikolas Keßels, Deputy Head of Foreign Trade Policy at the BDI.
The EU responded to this fragmentation by adapting its dual-use regulation. EU member states can now share their national export control lists. The idea behind this is that the member states do this collaboratively and adapt their control lists to each other.
This only had little impact so far. The Netherlands, Finland, Spain, Lithuania and France have expanded their export control lists unilaterally in recent months, without any significant European coordination. According to the EU Commission, this is because the regulation does not force the member states to consult each other before making a decision.
The fragmented export control policy is not very effective in the single market, as it is either easy to circumvent or creates barriers to the single market. This annoys companies that expect planning security. Chip manufacturer Intel, for example, is calling for European governments to improve the coordination of their export control policies. “A common EU approach is necessary,” a spokesperson told Table.Briefings.
“How countries currently define their national and economic security can be very inconsistent and lead to unilateral restrictions and different interpretations,” the Intel spokesperson continued.
However, the Europeanization that companies want remains challenging. In January, the EU Commission set out some possible approaches in a white paper.
Regarding the problem of the Wassenaar blockade, it suggests that the EU export control list could be expanded to include those goods on which the member states are actually in agreement but which are blocked by Russia in the Wassenaar process. The Commission could even decide this by delegated act if the member states can confirm that they have made these export control commitments in an international forum. The idea behind this is to establish a kind of “Wassenaar-minus-one” with the members of the Wassenaar Arrangement without Russia, which would be able to function again.
Keßels calls the idea of this parallel structure without Russia “not ideal, but an improvement to the current situation.” An EU diplomat told Table.Briefings that Wassenaar-minus-one was “worth a try.”
This will take time. The other approaches proposed by the Commission in its white paper will not have a quick effect either:
“Of course, it would be great if we were already further along than the white paper. But export controls are traditionally a very difficult area due to national security concerns,” explains an EU diplomat. It is good that it raises the minimum level of discussion in all 27 member states. “We have to move forward in small steps, it will be a long process,” he says.
But even if the EU develops an export control policy over the coming years that can deal with Russia’s blockade, there will still be problems with EU export controls. While there is concern with classic dual-use goods that should not fall into the hands of the Russian army, the situation is different in the case of the USA and China.
“The USA is much more willing to see export controls as part of its industrial policy,” says Mathieu Duchâtel. The Dutch government experienced this first-hand when the US government put pressure on it to introduce export controls for chip production machines. The Dutch company ASML should no longer supply its most advanced lithography machines to China, according to the US.
According to Duchâtel, the USA is not only interested in keeping these machines and their products out of reach of the Chinese military but also in slowing down China’s economic and technological development in general. The EU is still a long way from this understanding of export controls.
“The export control discussion in the EU is completely disconnected from the discussion on industrial competitiveness,” says Duchâtel, adding: “Military end-users should still be the main target, but we should be a little less hesitant about using export controls as a tool of industrial policy as well.”
It is doubtful that it will ever get that far. “We will never be able to do what China and the US are doing,” an EU diplomat told Table.Briefings. The EU is “structurally incapable” of doing this. Moreover, the risk of unintended side effects is very high.
Ursula von der Leyen smiled amiably into the cameras at the weekend: the EU Commission President had struck a deal with the Egyptian ruler and former general Abd al-Fattah as-Sisi. He urgently needs money, and the EU is offering it to him: €7.4 billion, €200 million of which is for migration programs. In return, the Egyptian autocrat is supposed to keep the refugees off Europe’s back.
This is not the first attempt at migration agreements – and not the first time that the President of the European Commission, together with EU heads of government, has paid a visit to a dictator because of the refugee situation. However, there is little to suggest that the regulations that have been put in place so far will be effective in preventing refugees from fleeing to Europe.
1.1 million asylum applications were made in the EU in 2023 – not counting Ukrainians, who have their own legal option. “Migration agreements with countries of origin and transit countries are nothing new and can make sense,” says Alexander Throm, spokesperson on domestic policy for the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag. However, on closer inspection, there are major differences between what they are supposed to achieve and what they can achieve.
The controversial agreement with Turkey under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, for example, only works to a very limited extent. Comparatively few refugees come directly to the EU via Turkey. But there have been no returns for years. Instead, more and more Turkish citizens are fleeing to the EU to apply for asylum – mostly unsuccessfully. In 2023, they made up the second largest group of applicants in Germany at over 19 percent – after Syrians and even before Afghans.
What does this mean for migration agreements? “The example of Turkey shows that no miracles can be expected from them,” says Alexander Throm. “It is always important that Europe also demands compliance with and implementation of these partnerships. And that we do not allow ourselves to be blackmailed by the interests of certain autocrats.”
However, this is exactly what happened with another migration agreement, namely with Tunisia last summer. The EU’s aim was for the country to take back all refugees arriving in the EU from Tunisia. But despite the EU’s offers, President Kais Saïed, whose rule has autocratic traits, insisted that his country was not a destination for migration and that it decides on its own immigration and borders. Only a trickle of money subsequently flowed into Tunisia. Saïed then rejected the money in October 2023 – he did not want any handouts or charity from the EU.
As is so often the case, Brussels and the capitals were surprised. But the agreement would hardly have changed anything anyway. This is because the Memorandum of Understanding only includes the readmission of Tunisian citizens, says Green MEP Erik Marquardt. Yet they only make up a fraction of the asylum seekers arriving via Tunisia. “They are trying to use sleight of hand to cover up the failure of the agreement with Tunisia, which took 10 years to negotiate,” says Marquardt.
It is also doubtful that Egypt, which is much more powerful and has a larger population, would allow the EU to impose too many conditions on it.
A few months before the election, most politicians are reluctant to come clean with citizens. “The Common European Asylum System is the key to managing and organizing migration as a whole, protecting humanitarian standards for refugees and limiting irregular migration,” said Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) when the reform of EU asylum law was agreed in December. However, until the changes really take effect, many refugees will still drown in the Mediterranean and repatriations will fail.
“The new European asylum rules will not take effect until 2026 at the earliest and even then will only be a drop in the ocean,” says CDU interior politician Alexander Throm. Politically, they are worlds apart, but analytically, Throm and Green MEP Erik Marquardt are in agreement. He, too, does not expect the new rules to take effect quickly. Nor does he expect them to solve the problems in the long term.
In fact, a two-year deadline has been set for the complex revision of the regulations in many areas before the new requirements actually take effect. The EU Commission intends to present its own implementation plan in September, and the member states are to submit national implementation plans by the end of 2024.
Only a few people have understood the new rules so far. And how they are to be applied under the rule of law will be disputed for years, if not decades. This is because the standardization of the asylum system in Europe also means that many previous rulings by national and European courts will no longer be applicable.
One case in which the courts are likely to have a lot to do is the so-called border procedure. According to the so-called screening regulation, a decision is to be made within the first three to seven days as to whether asylum seekers end up in this procedure, which should last a maximum of three months, or are transferred to the regular procedure, which should last a maximum of six months. The border procedure was highly controversial, as it came very close to detention.
The possibility of asylum procedures directly at the external borders is a good step, says CDU politician Alexander Throm. In fact, the planned border procedures are highly sensitive. Contrary to what the name suggests, there is no provision that these must actually take place at the EU’s external border, as senior officials from DG Home confirm. Border procedures in Kassel or Paris, far away from all borders? The asylum reform will make this possible.
But isn’t it a good thing if asylum seekers are given clarity in quick procedures? In the negotiations, Germany has pushed for “functioning responsibility determination procedures with the longest possible responsibilities and transfer periods,” explained a spokesperson for the Federal Ministry of the Interior upon request.
The aim: “On the one hand, to ensure that responsibilities are transferred less quickly between member states and, on the other, that transfers are possible for longer, for example, if those seeking protection evade them.” The system of initial responsibility currently works little: a total of 5053 returns took place in 2023 – most of them to Austria.
There is widespread criticism of the specific regulations. “If the EU decides in the laws that the external border states will only remain responsible for an asylum seeker rejected there for 15 months, this blatantly contradicts German interests,” says CDU interior politician Alexander Throm. “This would open the door to secondary migration and even more rejected asylum seekers would be able to seek their fortune in Germany.”
Contrary to popular claims, the border procedures would not automatically result in faster repatriation, says Green MEP Erik Marquardt: “Rejection in these procedures is not usually followed by repatriation, but rather entry into an EU country and then an additional, regular asylum procedure.”
This only multiplies the workload but does not provide any relief. The German figures seem to confirm this: there were 16,430 deportations last year – with 1448 to Georgia, 1314 to Austria and 1177 to North Macedonia, none of the top countries of origin are among them.
And the so-called solidarity mechanism, which is often praised by the negotiators, is also unconvincing on closer inspection. On the surface, it obliges all member states to take in a proportion of refugees. This means that 30,000 refugees are to be redistributed according to population and economic strength. These can come from the regular or border procedure.
However, member states can buy their way out without this being directly related to the costs for the refugees: A lump sum is set – and all payments under the so-called Asylum and Migration Fund (AMIF) also count as a solidarity contribution.
The fund currently supports all sorts of things – from return counseling for the 70-year-old Iraqi who has lived in Germany for 30 years to help in recruiting skilled workers in Kosovo. And it gets even more abstruse: “The fact that Hungary can now say that we pay third countries, for example for migration management in Sudan, is obviously not solidarity,” says Green MEP Erik Marquardt.
“At the moment, it is too economically and politically profitable not to take in refugees.” Economically, this is also worthwhile because the EU Commission hardly ever holds those states that do not adhere to the common rules accountable with serious procedures.
However, Erik Marquardt sees the main problem in a dishonest view of reality. Most refugees have objectively good reasons to set off, as the figures show. Where they go depends primarily on language barriers and integration prospects: While Venezuelans and Colombians sought refuge in Spain, Egyptians mainly fled to Italy, Guineans and Ivorians to France and Turks primarily to Germany, as current figures from the EU Asylum Agency (EUAA) show. In other words, to places where there are already relevant groups from the respective countries.
The new system is wrongly designed from the outset: “We are assuming normality with small fantasy figures,” says Marquardt. This is a mistake: “People have been telling themselves for years that all they need is a few additional deterrent measures and then hardly anyone will come to Europe. But that will not happen. The system has to be built so that it works for realistic numbers and not just in a nice parallel world.”
For Alexander Throm, the solution does not primarily lie in Europe. Protection must be granted as close to the home countries as possible, he believes. “There is no right to choose the country of protection at will. That is why Commission President von der Leyen’s initiative is absolutely right. Unfortunately, Olaf Scholz has not shown any commitment in this regard; he is neither in talks with Turkey nor with other relevant countries.” Given the lack of real success in the EU deals to date, this is perhaps the wiser choice politically.
Sometimes Florian Bieberbach thinks: Guys, you’re completely unworldly. This one draft from the EU Commission, for example, a directive on the construction of buildings. It stated that new houses should no longer be connected to the electricity grid. Houses should be self-sufficient, with solar panels on the roof and other forms of energy. That might work for detached houses in the countryside. “But in the city, it does not make sense not to connect a new building to the electricity grid.” Completely unworldly.
You have to dig your heels in, and that’s what the 50-year-old does. He is the head of Munich’s municipal utilities and also President of CEDEC, the umbrella organization of regional energy suppliers in Brussels. Bieberbach is actually a lobbyist. “When companies influence political decisions, people take a critical view,” says Bieberbach. “Often rightly so.” On the other hand, if companies do not have a say at all, the law sometimes contains unworldly ideas. Bieberbach therefore believes it is important to make statements and discuss them with politicians. However, he rejects backroom deals.
In general, a lobbyist is imagined somewhat differently: louder, more emphatic. Florian Bieberbach speaks calmly, he likes to let his interlocutor take the lead. A slight Munich “Schmäh” (a kind of sarcasm or snide humor) adorns his words and sentences. “I’m a confessed country bumpkin, and I’m rooted where I live,” he says. He lives in Schäftlarn, a small community near Munich. He sits on the local council and is involved in the volunteer fire department. Perhaps that is what European politics sometimes lacks: a country bumpkin who can tell you what is going on in small towns and villages. Bieberbach says that he rarely has to go to Brussels, as a lot is done digitally. Plus, Brussels is difficult to reach from Munich.
Florian Bieberbach has been moving between Upper Bavaria and the world for a long time. When he was at the Technical University of Munich – for an IT degree and subsequent Ph.D. – he got involved with the Young Socialists. An argument he had with a representative of the Junge Union was printed and read. A manager at Deutsche Bank was so impressed that he recruited him. Bieberbach went to London, where he was an analyst for two years. “London is fascinating,” says Bieberbach. “But I realized that I couldn’t live permanently in such a cosmopolitan city.” So, he returned to Munich, which is said to be the largest village in the world.
At Stadtwerke, he first took care of IT – he did not know his way around electricity and gas yet. He studied again alongside his job, this time in energy management. And worked his way up. He became Managing Director in 2013. The position at CEDEC was added in 2019. He is also an honorary professor at his old university and a member of the council of the Agora Energiewende think tank.
Bieberbach represents 1,500 municipal companies from Norway to southern Italy for CEDEC. The big goal is the same everywhere: carbon emissions must fall. But the local conditions are different everywhere. Municipal utilities in Scandinavia have to keep buildings warm, while in southern Italy they have to keep them cool. Bieberbach is familiar with both. Munich knows ice-cold winters and hot summers, and the municipal utilities operate heating and cooling networks. It is therefore only natural that a Munich resident should head up CEDEC, says Bieberbach. After all, Munich is kind of in the middle of Europe.
Florian Bieberbach was recently in Stockholm and Vienna for CEDEC meetings. He is also often in Paris or Rome. And then he is back on the local council in Schäftlarn. Bieberbach is not really a cosmopolitan. But not really a country bumpkin either. Maximilian Münster
