Future Conference + Auditor General hear • Table.Briefings

Dear reader,

It is the EU’s largest democratic experiment to date: the “Conference on the Future of Europe”, a project near and dear to French President Emmanuel Macron. After its launch in May this year, the buzz around the Future Conference had died down, but now the project is gaining new momentum. As Eric Bonse reports, this is mainly due to the German traffic light coalition’s plans. But positive signals are also coming from Manfred Weber, head of the EPP Group in the European Parliament and so far not known to be a Macron fan. However, there are still clear differences regarding reform ideas.

A “fictitious” apartment in Luxembourg, inflated expense claims, and non-transparent financial practices: These are the unpleasant accusations that President of the European Court of Auditors Klaus-Heiner Lehne (CDU) faces. This afternoon, Lehne is expected to attend a hearing in the Committee on Budgetary Control. Read more about the case in the news.

“Global Gateway” is the name of the EU’s infrastructure initiative, which is to be understood as a response to China’s New Silk Road. According to reports, the EU plans to mobilize up to €300 billion for the initiative. This is a significant increase compared to a first draft of “Global Gateway”, which circulated the figure of €40 billion. The significant increase could be a sign of how important the project is to Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, writes Amelie Richter.

Your
Sarah Schaefer

German politicians back Macron’s Conference on the Future of Europe

By

Eric Bonse

The COFEU is back. After its launch on Europe Day in May, the “Conference on the Future of Europe“, the EU’s largest democracy experiment to date, had been suspiciously quiet. But now the Future Conference is suddenly on everyone’s lips. The coalition agreement of the traffic light government in Berlin and the leader of the conservative EPP group in the European Parliament, Manfred Weber, have breathed new life into it – at least verbally.

“We will use the conference on the future of Europe for reforms,” the politicians of the SPD, the Greens, and the FDP have stated in their traffic light agreement. “The conference should lead to a constitutional convention and to the further development of a federal European state,” reads the 177-page text. The traffic light even wants to support treaty changes. This would pave the way for a far-reaching EU reform.

Weber is not quite as ambitious. He is concerned with “answers to the question of what role the European Union will play globally in the future”. The focus must be on foreign and security policy, said the CSU politician at a press conference in Berlin on Monday. Weber also sees a lot of room for improvement in health policy – keyword COVID. However, subsidiarity and efficiency must also be taken into account.

Climate, energy, migration as focal points at citizens’ forums

The citizens set yet other priorities. In four citizens’ forums, 800 women and men from all EU regions will be able to discuss how they envisage the future of Europe. At the last round of talks in the European Parliament in Strasbourg, the focus was on climate and energy policy, and migration. Environmental issues should be addressed at school, they said – and migrants should be given more rights.

At first glance, all this doesn’t quite seem to fit together. How can a link be drawn between the refugee drama in Belarus and the “United States of Europe”? How does the public’s desire for eco-education fit in with the “European Green Deal” and the EU Commission’s “Fit for 55” program? Hildegard Bentele (CDU), a member of the conference plenary, says that citizens still need a lot of education. Many people do not even know what the EU has already decided and initiated.

Weber takes a more pragmatic view. The conference is still in the brainstorming phase, and ideas will be collected by the end of the year. Politics must approach the citizens, because “good politics starts with listening”. It is not until January that the text work is to begin, turning the many ideas into feasible proposals. And it is only in spring 2022, under the French EU presidency, that the decision-making phase is to begin. “I hope for momentum from the French presidency,” Weber said.

These are new tones – until now the CDU and CSU were skeptical of French leader Emmanuel Macron and his citizens’ conference. Weber in particular was considered a bitter opponent of Macron. After all, the Frenchman had booted out the Lower Bavarian in the 2019 European elections. Instead of making the top candidate of the EPP the head of the Commission, Macron pulled the CDU politician Ursula von der Leyen out of the hat. But that seems to have been forgotten. “We support Macron,” Weber says today.

Germany and France not yet on the same page

Macron’s democracy initiative has also been backed by the new traffic light coalition in Berlin. However, the new governing parties have not forgotten the dispute over the European elections. They not only want to revive the system of top candidates that failed in 2019 but even make it binding. In addition, in their coalition agreement, they call for the development of a uniform European electoral law with partly transnational lists.

In doing so they are reaching out to Macron, but they are also putting him under a lot of pressure. The French head of state still thinks very little of the leading candidates. And it remains to be seen whether Macron is willing to agree to an EU electoral law. The biggest imposition, however, is probably the idea of transforming the Future Conference into a constitutional convention. That already happened 20 years ago – in the end, a majority of the French voted against the EU constitutional treaty.

It is not only the citizens’ wishes and the political realities that are far apart. Germany and France are also far from being on the same page. But at least all the relevant EU politicians have now embraced the idea of the Conference on the Future of Europe. When it was launched in May, it looked almost stillborn. Now there is even a breath of fresh air from Berlin. In the end, there won’t be a “European federal state” as the traffic light coalition would like – but there will be a major reform.

Mismanagement accusations: President of the Court of Auditors Lehne’s hearing

The head of the European Court of Auditors, the German CDU politician Klaus-Heiner Lehne, must answer to the European Parliament on accusations of mismanagement. Lehne is expected in Brussels on Tuesday afternoon for a hearing in the Budgetary Control Committee. Lehne himself had requested the hearing, his spokesman said.

The French daily newspaper “Libération” had previously reported on a “fictitious” apartment in Luxembourg, inflated expense claims, and non-transparent financial dealings. Among other things, Lehne is accused of having collected €325,000 too much in rent subsidies. In addition to Lehne, several of his employees are also allegedly involved in the affair.

The accusations are reminiscent of the Pinxten case. The former Belgian defense minister Karel Pinxten had left the Court of Auditors prematurely in 2018 because he allegedly claimed private luxury trips, hunting trips, and visits to a Burgundian wine estate as business expenses. He is also said to have been conspicuous by his absence from Luxembourg for months.

The Pinxten affair had caused damages of more than €570,000, the Court of Auditors announced at the beginning of November. Lehne, however, had not been guilty of anything, his spokesman said. “All members of the Court of Auditors work and reside in Luxembourg,” he stressed. The expenses management is transparent and is being thoroughly checked.

Nevertheless, the European Parliament now wants to investigate the accusations. They are based on research by the French EU correspondent Jean Quatremer. In 1999, the Brussels correspondent of “Libération” brought down the EU Commission under Jacques Santer with an investigative story. ebo

Up to €300 billion for EU response to China’s Silk Road

The EU reportedly plans to mobilize up to €300 billion for its Global Gateway infrastructure initiative in response to China’s Silk Road program. A period between 2021 and 2027 is estimated for the disbursement of the funds, the Financial Times reported. According to the report, the €300 billion will come from various programs in the EU budget. However, the EU also wants to involve the private sector as well as the European Investment Bank and national development banks. It plans to officially present the strategy on Wednesday.

“Global Gateway” is not explicitly marketed by Brussels as an alternative to China’s Belt and Road Initiative. However, the final paper will emphasize that “Global Gateway” offers a “values-based” option and an “ethical approach “. “By offering a positive choice for global infrastructure development, ‘Global Gateway’ will invest in international stability and cooperation, demonstrating how democratic values provide security and fairness, sustainability for partners, and long-term benefits for people around the world,” the Financial Times quotes from the document. According to the document, the focus will be on investments in digitalization, health, climate, energy, and transport, as well as education and research.

The planned sum has risen sharply compared to a first draft of “Global Gateway”. The initiative should actually have been presented by the EU Commission in mid-November. At that time, the figure of €40 billion was circulating in EU circles. The fact that the sum is now significantly higher could be a sign of how important the project is to EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. She announced the name of the initiative in September during her speech on the state of the European Union. ari

EU announces media freedom law and supports European newsroom

EU Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton announced the EU’s support for a European newsroom at a media conference in Brussels and declared an EU media freedom law.

A total of 16 news agencies, including the German Press Agency (dpa) and Agence France-Presse (AFP), are to better dovetail their reporting in a joint European newsroom from Brussels. With €1.76 million in funding over two years, the EU is supporting the plan to improve reporting from Brussels and about Europe from January 2022.

“This first-ever pan-European newsroom – which we announce today – will allow journalists to report jointly on EU affairs and promote a spirit of collaboration back at home,” Breton said.

Breton also announced that the Commission would present a proposal for a media freedom law next year. The aim is “to boost media pluralism and improve the resilience of the sector as a whole”.

This project will be “no walk in the park”, said EU Vice-President Věra Jourová on Monday evening at the European News Media Forum. The decision was taken after a thorough analysis of the EU legal framework, even if “regulating media freedom” sounds contradictory. This is one reason why an initial consultation on the project will be launched shortly.

Jourová said the EU wanted to react in particular to the politicization and extreme economic pressure on the media. Currently, media companies have the same protections in EU law as chewing gum or shoe producers, the Commission Vice-President said. However, there are good examples of such regulation in the member states, she stressed, without giving specific examples. fst

Hydrogen Week: on the way to market ramp-up

This year’s European Hydrogen Week began in Brussels on Monday with the official launch of the Clean Hydrogen Partnership. The new cooperation is intended to bring together representatives of the EU Commission, the member states, industry, and science in order to help innovations reach market maturity more quickly and to promote the development of an international hydrogen market.

The partnership follows years of successful collaboration under the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking (FCHJU) and takes the inclusive model to the next level, said EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in her opening speech. “With this, we are taking the ideas from the lab to the factory.”

The rapid development and expansion of a market for hydrogen as a future energy carrier is crucial for the decarbonization of industry, especially for energy-intensive sectors that cannot be electrified easily or not at all. Europe must lead the way here, von der Leyen said.

10 million tons of H2 annually

At the beginning of the year, 200 green hydrogen projects were presented worldwide, more than half of them in Europe. The EU is a leader in the field of electrolyzers, the technology is already contributing to decarbonization, and in view of record-high gas prices, green hydrogen is in some cases even cheaper than grey hydrogen. The EU’s goal, von der Leyen said, is a permanent price per kilo of less than €1.80 by 2030 at the latest, by which time the annual production of green hydrogen in Europe should increase to ten million tonnes.

These targets are within reach, but substantial investments are still needed. For example, the EU states are urged to focus on hydrogen in their national economic stimulus programs. More than €13 billion from the “Next Generation EU” development instrument are to be invested in climate-friendly technologies in this way – a large part of it in hydrogen. Partnerships such as the Catalyst program are to help mobilize funds from the private sector as well.

Ultimately, hydrogen must be available everywhere as an energy carrier via a global market, said von der Leyen, which is why the technologies are now part of the talks with all trading partners. First and foremost: the partner countries in Africa. There lies the most significant untapped potential for renewable energies. Hydrogen could be used to store the energy and sell it to Europe as well as to decarbonize the country’s own industry. til

Network expansion: Telekom and Co demand “fair contribution” from tech giants

Europe’s biggest telecoms groups want to transfer some of the immense costs of expanding networks to the US tech giants. German Telekom CEO Timotheus Höttges and 12 other chief executives called for this in a letter on Monday seen by Reuters. They justify their demand with the high data usage and network utilization by services such as Netflix, Google’s YouTube, and Facebook.

“A large and growing portion of network traffic is generated and monetized by large US platforms, but that requires continued, intensive network investment and planning by the telecom sector,” the CEOs wrote in a joint statement. This model can only be sustainable if the big tech platforms also make a “fair contribution” to the costs.

In addition to Telekom and Vodafone, signatories include Telefonica, Orange, KPN, BT Group, Telekom Austria, Vivacom, Proximus, Telenor, Altice Portugal, Telia, and Swisscom. Names of tech companies were not mentioned in the letter, however, the COVID crisis has seen a rapid increase in demand for streaming services such as Netflix and Disney, YouTube, and Spotify.

In addition to the massive investments in 5G, fiber, and cable networks and the lack of participation of tech companies in the costs, the Telekom CEOs criticized the high prices that have to be raised by them in spectrum auctions. They were being abused as “cash cows” by the respective governments, they said. The attempts by EU politicians to abolish surcharges on calls within the European Union were also dismissed by the CEOs.

Investments in the European telecommunications sector rose to a six-year high of €52.5 billion last year. Starting in 2022, Telekom alone plans to spend €6 billion annually on expansion in Germany. rtr

Andersson reappointed as Sweden’s head of government

The Social Democrat Magdalena Andersson has been appointed Sweden’s prime minister for the second time in just a few days. The parliament elected her to the post again on Monday, the first woman to do so.

Last Wednesday, she had announced her resignation just a few hours after her appointment. Her junior partner, the Greens, had quit the government alliance because the coalition had failed with its budget plans due to opposition from the opposition. Andersson now wants to lead a minority government once again, which will then be formed exclusively by the Social Democrats. rtr

Twitter CEO Dorsey resigns

The co-founder of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, is giving up his post as chief executive of the billion-dollar company. His successor is the current head of technology Parag Agrawal, as the San Francisco-based company announced on Monday. Twitter shares started the US trading session with solid gains.

Dorsey is stepping down because he is confident about his successor and wants to focus on Square, the payments processor he also runs, an insider said. Dorsey’s dual role as head of Twitter and Square had been criticized by investors. rtr

Better consumer protection under the Digital Services Act

By Christian Köhler

Christian Köhler is Chief Executive Officer of the Markenverband

Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Cyber Week – these are shopping highlights for consumers, but they are playing Russian roulette without knowing it… The EU Commission published its proposal for a Digital Services Act (DSA) in December 2020. This is intended to rebalance the responsibilities of users, platforms, and authorities – with citizens at the center. Markenverband fully supports the main objectives, such as better protection of consumers and their fundamental rights online. However, a major threat is posed by the popular online shopping, which is still far from being as safe as consumers expect and as it could be. This is because counterfeit products are offered on familiar websites on a large scale.

After a good presentation by the Commission and committed debates in the Council and the European Parliament, the DSA is on the home stretch: The Council adopted its general approach on November 25th, and IMCO plans to vote on it in December. However, the proposals currently under discussion show that the main objective, better protection of consumers on the Internet, has unfortunately still not been satisfactorily achieved on this basis. The right course could now be set within the framework of the current consultations. Consumers are still forced to protect themselves to a considerable extent.

Improvements needed in three areas

Yes, we do see improvements in the Council’s position, such as the obligation to inform consumers when an illegal product has been deleted from a website that corresponds to the product they purchased. Unfortunately, however, these improvements are not enough. Effective protection for consumers requires further targeted improvements, which the EP now has the opportunity to make.

We recommend three aspects in particular:

Illegal players must be made the focus of the legislation. The application of the rules must extend across all platforms – regardless of size and focus (interaction, transaction, or gaming platform). Only in this way can effective action be taken against illegal sellers on platforms – without leaving loopholes. Markenverband welcomes the fact that some platforms are already very committed to taking action against “illegal sheep”, also on the basis of new technologies. Further platforms should follow this approach in any case, depending on their size and thus on their possibilities. After all, acting on or as a platform must mean that rules are observed, online as well as offline – to protect consumers and also smaller brand companies: The IP Action Plan states that these entrepreneurs need support to build their business. However, they are also at massive economic risk from online trade in counterfeit products. Both platform SMEs and manufacturer SMEs must receive sufficient protection!

With the “Know Your Business Customer” principle, the European Commission has laid an important foundation stone for ending the anonymity that often exists among providers on platforms. In order to really give consumers the information they need, providers on platforms should only be allowed to prove their identity when purchasing services through procedures that are recognized and deception-proof in electronic legal transactions. And not only when purchasing services on the “traditional marketplaces”, but when purchasing services on all platforms where sales (transactions) take place.

Of course, protection against counterfeits is only possible if it is prevented that a once deleted counterfeit is uploaded and offered again. This is because deleting counterfeits is ineffective in the end if counterfeits are uploaded again and again. To this end, it is imperative to supplement the “notice and take down” proposal with a “stay down”. Only this combination ensures effective consumer protection and makes the fight against counterfeit sales effective.

The aim must be for consumers to be able to buy original and therefore safe products without any worries – the illegal operators must no longer be allowed to play cat and mouse with them.

EUROPE.TABLE EDITORS

Till
Hoppe

Charlotte
Wirth

Falk
Steiner

Timo
Landenberger

Corinna
Visser

Lukas
Knigge

Eric
Bonse

Sarah
Schaefer

Manuel
Berkel

Lisa-Martina
Klein

Markus
Grabitz

Stephan
Israel

Claire
Stam

Dear reader,

It is the EU’s largest democratic experiment to date: the “Conference on the Future of Europe”, a project near and dear to French President Emmanuel Macron. After its launch in May this year, the buzz around the Future Conference had died down, but now the project is gaining new momentum. As Eric Bonse reports, this is mainly due to the German traffic light coalition’s plans. But positive signals are also coming from Manfred Weber, head of the EPP Group in the European Parliament and so far not known to be a Macron fan. However, there are still clear differences regarding reform ideas.

A “fictitious” apartment in Luxembourg, inflated expense claims, and non-transparent financial practices: These are the unpleasant accusations that President of the European Court of Auditors Klaus-Heiner Lehne (CDU) faces. This afternoon, Lehne is expected to attend a hearing in the Committee on Budgetary Control. Read more about the case in the news.

“Global Gateway” is the name of the EU’s infrastructure initiative, which is to be understood as a response to China’s New Silk Road. According to reports, the EU plans to mobilize up to €300 billion for the initiative. This is a significant increase compared to a first draft of “Global Gateway”, which circulated the figure of €40 billion. The significant increase could be a sign of how important the project is to Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, writes Amelie Richter.

Your
Sarah Schaefer

German politicians back Macron’s Conference on the Future of Europe

By

Eric Bonse

The COFEU is back. After its launch on Europe Day in May, the “Conference on the Future of Europe“, the EU’s largest democracy experiment to date, had been suspiciously quiet. But now the Future Conference is suddenly on everyone’s lips. The coalition agreement of the traffic light government in Berlin and the leader of the conservative EPP group in the European Parliament, Manfred Weber, have breathed new life into it – at least verbally.

“We will use the conference on the future of Europe for reforms,” the politicians of the SPD, the Greens, and the FDP have stated in their traffic light agreement. “The conference should lead to a constitutional convention and to the further development of a federal European state,” reads the 177-page text. The traffic light even wants to support treaty changes. This would pave the way for a far-reaching EU reform.

Weber is not quite as ambitious. He is concerned with “answers to the question of what role the European Union will play globally in the future”. The focus must be on foreign and security policy, said the CSU politician at a press conference in Berlin on Monday. Weber also sees a lot of room for improvement in health policy – keyword COVID. However, subsidiarity and efficiency must also be taken into account.

Climate, energy, migration as focal points at citizens’ forums

The citizens set yet other priorities. In four citizens’ forums, 800 women and men from all EU regions will be able to discuss how they envisage the future of Europe. At the last round of talks in the European Parliament in Strasbourg, the focus was on climate and energy policy, and migration. Environmental issues should be addressed at school, they said – and migrants should be given more rights.

At first glance, all this doesn’t quite seem to fit together. How can a link be drawn between the refugee drama in Belarus and the “United States of Europe”? How does the public’s desire for eco-education fit in with the “European Green Deal” and the EU Commission’s “Fit for 55” program? Hildegard Bentele (CDU), a member of the conference plenary, says that citizens still need a lot of education. Many people do not even know what the EU has already decided and initiated.

Weber takes a more pragmatic view. The conference is still in the brainstorming phase, and ideas will be collected by the end of the year. Politics must approach the citizens, because “good politics starts with listening”. It is not until January that the text work is to begin, turning the many ideas into feasible proposals. And it is only in spring 2022, under the French EU presidency, that the decision-making phase is to begin. “I hope for momentum from the French presidency,” Weber said.

These are new tones – until now the CDU and CSU were skeptical of French leader Emmanuel Macron and his citizens’ conference. Weber in particular was considered a bitter opponent of Macron. After all, the Frenchman had booted out the Lower Bavarian in the 2019 European elections. Instead of making the top candidate of the EPP the head of the Commission, Macron pulled the CDU politician Ursula von der Leyen out of the hat. But that seems to have been forgotten. “We support Macron,” Weber says today.

Germany and France not yet on the same page

Macron’s democracy initiative has also been backed by the new traffic light coalition in Berlin. However, the new governing parties have not forgotten the dispute over the European elections. They not only want to revive the system of top candidates that failed in 2019 but even make it binding. In addition, in their coalition agreement, they call for the development of a uniform European electoral law with partly transnational lists.

In doing so they are reaching out to Macron, but they are also putting him under a lot of pressure. The French head of state still thinks very little of the leading candidates. And it remains to be seen whether Macron is willing to agree to an EU electoral law. The biggest imposition, however, is probably the idea of transforming the Future Conference into a constitutional convention. That already happened 20 years ago – in the end, a majority of the French voted against the EU constitutional treaty.

It is not only the citizens’ wishes and the political realities that are far apart. Germany and France are also far from being on the same page. But at least all the relevant EU politicians have now embraced the idea of the Conference on the Future of Europe. When it was launched in May, it looked almost stillborn. Now there is even a breath of fresh air from Berlin. In the end, there won’t be a “European federal state” as the traffic light coalition would like – but there will be a major reform.

Mismanagement accusations: President of the Court of Auditors Lehne’s hearing

The head of the European Court of Auditors, the German CDU politician Klaus-Heiner Lehne, must answer to the European Parliament on accusations of mismanagement. Lehne is expected in Brussels on Tuesday afternoon for a hearing in the Budgetary Control Committee. Lehne himself had requested the hearing, his spokesman said.

The French daily newspaper “Libération” had previously reported on a “fictitious” apartment in Luxembourg, inflated expense claims, and non-transparent financial dealings. Among other things, Lehne is accused of having collected €325,000 too much in rent subsidies. In addition to Lehne, several of his employees are also allegedly involved in the affair.

The accusations are reminiscent of the Pinxten case. The former Belgian defense minister Karel Pinxten had left the Court of Auditors prematurely in 2018 because he allegedly claimed private luxury trips, hunting trips, and visits to a Burgundian wine estate as business expenses. He is also said to have been conspicuous by his absence from Luxembourg for months.

The Pinxten affair had caused damages of more than €570,000, the Court of Auditors announced at the beginning of November. Lehne, however, had not been guilty of anything, his spokesman said. “All members of the Court of Auditors work and reside in Luxembourg,” he stressed. The expenses management is transparent and is being thoroughly checked.

Nevertheless, the European Parliament now wants to investigate the accusations. They are based on research by the French EU correspondent Jean Quatremer. In 1999, the Brussels correspondent of “Libération” brought down the EU Commission under Jacques Santer with an investigative story. ebo

Up to €300 billion for EU response to China’s Silk Road

The EU reportedly plans to mobilize up to €300 billion for its Global Gateway infrastructure initiative in response to China’s Silk Road program. A period between 2021 and 2027 is estimated for the disbursement of the funds, the Financial Times reported. According to the report, the €300 billion will come from various programs in the EU budget. However, the EU also wants to involve the private sector as well as the European Investment Bank and national development banks. It plans to officially present the strategy on Wednesday.

“Global Gateway” is not explicitly marketed by Brussels as an alternative to China’s Belt and Road Initiative. However, the final paper will emphasize that “Global Gateway” offers a “values-based” option and an “ethical approach “. “By offering a positive choice for global infrastructure development, ‘Global Gateway’ will invest in international stability and cooperation, demonstrating how democratic values provide security and fairness, sustainability for partners, and long-term benefits for people around the world,” the Financial Times quotes from the document. According to the document, the focus will be on investments in digitalization, health, climate, energy, and transport, as well as education and research.

The planned sum has risen sharply compared to a first draft of “Global Gateway”. The initiative should actually have been presented by the EU Commission in mid-November. At that time, the figure of €40 billion was circulating in EU circles. The fact that the sum is now significantly higher could be a sign of how important the project is to EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. She announced the name of the initiative in September during her speech on the state of the European Union. ari

EU announces media freedom law and supports European newsroom

EU Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton announced the EU’s support for a European newsroom at a media conference in Brussels and declared an EU media freedom law.

A total of 16 news agencies, including the German Press Agency (dpa) and Agence France-Presse (AFP), are to better dovetail their reporting in a joint European newsroom from Brussels. With €1.76 million in funding over two years, the EU is supporting the plan to improve reporting from Brussels and about Europe from January 2022.

“This first-ever pan-European newsroom – which we announce today – will allow journalists to report jointly on EU affairs and promote a spirit of collaboration back at home,” Breton said.

Breton also announced that the Commission would present a proposal for a media freedom law next year. The aim is “to boost media pluralism and improve the resilience of the sector as a whole”.

This project will be “no walk in the park”, said EU Vice-President Věra Jourová on Monday evening at the European News Media Forum. The decision was taken after a thorough analysis of the EU legal framework, even if “regulating media freedom” sounds contradictory. This is one reason why an initial consultation on the project will be launched shortly.

Jourová said the EU wanted to react in particular to the politicization and extreme economic pressure on the media. Currently, media companies have the same protections in EU law as chewing gum or shoe producers, the Commission Vice-President said. However, there are good examples of such regulation in the member states, she stressed, without giving specific examples. fst

Hydrogen Week: on the way to market ramp-up

This year’s European Hydrogen Week began in Brussels on Monday with the official launch of the Clean Hydrogen Partnership. The new cooperation is intended to bring together representatives of the EU Commission, the member states, industry, and science in order to help innovations reach market maturity more quickly and to promote the development of an international hydrogen market.

The partnership follows years of successful collaboration under the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking (FCHJU) and takes the inclusive model to the next level, said EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in her opening speech. “With this, we are taking the ideas from the lab to the factory.”

The rapid development and expansion of a market for hydrogen as a future energy carrier is crucial for the decarbonization of industry, especially for energy-intensive sectors that cannot be electrified easily or not at all. Europe must lead the way here, von der Leyen said.

10 million tons of H2 annually

At the beginning of the year, 200 green hydrogen projects were presented worldwide, more than half of them in Europe. The EU is a leader in the field of electrolyzers, the technology is already contributing to decarbonization, and in view of record-high gas prices, green hydrogen is in some cases even cheaper than grey hydrogen. The EU’s goal, von der Leyen said, is a permanent price per kilo of less than €1.80 by 2030 at the latest, by which time the annual production of green hydrogen in Europe should increase to ten million tonnes.

These targets are within reach, but substantial investments are still needed. For example, the EU states are urged to focus on hydrogen in their national economic stimulus programs. More than €13 billion from the “Next Generation EU” development instrument are to be invested in climate-friendly technologies in this way – a large part of it in hydrogen. Partnerships such as the Catalyst program are to help mobilize funds from the private sector as well.

Ultimately, hydrogen must be available everywhere as an energy carrier via a global market, said von der Leyen, which is why the technologies are now part of the talks with all trading partners. First and foremost: the partner countries in Africa. There lies the most significant untapped potential for renewable energies. Hydrogen could be used to store the energy and sell it to Europe as well as to decarbonize the country’s own industry. til

Network expansion: Telekom and Co demand “fair contribution” from tech giants

Europe’s biggest telecoms groups want to transfer some of the immense costs of expanding networks to the US tech giants. German Telekom CEO Timotheus Höttges and 12 other chief executives called for this in a letter on Monday seen by Reuters. They justify their demand with the high data usage and network utilization by services such as Netflix, Google’s YouTube, and Facebook.

“A large and growing portion of network traffic is generated and monetized by large US platforms, but that requires continued, intensive network investment and planning by the telecom sector,” the CEOs wrote in a joint statement. This model can only be sustainable if the big tech platforms also make a “fair contribution” to the costs.

In addition to Telekom and Vodafone, signatories include Telefonica, Orange, KPN, BT Group, Telekom Austria, Vivacom, Proximus, Telenor, Altice Portugal, Telia, and Swisscom. Names of tech companies were not mentioned in the letter, however, the COVID crisis has seen a rapid increase in demand for streaming services such as Netflix and Disney, YouTube, and Spotify.

In addition to the massive investments in 5G, fiber, and cable networks and the lack of participation of tech companies in the costs, the Telekom CEOs criticized the high prices that have to be raised by them in spectrum auctions. They were being abused as “cash cows” by the respective governments, they said. The attempts by EU politicians to abolish surcharges on calls within the European Union were also dismissed by the CEOs.

Investments in the European telecommunications sector rose to a six-year high of €52.5 billion last year. Starting in 2022, Telekom alone plans to spend €6 billion annually on expansion in Germany. rtr

Andersson reappointed as Sweden’s head of government

The Social Democrat Magdalena Andersson has been appointed Sweden’s prime minister for the second time in just a few days. The parliament elected her to the post again on Monday, the first woman to do so.

Last Wednesday, she had announced her resignation just a few hours after her appointment. Her junior partner, the Greens, had quit the government alliance because the coalition had failed with its budget plans due to opposition from the opposition. Andersson now wants to lead a minority government once again, which will then be formed exclusively by the Social Democrats. rtr

Twitter CEO Dorsey resigns

The co-founder of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, is giving up his post as chief executive of the billion-dollar company. His successor is the current head of technology Parag Agrawal, as the San Francisco-based company announced on Monday. Twitter shares started the US trading session with solid gains.

Dorsey is stepping down because he is confident about his successor and wants to focus on Square, the payments processor he also runs, an insider said. Dorsey’s dual role as head of Twitter and Square had been criticized by investors. rtr

Better consumer protection under the Digital Services Act

By Christian Köhler

Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Cyber Week – these are shopping highlights for consumers, but they are playing Russian roulette without knowing it… The EU Commission published its proposal for a Digital Services Act (DSA) in December 2020. This is intended to rebalance the responsibilities of users, platforms, and authorities – with citizens at the center. Markenverband fully supports the main objectives, such as better protection of consumers and their fundamental rights online. However, a major threat is posed by the popular online shopping, which is still far from being as safe as consumers expect and as it could be. This is because counterfeit products are offered on familiar websites on a large scale.

After a good presentation by the Commission and committed debates in the Council and the European Parliament, the DSA is on the home stretch: The Council adopted its general approach on November 25th, and IMCO plans to vote on it in December. However, the proposals currently under discussion show that the main objective, better protection of consumers on the Internet, has unfortunately still not been satisfactorily achieved on this basis. The right course could now be set within the framework of the current consultations. Consumers are still forced to protect themselves to a considerable extent.

Improvements needed in three areas

Yes, we do see improvements in the Council’s position, such as the obligation to inform consumers when an illegal product has been deleted from a website that corresponds to the product they purchased. Unfortunately, however, these improvements are not enough. Effective protection for consumers requires further targeted improvements, which the EP now has the opportunity to make.

We recommend three aspects in particular:

Illegal players must be made the focus of the legislation. The application of the rules must extend across all platforms – regardless of size and focus (interaction, transaction, or gaming platform). Only in this way can effective action be taken against illegal sellers on platforms – without leaving loopholes. Markenverband welcomes the fact that some platforms are already very committed to taking action against “illegal sheep”, also on the basis of new technologies. Further platforms should follow this approach in any case, depending on their size and thus on their possibilities. After all, acting on or as a platform must mean that rules are observed, online as well as offline – to protect consumers and also smaller brand companies: The IP Action Plan states that these entrepreneurs need support to build their business. However, they are also at massive economic risk from online trade in counterfeit products. Both platform SMEs and manufacturer SMEs must receive sufficient protection!

With the “Know Your Business Customer” principle, the European Commission has laid an important foundation stone for ending the anonymity that often exists among providers on platforms. In order to really give consumers the information they need, providers on platforms should only be allowed to prove their identity when purchasing services through procedures that are recognized and deception-proof in electronic legal transactions. And not only when purchasing services on the “traditional marketplaces”, but when purchasing services on all platforms where sales (transactions) take place.

Of course, protection against counterfeits is only possible if it is prevented that a once deleted counterfeit is uploaded and offered again. This is because deleting counterfeits is ineffective in the end if counterfeits are uploaded again and again. To this end, it is imperative to supplement the “notice and take down” proposal with a “stay down”. Only this combination ensures effective consumer protection and makes the fight against counterfeit sales effective.

The aim must be for consumers to be able to buy original and therefore safe products without any worries – the illegal operators must no longer be allowed to play cat and mouse with them.