In the near future, the EU Commission will report on how the member states are implementing the recommendations for securing 5G mobile networks. Thierry Breton is already anticipating the result: not enough. Virtually all member states had indeed transposed the principles from the toolbox adopted in 2020 into national law, said the Internal Market Commissioner. But only a minority had actually applied them to high-risk vendors. “This is a risk for the European Union’s collective security,” Breton warns.
So could the Commission propose an EU-wide ban on vendors like China’s Huawei and ZTE, as the Financial Times reported? Probably not. Dealing with high-risk providers is a matter of national security – and thus a matter for individual member states, not the EU. That is why the Commission and the NIS Cooperation Group with representatives of the member states had limited themselves to recommendations.
But that is not stopping Breton from increasing the pressure on Germany and other hesitant countries. A Commission spokesman referred to Council conclusions last December that member states and the Commission should consider “whether complementary measures are needed” to ensure a consistent level of security for 5G networks.
Berlin is currently considering banning certain components of Chinese providers in the German telecommunications network. However, the government has not taken action – partly out of consideration for relations with Beijing.
Have a sunny day!
“EU plans tougher heating hammer than Habeck,” the Bild newspaper headlined on Wednesday morning. The “Ecodesign Directive” is to be changed so that from 2029 at the latest, only heat pumps can be newly installed in buildings and “definitely” no more oil and gas heating systems. To make matters worse, the Commission could simply “rush through” the law without involving Parliament and the Council. The Commission’s reaction followed a few hours later.
The proposal will be technology-neutral, the Commission’s representation in Germany hammered back via Twitter. Accordingly, new gas boilers would continue to be permitted as so-called hybrid heating systems – for example, in combination with solar energy or heat pumps. This is supported by a memorandum from the Commission, available to Table.Media. It does mention a phase-out of fossil-fuel heating systems from September 2029, but only for “stand-alone” boilers. This important addition was lost in the Bild reporting.
However, hybrid heating systems consisting of gas boilers and renewables are not particularly attractive. Last August, the traffic lights discontinued subsidies for this “bridge technology” to become less dependent on Russian gas.
The story about “whipping through” also turns out to be half-baked. The Commission adopts implementing regulations in a comitology procedure. Representatives of the member states are at least allowed to submit an opinion. Associations are also involved, according to the Commission. However, the EU Parliament has criticized the Committee’s procedure.
“Simply because the existing Ecodesign Directive has not yet been completely revised, it is still legally possible to use this old procedure,” the Chairmen of the CDU/CSU group, Daniel Caspary (CDU) and Angelika Niebler (CSU), announced yesterday. They said it was intolerable if such a far-reaching decision came about through an “undemocratic backroom procedure” without parliamentary involvement. The Commission and the traffic light, which was also involved, called on the Union deputies to stop the procedure.
The Greens, on the other hand, favored the Commission’s plan. “It is good that the EU Commission demands more efficient heating systems for new installations. This will make heating cheaper for everyone,” said MEP Michael Bloss.
There is another reason why it is questionable whether the Commission will dare to introduce the gas heating ban via a downstream implementing act. In parallel with the Ecodesign Directive, the Buildings Directive is also revised. Here, it is becoming apparent that the decision on the fossil heating ban will be left to the member states.
The expectations for the next world climate conference are tremendous. This is not least evident at the interim negotiations of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change currently underway in Bonn (SB58). Here, preparations are being made for COP28, which will take place in Dubai in late November. But so far, it is not entirely clear what needs to be prepared. The negotiations started with a still-ongoing dispute about the agenda, and may not even be resolved by the end of the conference.
The conflict revolves around a demand made by the EU countries that the so-called Mitigation Work Program, which is supposed to set the path to achieving the 1.5-degree target, should also be discussed at the more technical and less political negotiations in Bonn. The EU and other progressive countries wish to discuss global emission reductions not only once a year at the COPs.
A group of countries in the UN – the so-called Like-Minded Developing Countries, which also includes China, India and Saudi Arabia – strictly rejects this. Officially for formal reasons, but there is a never-ending debate about if the developed world, as the main culprit of climate change, can impose carbon reduction requirements on developing countries. And especially if new mitigation targets for developing countries are not backed up by financial aid.
When COP28 President-designate Sultan Ahmed Al-Jaber of the United Arab Emirates arrives at the World Conference Center in Bonn today, Thursday, he could help settle the dispute – even though he is not yet in office. If he clearly outlines his priorities for COP28, this could also help determine the composition of the agenda in Bonn to adequately prepare for fall’s COP.
So far, Al Jaber is not expected to hold a speech in Bonn. Instead, a meeting with representatives of young climate activists is scheduled. At the Petersberg Climate Dialogue in Berlin in early May, Al-Jaber caused some surprise when he said that the focus should be on the gradual phase-out of “fossil fuel emissions” – not fossil fuels themselves. Since then, negotiators and environmental organizations have feared that Al-Jaber could make carbon capture, storage and use (CCSU) the focus of his efforts and significantly dilute the phase-out of fossil fuels in the process.
After yesterday’s meeting in Brussels between Al-Jaber and EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, green deal commissioner Frans Timmermans and foreign affairs representative Josep Borrell, it is not much clearer where the fossil fuel path is headed. COP28 is supposed to deliver “progress towards a just energy transition that includes a scaling-up of renewables in particular, and policies and investments to transition towards energy systems free of unabated fossil fuels,” the joint statement reads.
It is a return to a wording also used by the G7, akin to the discussions at last year’s COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh. There, more than 80 countries supported India’s proposal to phase out all fossil fuels. The EU was also among the supporters and will continue campaigning for the fossil fuel phase-out in Dubai. The fact that the upcoming COP leader now supports such a formulation could indicate that the positions of Al-Jaber and the EU are not as far apart as believed – nothing more, but also nothing less.
On June 8 and 9, the interior ministers of the EU member states will meet in the Council of the European Union in Luxembourg to agree on a negotiating position regarding the reform of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS). The traffic light coalition of the SPD, the Greens and the FDP wants to go along with large parts of the proposals presented by the Commission, thus clearing the way for unworkable tightening measures contrary to human rights. However, we are convinced that the federal government would be better off stopping the reform.
Because the Commission’s proposals are not suitable for ending the crisis of migration policy in Europe. Rather, the new proposals will only further fuel the demands of right-wing populist and far-right parties and governments for a de facto abolition of refugee protection. These form the actual core of the current migration policy crisis and the long-lasting deadlock in the European asylum system.
Research on the measures of the reform package already implemented in pilot projects clearly shows: Neither can they be implemented in a way that complies with human rights, nor are they suitable to meet the justified demands of EU member states close to the border for real European solidarity. On the contrary, it is to be expected that incentives will be created for states at the external borders to carry out even more illegal pushbacks or to disregard European law.
In doing so, the proposals put nothing less than the future of European unity at risk. Obviously, a common and sustainable migration policy for Europe is a more pressing issue than ever. Drafting and advancing such a policy should be the goal of this federal government. This is also what the SPD, FDP and Greens had agreed on in their coalition agreement.
However, a policy that only aims to stop so-called secondary migration at the expense of member states close to the border unleashes centrifugal forces that endanger the Schengen area as an area of free travel and thus also threaten a central achievement of the European project.
This can be seen particularly clearly in the proposal to introduce border procedures. They are the core of the reform package. Asylum seekers from countries with a low recognition rate, but potentially also those who fled to Europe through a so-called safe third country, are to enter a border procedure.
These procedures are not full-fledged asylum procedures. Rather, they are merely an accelerated preliminary examination of whether the person concerned is entitled to an asylum procedure at all, or whether he or she should be deported back to a state outside the EU. The central objective of the international system of refugee protection – the substantive examination and granting of protection to persons seeking protection – is thwarted by border procedures.
Since it can be assumed that persons seeking protection will try to evade this procedure, the border procedure is to take place in the context of detention lasting up to twelve weeks. However, a negative preliminary examination does not lead to direct deportation – this would be unlawful – but to a return procedure, which can take another twelve weeks.
However, even if the right to file an asylum application, which clearly exists under international and European law, is granted with a substantive examination, those persons will still have to go through the procedure in the country of first entry, i.e. in the member states close to the border. The basic problem of the “Dublin system” remains, namely that mainly the countries of first entry are responsible for receiving the persons concerned and for carrying out the procedure and the further stay of the person. Thus, there is de facto no incentive for states such as Greece, Italy or Spain to conduct a substantive asylum procedure.
This is the consequence of the lack of an actual European solidarity mechanism for the reception and distribution of protection seekers or persons entitled to protection. Contrary to the claims made by parts of the “traffic light” government, a binding distribution of protection seekers is currently not under discussion.
Thus, there is ultimately no incentive to carry out a border procedure at all. It is thus to be feared that the member states close to the border will continue to make use of the practice of illegal rejection, “wave through” persons unregistered or accommodate them in extremely precarious conditions. These are the current abuses that will be exacerbated by the proposals. In no way will the proposed reform end the “suffering at the external borders” as envisioned by the traffic light coalition agreement.
We suggest stopping the reform now and setting a new policy-making process in motion instead. This would enable the German government to fulfill its self-imposed task from the coalition agreement and “move forward on the path to a common functioning EU asylum system with a coalition of receptive member states and actively contribute to other EU states taking on more responsibility and complying with EU law.”
On the basis of a fact-based, comprehensive evaluation of the current situation at the external borders and of the Dublin procedure, and based on the many scientific findings that can explain why the Europeanization of the asylum system has failed, a new start could then be made in European asylum policy. Thus, an asylum system for Europe could be designed which is in the sense of refugee protection, which can organize real European solidarity and can be implemented. At the same time, this would send a powerful signal against the decades-long mobilizations of right-wing populism, which are directed equally against Europe and against migration. *with Constantin Hruschka, Marei Pelzer, Maximilian Pichl and Vassilis S. Tsianos
Cartels are a profoundly unfair thing. Like corruption, they lead to customers having to pay higher prices for products than is actually necessary. And yet sometimes there is a tiny bit of fascination mixed in with the disgust: How could the cartel members manage to keep their mouths shut for so long? Why did no one notice anything? How could they become this powerful?
There have been cartels time and again in many areas. The cartel proceedings against rail and elevator manufacturers, against producers of beer and confectionery or detergents became famous. Now the manufacturers of synthetic turf have come under the scrutiny of the EU competition authorities.
The European Commission conducted unannounced inspections of companies in the synthetic turf industry in several member states, it announced yesterday. And it specifies: “The investigation concerns artificial turf for sports use.”
Aha. Now images pop into the mind: There’s a lot of money at stake! The small group of synthetic turf manufacturers is squeezing wealthy soccer clubs that are used to handling large sums of money and may not be looking too closely. But of course, many small sports clubs may also be affected, who cannot afford the expensive maintenance of a real grass pitch. In any case, it’s good that the Commission is for once illuminating an area that is not otherwise floodlit! Unfortunately, it is still silent on the details.
Do you know more about the synthetic turf business or even about the cartel? Whistleblowers can report on the Commission’s website and are very welcome. Corinna Visser
In the near future, the EU Commission will report on how the member states are implementing the recommendations for securing 5G mobile networks. Thierry Breton is already anticipating the result: not enough. Virtually all member states had indeed transposed the principles from the toolbox adopted in 2020 into national law, said the Internal Market Commissioner. But only a minority had actually applied them to high-risk vendors. “This is a risk for the European Union’s collective security,” Breton warns.
So could the Commission propose an EU-wide ban on vendors like China’s Huawei and ZTE, as the Financial Times reported? Probably not. Dealing with high-risk providers is a matter of national security – and thus a matter for individual member states, not the EU. That is why the Commission and the NIS Cooperation Group with representatives of the member states had limited themselves to recommendations.
But that is not stopping Breton from increasing the pressure on Germany and other hesitant countries. A Commission spokesman referred to Council conclusions last December that member states and the Commission should consider “whether complementary measures are needed” to ensure a consistent level of security for 5G networks.
Berlin is currently considering banning certain components of Chinese providers in the German telecommunications network. However, the government has not taken action – partly out of consideration for relations with Beijing.
Have a sunny day!
“EU plans tougher heating hammer than Habeck,” the Bild newspaper headlined on Wednesday morning. The “Ecodesign Directive” is to be changed so that from 2029 at the latest, only heat pumps can be newly installed in buildings and “definitely” no more oil and gas heating systems. To make matters worse, the Commission could simply “rush through” the law without involving Parliament and the Council. The Commission’s reaction followed a few hours later.
The proposal will be technology-neutral, the Commission’s representation in Germany hammered back via Twitter. Accordingly, new gas boilers would continue to be permitted as so-called hybrid heating systems – for example, in combination with solar energy or heat pumps. This is supported by a memorandum from the Commission, available to Table.Media. It does mention a phase-out of fossil-fuel heating systems from September 2029, but only for “stand-alone” boilers. This important addition was lost in the Bild reporting.
However, hybrid heating systems consisting of gas boilers and renewables are not particularly attractive. Last August, the traffic lights discontinued subsidies for this “bridge technology” to become less dependent on Russian gas.
The story about “whipping through” also turns out to be half-baked. The Commission adopts implementing regulations in a comitology procedure. Representatives of the member states are at least allowed to submit an opinion. Associations are also involved, according to the Commission. However, the EU Parliament has criticized the Committee’s procedure.
“Simply because the existing Ecodesign Directive has not yet been completely revised, it is still legally possible to use this old procedure,” the Chairmen of the CDU/CSU group, Daniel Caspary (CDU) and Angelika Niebler (CSU), announced yesterday. They said it was intolerable if such a far-reaching decision came about through an “undemocratic backroom procedure” without parliamentary involvement. The Commission and the traffic light, which was also involved, called on the Union deputies to stop the procedure.
The Greens, on the other hand, favored the Commission’s plan. “It is good that the EU Commission demands more efficient heating systems for new installations. This will make heating cheaper for everyone,” said MEP Michael Bloss.
There is another reason why it is questionable whether the Commission will dare to introduce the gas heating ban via a downstream implementing act. In parallel with the Ecodesign Directive, the Buildings Directive is also revised. Here, it is becoming apparent that the decision on the fossil heating ban will be left to the member states.
The expectations for the next world climate conference are tremendous. This is not least evident at the interim negotiations of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change currently underway in Bonn (SB58). Here, preparations are being made for COP28, which will take place in Dubai in late November. But so far, it is not entirely clear what needs to be prepared. The negotiations started with a still-ongoing dispute about the agenda, and may not even be resolved by the end of the conference.
The conflict revolves around a demand made by the EU countries that the so-called Mitigation Work Program, which is supposed to set the path to achieving the 1.5-degree target, should also be discussed at the more technical and less political negotiations in Bonn. The EU and other progressive countries wish to discuss global emission reductions not only once a year at the COPs.
A group of countries in the UN – the so-called Like-Minded Developing Countries, which also includes China, India and Saudi Arabia – strictly rejects this. Officially for formal reasons, but there is a never-ending debate about if the developed world, as the main culprit of climate change, can impose carbon reduction requirements on developing countries. And especially if new mitigation targets for developing countries are not backed up by financial aid.
When COP28 President-designate Sultan Ahmed Al-Jaber of the United Arab Emirates arrives at the World Conference Center in Bonn today, Thursday, he could help settle the dispute – even though he is not yet in office. If he clearly outlines his priorities for COP28, this could also help determine the composition of the agenda in Bonn to adequately prepare for fall’s COP.
So far, Al Jaber is not expected to hold a speech in Bonn. Instead, a meeting with representatives of young climate activists is scheduled. At the Petersberg Climate Dialogue in Berlin in early May, Al-Jaber caused some surprise when he said that the focus should be on the gradual phase-out of “fossil fuel emissions” – not fossil fuels themselves. Since then, negotiators and environmental organizations have feared that Al-Jaber could make carbon capture, storage and use (CCSU) the focus of his efforts and significantly dilute the phase-out of fossil fuels in the process.
After yesterday’s meeting in Brussels between Al-Jaber and EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, green deal commissioner Frans Timmermans and foreign affairs representative Josep Borrell, it is not much clearer where the fossil fuel path is headed. COP28 is supposed to deliver “progress towards a just energy transition that includes a scaling-up of renewables in particular, and policies and investments to transition towards energy systems free of unabated fossil fuels,” the joint statement reads.
It is a return to a wording also used by the G7, akin to the discussions at last year’s COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh. There, more than 80 countries supported India’s proposal to phase out all fossil fuels. The EU was also among the supporters and will continue campaigning for the fossil fuel phase-out in Dubai. The fact that the upcoming COP leader now supports such a formulation could indicate that the positions of Al-Jaber and the EU are not as far apart as believed – nothing more, but also nothing less.
On June 8 and 9, the interior ministers of the EU member states will meet in the Council of the European Union in Luxembourg to agree on a negotiating position regarding the reform of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS). The traffic light coalition of the SPD, the Greens and the FDP wants to go along with large parts of the proposals presented by the Commission, thus clearing the way for unworkable tightening measures contrary to human rights. However, we are convinced that the federal government would be better off stopping the reform.
Because the Commission’s proposals are not suitable for ending the crisis of migration policy in Europe. Rather, the new proposals will only further fuel the demands of right-wing populist and far-right parties and governments for a de facto abolition of refugee protection. These form the actual core of the current migration policy crisis and the long-lasting deadlock in the European asylum system.
Research on the measures of the reform package already implemented in pilot projects clearly shows: Neither can they be implemented in a way that complies with human rights, nor are they suitable to meet the justified demands of EU member states close to the border for real European solidarity. On the contrary, it is to be expected that incentives will be created for states at the external borders to carry out even more illegal pushbacks or to disregard European law.
In doing so, the proposals put nothing less than the future of European unity at risk. Obviously, a common and sustainable migration policy for Europe is a more pressing issue than ever. Drafting and advancing such a policy should be the goal of this federal government. This is also what the SPD, FDP and Greens had agreed on in their coalition agreement.
However, a policy that only aims to stop so-called secondary migration at the expense of member states close to the border unleashes centrifugal forces that endanger the Schengen area as an area of free travel and thus also threaten a central achievement of the European project.
This can be seen particularly clearly in the proposal to introduce border procedures. They are the core of the reform package. Asylum seekers from countries with a low recognition rate, but potentially also those who fled to Europe through a so-called safe third country, are to enter a border procedure.
These procedures are not full-fledged asylum procedures. Rather, they are merely an accelerated preliminary examination of whether the person concerned is entitled to an asylum procedure at all, or whether he or she should be deported back to a state outside the EU. The central objective of the international system of refugee protection – the substantive examination and granting of protection to persons seeking protection – is thwarted by border procedures.
Since it can be assumed that persons seeking protection will try to evade this procedure, the border procedure is to take place in the context of detention lasting up to twelve weeks. However, a negative preliminary examination does not lead to direct deportation – this would be unlawful – but to a return procedure, which can take another twelve weeks.
However, even if the right to file an asylum application, which clearly exists under international and European law, is granted with a substantive examination, those persons will still have to go through the procedure in the country of first entry, i.e. in the member states close to the border. The basic problem of the “Dublin system” remains, namely that mainly the countries of first entry are responsible for receiving the persons concerned and for carrying out the procedure and the further stay of the person. Thus, there is de facto no incentive for states such as Greece, Italy or Spain to conduct a substantive asylum procedure.
This is the consequence of the lack of an actual European solidarity mechanism for the reception and distribution of protection seekers or persons entitled to protection. Contrary to the claims made by parts of the “traffic light” government, a binding distribution of protection seekers is currently not under discussion.
Thus, there is ultimately no incentive to carry out a border procedure at all. It is thus to be feared that the member states close to the border will continue to make use of the practice of illegal rejection, “wave through” persons unregistered or accommodate them in extremely precarious conditions. These are the current abuses that will be exacerbated by the proposals. In no way will the proposed reform end the “suffering at the external borders” as envisioned by the traffic light coalition agreement.
We suggest stopping the reform now and setting a new policy-making process in motion instead. This would enable the German government to fulfill its self-imposed task from the coalition agreement and “move forward on the path to a common functioning EU asylum system with a coalition of receptive member states and actively contribute to other EU states taking on more responsibility and complying with EU law.”
On the basis of a fact-based, comprehensive evaluation of the current situation at the external borders and of the Dublin procedure, and based on the many scientific findings that can explain why the Europeanization of the asylum system has failed, a new start could then be made in European asylum policy. Thus, an asylum system for Europe could be designed which is in the sense of refugee protection, which can organize real European solidarity and can be implemented. At the same time, this would send a powerful signal against the decades-long mobilizations of right-wing populism, which are directed equally against Europe and against migration. *with Constantin Hruschka, Marei Pelzer, Maximilian Pichl and Vassilis S. Tsianos
Cartels are a profoundly unfair thing. Like corruption, they lead to customers having to pay higher prices for products than is actually necessary. And yet sometimes there is a tiny bit of fascination mixed in with the disgust: How could the cartel members manage to keep their mouths shut for so long? Why did no one notice anything? How could they become this powerful?
There have been cartels time and again in many areas. The cartel proceedings against rail and elevator manufacturers, against producers of beer and confectionery or detergents became famous. Now the manufacturers of synthetic turf have come under the scrutiny of the EU competition authorities.
The European Commission conducted unannounced inspections of companies in the synthetic turf industry in several member states, it announced yesterday. And it specifies: “The investigation concerns artificial turf for sports use.”
Aha. Now images pop into the mind: There’s a lot of money at stake! The small group of synthetic turf manufacturers is squeezing wealthy soccer clubs that are used to handling large sums of money and may not be looking too closely. But of course, many small sports clubs may also be affected, who cannot afford the expensive maintenance of a real grass pitch. In any case, it’s good that the Commission is for once illuminating an area that is not otherwise floodlit! Unfortunately, it is still silent on the details.
Do you know more about the synthetic turf business or even about the cartel? Whistleblowers can report on the Commission’s website and are very welcome. Corinna Visser
