Your contact for new licenses
Friends of nuclear energy will be meeting in Prague on Monday and Tuesday, with the first words of welcome already coming from Sven Giegold from Brussels on Thursday. “EU funds should only be spent on energy sources that all member states believe in and therefore not on new nuclear power plants”, said the Green State Secretary from the Federal Ministry of Economics at a CAN Europe event.
On the other hand, the nuclear community is hoping for funding for small, modular reactors. The first test case could be an SMR in Estonia, for which the government is seeking approval by 2030. Financing issues for new nuclear power plants will also be discussed in Prague next week. In addition to Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala, Commission officials and EU parliamentarians, EIB President Nadia Calviño is also expected to attend this year’s European Nuclear Energy Forum.
CAN Europe spoke out against a separate directive for low-carbon energy sources in opposition to the Renewable Energy Directive yesterday. Sticking to nuclear power plants would block the access of solar and wind power to the grids. It is precisely this argument that the new SMRs are intended to refute. French Renew MEP Christophe Grudler recently told me they are easier to operate in start-stop mode.
However, according to CAN Europe, consuming less energy is much more important for climate protection. By 2040, the EU should halve its energy consumption, the climate activists demanded yesterday. All that is missing is a prominent politician to back this demand.
Recharge your batteries and take care of yourself over the weekend – after reading this issue of Europe.Table, of course.
There is actually a consensus: Europe’s economy is in danger of falling behind. “Draghi’s analysis is considered valid“, said Hungarian State Secretary for Economic Strategy Máté Lóga at yesterday’s press conference on the consensus among EU industry ministers. He chaired the meeting of the Competitiveness Council, at which the industry ministers discussed the results of the Draghi report and state aid.
They also share the view that something needs to be done quickly. “The time to act is now”, said Lóga. There was also agreement on the following elements:
However, it is not yet clear which hurdles are to be removed, which rules are to be simplified and which inconsistencies are to be eliminated. In diplomatic circles, the ball is being passed to the EU Commission. It has ordered the Draghi report and it is now up to it to make concrete proposals. Valdis Dombrovskis in particular will be in demand. The Commission President has given him the task of examining the EU acquis for inconsistencies and potential for simplification.
For the time being, the ministers remain divided on other essential issues: Opinions differ widely on competition law, the organization of state aid and the financing of industrial policy.
While the industry ministers of Italy and Spain yesterday spoke out in favor of “European champions“, smaller countries such as the Netherlands see no point in allowing more dominant players that could harm competition within Europe.
During a discussion on the framework for state aid, the ministers agreed that any reform must take into account the effects of state aid rules on cohesion, said Lóga. In addition, the focus should be on mobilizing as much private capital as possible. However, the member states remain deeply divided on the key question of whether the current relaxation of state aid rules should be reversed.
The Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Finland, Sweden, Portugal, Belgium and Austria called for a “return to the normal framework” and a targeted, limited granting of aid. Other countries, including Germany, France, Spain and Italy, were in favor of extending some elements of the current Temporary Crisis and Transition Framework (TCTF).
According to EU diplomats, this concerns those parts of the TCTF that relate to support for decarbonization, energy projects and critical technologies. German State Secretary Sven Giegold (Greens) spoke out in favor of faster state aid procedures before the meeting.
Mario Draghi and Enrico Letta warned in their reports that a relaxation of state aid rules at the national level without a counterweight at the European level would be a threat to the level playing field in the internal market. The Competitiveness Fund, which the Commission is planning for the new mandate, could provide such a counterweight. In yesterday’s discussion, however, only France reportedly mentioned this fund.
The financing of industrial policy is polarizing among the member states – so much so that some experts and politicians fear that the financing discussion will push the rest of the Draghi report out of the debate. “This analysis of several hundred pages does not deserve to be reduced to a simple question of new debt or no new debt“, said Giegold before the meeting.
The Green State Secretary referred to the next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), which must address “questions of industrial competitiveness”. “This is of course a possible source from which we can support our industry to be at the forefront of future technologies”, said Giegold.
The next EU financial framework will apply from 2028. However, Italy is likely to want to get the discussion going again much earlier, especially concerning the car industry. Minister Adolfo Urso had campaigned for an early revision of the ban on combustion engines. However, he told journalists that he was not interested in slowing down the transition. “I want to accelerate, not go into reverse gear,” said Urso. “But to accelerate, we need to create the conditions.” And this requires European resources to support the transformation on the supply and demand side.
Urso announced that he would soon be presenting a non-paper to flesh out his ideas. In his opinion, this new support for the automotive industry should begin in the first half of 2025. However, Urso’s chances of success are slim.
At the moment, it still seems as if most member states are cherry-picking those prescriptions from the Draghi report that they had previously supported anyway. However, for the report to have a real impact, the joint analysis must also become a joint concept. An attempt in this direction could be made at the next meeting of the European Council.
Officially, the party is called “NEOS – The New Austria and Liberal Forum” and has only existed in this form for a good ten years. It has been in contact with the FDP for some time: Back in 2017, Christian Lindner visited party leader Beate Meinl-Reisinger during the election campaign in Vienna, who in turn praised her German colleague after the 2021 federal election: As finance minister, he would ensure “that a responsible policy for the next generations is implemented over the coming years”.
After the national elections in Austria on Sunday, Lindner might say something similar: Meinl-Reisinger would also like to become finance minister. And in a coalition with the ÖVP and SPÖ in order to prevent the FPÖ from joining the government despite their probable victory. It would be the first time that the NEOS has participated in a government at the federal level.
Both parties, NEOS and FDP, are committed to the same goals, according to the FDP – such as “an economic and growth-friendly policy, relief for citizens and businesses as well as more order and control in migration”. Nevertheless, there are differences: Cosmopolitanism and socio-political liberalism are core concerns for the NEOS. The FDP shares this brand essence in principle, but has recently put it on the back burner in the federal government. While the German liberals are also currently perceived as obstructionists, the NEOS present themselves as constructive.
They are the “decisive force” in the question of whether there will be a “reform government” or a new edition of the coalition of ÖVP and FPÖ that broke up in 2019 over the Ibiza scandal. For the ÖVP, an alliance without the far-right would have one advantage: Despite coming second in the election, it would still be able to provide the chancellor.
Karl Nehammer has been head of government of the black-green coalition that started under Sebastian Kurz at the end of 2021; before that, he was responsible for home affairs. He has not ruled out a coalition with the FPÖ, but he does not want to work with its current leader Herbert Kickl – his predecessor as interior minister.
Nehammer is already taking a strict stance himself: He wants to deport people to Syria and Afghanistan, for example. In his opinion, asylum seekers and recognized refugees who go on vacation in their home country also forfeit their right to asylum. In contrast, the SPÖ election manifesto states that the basic right to asylum “must never be questioned”. Nevertheless, a rapprochement between black, red and pink – the color of the NEOS – is conceivable in this area; all three parties want faster deportations, for example.
There is likely to be more discussion about wealth tax and inheritance tax. The NEOS oppose both, for the Social Democrats under their left-wing leader Andreas Babler it is a key issue. However, the two parties are not complete strangers to each other. They have been governing together in the city-state of Vienna since the end of 2020.
There are specific references to Germany in the election manifestos of the SPÖ and ÖVP. The former, for example, mentions the federal government’s gas price brake as a successful instrument in the fight against inflation – Austria had particularly high values here in 2023. The Christian Democrats, on the other hand, cite the expansion of rail freight transport and the further development of CO2 storage technologies as areas in which cooperation with the neighbor is important.
Which majorities will be sufficient also depends on whether two prominent small parties make it over the four percent hurdle. On the one hand, there are the Communists (KPÖ), who are the mayor of Graz, the second largest city in the country, and the deputy in Salzburg. More successful in the polls recently was the Beer Party, founded by musician and trained doctor Dominik Wlazny. It wants to do “politics without politicians” and has several district councilors in Vienna; Wlazny himself even came third in the 2022 presidential election with a good eight percent.
Whoever governs in the end: What the parties definitely don’t want to copy from Germany is constant bickering. The success of the AfD, which maintains good contacts with the FPÖ, was also noted with concern in Vienna.
Germany could serve as a model for its neighbor, which has never had a three-party coalition at the federal level. According to current polls, a coalition of ÖVP, SPÖ and the Greens would also be mathematically possible – but a so-called “Dirndl coalition” of ÖVP, Neos and the Greens would not. A blue-red coalition is considered out of the question, at least under SPÖ leader Babler – the SPÖ advertises with his likeness, claiming he is “the only guarantee for a government without the FPÖ”. A traffic light coalition like the one in Germany was originally also an issue in Austria, but mathematically it will probably not be enough.
Someone who is actually already applying for a job outside Austria is also busy campaigning. Finance Minister Magnus Brunner is to become EU Commissioner for Migration. However, this does not stop him from continuing to run for a seat in the National Council on the top spot on the ÖVP state list in Vorarlberg. Not an easy balancing act, as Brunner has to prepare for his hearing in the EU Parliament at the same time.
MEPs could take Brunner’s dual role as an opportunity to put him under even more scrutiny for his European credentials. As EU Commissioner, he takes off his nationalist glasses and becomes a non-partisan European politician – that is the ideal. In practice, however, national interests often overlap with those of the Brussels authority. But the EU parliamentarians become uncomfortable if a candidate does not commit himself solely to his role in Brussels. With Lukas Knigge
Romania is to play an important role at EU level in the current legislative period. The Romanian Social Democrat Roxana Mînzatu has been proposed by Ursula von der Leyen as one of six Executive Vice-Presidents. Her task: Commissioner for “People, Skills and Preparedness”. Behind the cloudy job description lies responsibility for employment, social affairs – and, for the first time, education. In the new Commission structure, the corresponding Directorates-General will largely fall under her supervisory remit.
Nobody actually had Mînzatu on their radar for this central position – probably not even herself. So far, she has not been known as a political heavyweight or in the public eye. Mînzatu has mainly worked behind the scenes. Even attentive observers of Romanian politics were surprised when her Social Democratic party comrade, Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu, put her in the running for the Commission post.
However, some observers warn against underestimating her. The former State Secretary and short-term Minister for European Funding works hard and is well-grounded, she has never shied away from hard work and is a team player. A high-ranking Commission official credits her with great political assertiveness. In this reading, she leaves showmanship and symbolic politics to others.
Others, however, doubt whether Mînzatu has enough leadership skills to manage such a large area of responsibility and assert himself.
According to observers, however, the fact that Mînzatu has come this far at all is precisely because she was previously considered less dangerous. Female politicians in Romania still quickly come up against glass ceilings. Last year, the proportion of women in the national parliament was just 19 percent. That is the third-last place in the EU, beaten only by Hungary and Cyprus.
In order to survive in this environment, it is said, female politicians have to do the arduous work that their male colleagues are too embarrassed to do. When von der Leyen was specifically looking for female candidates for the Commission, the moment had come for Mînzatu.
In her career to date, Mînzatu has mainly dealt with cohesion funds, procurement and administrative matters. According to her LinkedIn profile, she also ran a training program for managers and entrepreneurs before her political career. So she has some experience on the corporate side.
Trade unionists and social organizations in particular view her nomination with a certain degree of skepticism. Mînzatu does not have much previous experience in her proposed new field of work, social affairs and education – especially at a time when strong political will is needed to push through new projects in the area of work and social affairs.
Roxana Mînzatu is a member of the Romanian Social Democratic Party (PSD). However, Romania does not have a particularly good structural record in terms of corporatism and social policy. Around a third of citizens were considered to be at risk of poverty and social exclusion in 2023 – the highest figure in the EU. Following a change in the law under the conservative government in 2011, trade unions were severely weakened. Their influence on the political parties and also on the PSD was minimal, and for years there were almost no collective wage agreements. However, observers see signs of a trend reversal with a new law from 2022 that will make collective bargaining easier again.
The strength of the PSD is often overlooked in the European party family. Yet it has the fifth largest S&D delegation in the European Parliament – after Italy, Spain, Germany and France. In recent years, there has also been a rapprochement with the other S&D parties in Europe in terms of content, even if the PSD is still seen as more socially conservative and nationalist.
Shortly after her nomination, Mînzatu at least countered one concern of trade unionists and social organizations. They are bothered by the fact that the term “Labor and Social Affairs Commissioner” is to be dropped from the title for the first time. For critics, this marks a shift in focus.
Social Democrat Mînzatu responded – and tweeted an expanded job title: “I am honored […] to have been nominated as Commissioner for Skills, Education, Quality Jobs and Social Rights.” Her ability to listen has probably already been hinted at. Alina Leimbach
Friends of nuclear energy will be meeting in Prague on Monday and Tuesday, with the first words of welcome already coming from Sven Giegold from Brussels on Thursday. “EU funds should only be spent on energy sources that all member states believe in and therefore not on new nuclear power plants”, said the Green State Secretary from the Federal Ministry of Economics at a CAN Europe event.
On the other hand, the nuclear community is hoping for funding for small, modular reactors. The first test case could be an SMR in Estonia, for which the government is seeking approval by 2030. Financing issues for new nuclear power plants will also be discussed in Prague next week. In addition to Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala, Commission officials and EU parliamentarians, EIB President Nadia Calviño is also expected to attend this year’s European Nuclear Energy Forum.
CAN Europe spoke out against a separate directive for low-carbon energy sources in opposition to the Renewable Energy Directive yesterday. Sticking to nuclear power plants would block the access of solar and wind power to the grids. It is precisely this argument that the new SMRs are intended to refute. French Renew MEP Christophe Grudler recently told me they are easier to operate in start-stop mode.
However, according to CAN Europe, consuming less energy is much more important for climate protection. By 2040, the EU should halve its energy consumption, the climate activists demanded yesterday. All that is missing is a prominent politician to back this demand.
Recharge your batteries and take care of yourself over the weekend – after reading this issue of Europe.Table, of course.
There is actually a consensus: Europe’s economy is in danger of falling behind. “Draghi’s analysis is considered valid“, said Hungarian State Secretary for Economic Strategy Máté Lóga at yesterday’s press conference on the consensus among EU industry ministers. He chaired the meeting of the Competitiveness Council, at which the industry ministers discussed the results of the Draghi report and state aid.
They also share the view that something needs to be done quickly. “The time to act is now”, said Lóga. There was also agreement on the following elements:
However, it is not yet clear which hurdles are to be removed, which rules are to be simplified and which inconsistencies are to be eliminated. In diplomatic circles, the ball is being passed to the EU Commission. It has ordered the Draghi report and it is now up to it to make concrete proposals. Valdis Dombrovskis in particular will be in demand. The Commission President has given him the task of examining the EU acquis for inconsistencies and potential for simplification.
For the time being, the ministers remain divided on other essential issues: Opinions differ widely on competition law, the organization of state aid and the financing of industrial policy.
While the industry ministers of Italy and Spain yesterday spoke out in favor of “European champions“, smaller countries such as the Netherlands see no point in allowing more dominant players that could harm competition within Europe.
During a discussion on the framework for state aid, the ministers agreed that any reform must take into account the effects of state aid rules on cohesion, said Lóga. In addition, the focus should be on mobilizing as much private capital as possible. However, the member states remain deeply divided on the key question of whether the current relaxation of state aid rules should be reversed.
The Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Finland, Sweden, Portugal, Belgium and Austria called for a “return to the normal framework” and a targeted, limited granting of aid. Other countries, including Germany, France, Spain and Italy, were in favor of extending some elements of the current Temporary Crisis and Transition Framework (TCTF).
According to EU diplomats, this concerns those parts of the TCTF that relate to support for decarbonization, energy projects and critical technologies. German State Secretary Sven Giegold (Greens) spoke out in favor of faster state aid procedures before the meeting.
Mario Draghi and Enrico Letta warned in their reports that a relaxation of state aid rules at the national level without a counterweight at the European level would be a threat to the level playing field in the internal market. The Competitiveness Fund, which the Commission is planning for the new mandate, could provide such a counterweight. In yesterday’s discussion, however, only France reportedly mentioned this fund.
The financing of industrial policy is polarizing among the member states – so much so that some experts and politicians fear that the financing discussion will push the rest of the Draghi report out of the debate. “This analysis of several hundred pages does not deserve to be reduced to a simple question of new debt or no new debt“, said Giegold before the meeting.
The Green State Secretary referred to the next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), which must address “questions of industrial competitiveness”. “This is of course a possible source from which we can support our industry to be at the forefront of future technologies”, said Giegold.
The next EU financial framework will apply from 2028. However, Italy is likely to want to get the discussion going again much earlier, especially concerning the car industry. Minister Adolfo Urso had campaigned for an early revision of the ban on combustion engines. However, he told journalists that he was not interested in slowing down the transition. “I want to accelerate, not go into reverse gear,” said Urso. “But to accelerate, we need to create the conditions.” And this requires European resources to support the transformation on the supply and demand side.
Urso announced that he would soon be presenting a non-paper to flesh out his ideas. In his opinion, this new support for the automotive industry should begin in the first half of 2025. However, Urso’s chances of success are slim.
At the moment, it still seems as if most member states are cherry-picking those prescriptions from the Draghi report that they had previously supported anyway. However, for the report to have a real impact, the joint analysis must also become a joint concept. An attempt in this direction could be made at the next meeting of the European Council.
Officially, the party is called “NEOS – The New Austria and Liberal Forum” and has only existed in this form for a good ten years. It has been in contact with the FDP for some time: Back in 2017, Christian Lindner visited party leader Beate Meinl-Reisinger during the election campaign in Vienna, who in turn praised her German colleague after the 2021 federal election: As finance minister, he would ensure “that a responsible policy for the next generations is implemented over the coming years”.
After the national elections in Austria on Sunday, Lindner might say something similar: Meinl-Reisinger would also like to become finance minister. And in a coalition with the ÖVP and SPÖ in order to prevent the FPÖ from joining the government despite their probable victory. It would be the first time that the NEOS has participated in a government at the federal level.
Both parties, NEOS and FDP, are committed to the same goals, according to the FDP – such as “an economic and growth-friendly policy, relief for citizens and businesses as well as more order and control in migration”. Nevertheless, there are differences: Cosmopolitanism and socio-political liberalism are core concerns for the NEOS. The FDP shares this brand essence in principle, but has recently put it on the back burner in the federal government. While the German liberals are also currently perceived as obstructionists, the NEOS present themselves as constructive.
They are the “decisive force” in the question of whether there will be a “reform government” or a new edition of the coalition of ÖVP and FPÖ that broke up in 2019 over the Ibiza scandal. For the ÖVP, an alliance without the far-right would have one advantage: Despite coming second in the election, it would still be able to provide the chancellor.
Karl Nehammer has been head of government of the black-green coalition that started under Sebastian Kurz at the end of 2021; before that, he was responsible for home affairs. He has not ruled out a coalition with the FPÖ, but he does not want to work with its current leader Herbert Kickl – his predecessor as interior minister.
Nehammer is already taking a strict stance himself: He wants to deport people to Syria and Afghanistan, for example. In his opinion, asylum seekers and recognized refugees who go on vacation in their home country also forfeit their right to asylum. In contrast, the SPÖ election manifesto states that the basic right to asylum “must never be questioned”. Nevertheless, a rapprochement between black, red and pink – the color of the NEOS – is conceivable in this area; all three parties want faster deportations, for example.
There is likely to be more discussion about wealth tax and inheritance tax. The NEOS oppose both, for the Social Democrats under their left-wing leader Andreas Babler it is a key issue. However, the two parties are not complete strangers to each other. They have been governing together in the city-state of Vienna since the end of 2020.
There are specific references to Germany in the election manifestos of the SPÖ and ÖVP. The former, for example, mentions the federal government’s gas price brake as a successful instrument in the fight against inflation – Austria had particularly high values here in 2023. The Christian Democrats, on the other hand, cite the expansion of rail freight transport and the further development of CO2 storage technologies as areas in which cooperation with the neighbor is important.
Which majorities will be sufficient also depends on whether two prominent small parties make it over the four percent hurdle. On the one hand, there are the Communists (KPÖ), who are the mayor of Graz, the second largest city in the country, and the deputy in Salzburg. More successful in the polls recently was the Beer Party, founded by musician and trained doctor Dominik Wlazny. It wants to do “politics without politicians” and has several district councilors in Vienna; Wlazny himself even came third in the 2022 presidential election with a good eight percent.
Whoever governs in the end: What the parties definitely don’t want to copy from Germany is constant bickering. The success of the AfD, which maintains good contacts with the FPÖ, was also noted with concern in Vienna.
Germany could serve as a model for its neighbor, which has never had a three-party coalition at the federal level. According to current polls, a coalition of ÖVP, SPÖ and the Greens would also be mathematically possible – but a so-called “Dirndl coalition” of ÖVP, Neos and the Greens would not. A blue-red coalition is considered out of the question, at least under SPÖ leader Babler – the SPÖ advertises with his likeness, claiming he is “the only guarantee for a government without the FPÖ”. A traffic light coalition like the one in Germany was originally also an issue in Austria, but mathematically it will probably not be enough.
Someone who is actually already applying for a job outside Austria is also busy campaigning. Finance Minister Magnus Brunner is to become EU Commissioner for Migration. However, this does not stop him from continuing to run for a seat in the National Council on the top spot on the ÖVP state list in Vorarlberg. Not an easy balancing act, as Brunner has to prepare for his hearing in the EU Parliament at the same time.
MEPs could take Brunner’s dual role as an opportunity to put him under even more scrutiny for his European credentials. As EU Commissioner, he takes off his nationalist glasses and becomes a non-partisan European politician – that is the ideal. In practice, however, national interests often overlap with those of the Brussels authority. But the EU parliamentarians become uncomfortable if a candidate does not commit himself solely to his role in Brussels. With Lukas Knigge
Romania is to play an important role at EU level in the current legislative period. The Romanian Social Democrat Roxana Mînzatu has been proposed by Ursula von der Leyen as one of six Executive Vice-Presidents. Her task: Commissioner for “People, Skills and Preparedness”. Behind the cloudy job description lies responsibility for employment, social affairs – and, for the first time, education. In the new Commission structure, the corresponding Directorates-General will largely fall under her supervisory remit.
Nobody actually had Mînzatu on their radar for this central position – probably not even herself. So far, she has not been known as a political heavyweight or in the public eye. Mînzatu has mainly worked behind the scenes. Even attentive observers of Romanian politics were surprised when her Social Democratic party comrade, Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu, put her in the running for the Commission post.
However, some observers warn against underestimating her. The former State Secretary and short-term Minister for European Funding works hard and is well-grounded, she has never shied away from hard work and is a team player. A high-ranking Commission official credits her with great political assertiveness. In this reading, she leaves showmanship and symbolic politics to others.
Others, however, doubt whether Mînzatu has enough leadership skills to manage such a large area of responsibility and assert himself.
According to observers, however, the fact that Mînzatu has come this far at all is precisely because she was previously considered less dangerous. Female politicians in Romania still quickly come up against glass ceilings. Last year, the proportion of women in the national parliament was just 19 percent. That is the third-last place in the EU, beaten only by Hungary and Cyprus.
In order to survive in this environment, it is said, female politicians have to do the arduous work that their male colleagues are too embarrassed to do. When von der Leyen was specifically looking for female candidates for the Commission, the moment had come for Mînzatu.
In her career to date, Mînzatu has mainly dealt with cohesion funds, procurement and administrative matters. According to her LinkedIn profile, she also ran a training program for managers and entrepreneurs before her political career. So she has some experience on the corporate side.
Trade unionists and social organizations in particular view her nomination with a certain degree of skepticism. Mînzatu does not have much previous experience in her proposed new field of work, social affairs and education – especially at a time when strong political will is needed to push through new projects in the area of work and social affairs.
Roxana Mînzatu is a member of the Romanian Social Democratic Party (PSD). However, Romania does not have a particularly good structural record in terms of corporatism and social policy. Around a third of citizens were considered to be at risk of poverty and social exclusion in 2023 – the highest figure in the EU. Following a change in the law under the conservative government in 2011, trade unions were severely weakened. Their influence on the political parties and also on the PSD was minimal, and for years there were almost no collective wage agreements. However, observers see signs of a trend reversal with a new law from 2022 that will make collective bargaining easier again.
The strength of the PSD is often overlooked in the European party family. Yet it has the fifth largest S&D delegation in the European Parliament – after Italy, Spain, Germany and France. In recent years, there has also been a rapprochement with the other S&D parties in Europe in terms of content, even if the PSD is still seen as more socially conservative and nationalist.
Shortly after her nomination, Mînzatu at least countered one concern of trade unionists and social organizations. They are bothered by the fact that the term “Labor and Social Affairs Commissioner” is to be dropped from the title for the first time. For critics, this marks a shift in focus.
Social Democrat Mînzatu responded – and tweeted an expanded job title: “I am honored […] to have been nominated as Commissioner for Skills, Education, Quality Jobs and Social Rights.” Her ability to listen has probably already been hinted at. Alina Leimbach