Another war is looming in Europe’s immediate neighborhood: After the surprise attack on Israel from the Gaza Strip, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday announced a “long and difficult” fight against Hamas. Last night’s interim results were devastating: more than 700 Israelis were killed, and more than 100 were taken hostage by the attackers. Subsequent airstrikes killed a total of 370 people in the Gaza Strip, according to the Health Ministry.
The Israeli security services were completely caught off guard by the large-scale attack on land, at sea and from the air. In an interview with Markus Bickel, Gerhard Conrad, the former Middle East mediator and Director of the EU Intelligence Analysis Centre (INTCEN), compares the attack with the attacks of 9/11, 2001 and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
The responsible parties in Europe and the USA sided unreservedly with Israel. EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen spoke of “pure terrorism.” Chancellor Olaf Scholz stressed that Israel had the right “to defend itself against these barbaric attacks.” He announced an extensive phone call with US President Joe Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. Biden promised additional support for Israel’s military.
The influence of the Europeans on the conflict is manageable. However, more and more voices are now calling the EU’s financial aid to the Palestinians into question. In the EU Parliament, there is a “latent, unreflective sympathy for the Palestinians that is often blind to extremist tendencies,” CDU politician Armin Laschet, who is a board member of the Abraham Accords Institute for Peace and Regional Integration, told Table.Media.
The spokesman for the German Greens in the European Parliament, Rasmus Andresen, calls for a careful review of the funds flowing into the Palestinian territories. He said the EU has not given any money to the terrorist organization Hamas since at least 2007. “No one can want necessary humanitarian aid to be stopped, but project partners must be closely scrutinized,” he said.
The outcome of the state elections in Bavaria and Hesse was therefore overshadowed. Voters in both western German states made the AfD the second strongest party. The two big losers in the elections came from the Berlin traffic light coalition: The FDP was still threatening to leave both state parliaments late in the evening, and the SPD also recorded two miserable results. This has damaged not only Interior Minister Nancy Faeser but also Chancellor Scholz: He had encouraged Faeser to take on the fatal dual role of minister and top SPD candidate in Hesse.
Have a good start to the new week.
Mr. Conrad, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem are already talking about Israel’s 9/11 after the surprise attack. Rightly so?
As far as can be seen today, the concerted and apparently largely unimpeded breakthrough of armed Hamas elements through the Gaza border fortifications into the Israeli heartland is unprecedented. This is an event that Israel firmly believes should never have happened. All efforts on the reconnaissance of Hamas, to fortify the border and to defend against rocket fire had been aimed at preventing individual infiltrations and limiting the impact of rocket fire to the maximum.
October 7, 2023, dramatically demonstrated the limits of this approach. In this respect, the attack may well be compared to the 9/11, 2001 attacks in the United States. The historical reference to the Japanese surprise attack on the US naval base at Pearl Harbor in December 1941 is also quite appropriate. Even with a currently rather questionable limitation of the current conflict, profound consequences for the country’s security architecture and presumably also for political conditions are to be expected.
Could the protests by reservists and the ongoing mobilization against the Netanyahu government have weakened the security apparatus to such an extent that the complex Hamas operation was prepared without its knowledge?
It is still far too early to make a serious assessment of this remarkable event. First of all, the specific elements and levels of the undoubtedly serious failures must be determined: Was it due to a lack of intelligence? If so, how would this be explained in light of the extensive penetration of Gaza by Israeli intelligence and security services? Did Hamas find ways and means for complete secrecy or even deception of the enemy, and if so, what were they?
Another central question is how to explain the apparently slow and inadequate military response to Hamas’ breakthrough operations given the technically seamless monitoring of the border security installations, which has always been claimed. One possible explanation could be the rapid, apparently pre-planned geographic distribution of armed Hamas elements to numerous targets in the area of operations, taking advantage of the general holiday rest.
You have mediated between Hamas and Israel in the past. How long will it be before talks between the two sides are possible?
In the case of Gilad Shalit, it took more than five years (2006 to 2011) to conclude. Talks are conceivable only after the end of hostilities, which is not yet foreseeable. Among other things, it will be decisive who will be available as a future interlocutor after the Israeli government’s clear threats of retaliation against Hamas leaders. Much will depend on whether and, in particular, when the expected efforts to limit the damage, for example, on the part of Egypt, can take effect.
However, one limiting factor for an unrestrained escalation of violence is likely to be the apparently numerous civilian and military prisoners in the hands of Hamas, who are very likely to be misused as human shields. The Israeli side is likely to face considerable dilemmas here, which Hamas will know how to exploit against the backdrop of its many years of experience with the enemy. Hamas’ leadership already announced yesterday that it intends to use unprecedented hostage-taking to carry out an unprecedented exchange operation.
Couldn’t negotiations on releasing prisoners finally bring a larger solution to the conflict into view?
This is certainly a pious wish, but for the time being there are no discernible starting points for its realization. The decisive factor will initially be the situation in Israel and its geographical surroundings at the end of the military conflict: What devastation will have been wrought, what military and political ramifications will have resulted from the conflict, which actors will be available at the end of the war, and with what agenda and resources. The potential for catastrophic developments must first be reduced before one can think of far-reaching perspectives that are illusory from today’s perspective.
After shelling from Lebanon, is Israel threatening a multi-front war with Hezbollah as well?
For the time being, horizontal escalation remains a risk that must be kept in mind. Hezbollah’s actions to date, avowedly “in solidarity with Hamas,” appear more symbolic for now, not least because of their limitation to the Shebaa Farms/Mount Dov in the largely unsettled tri-border area of Israel, Lebanon and Syria.
What are Hezbollah’s interests in this situation?
Hezbollah would have a lot to lose in a war with Israel. It appears questionable whether this risk would be so readily accepted, and with what strategic objective. Hezbollah is more of a status quo power in Lebanon and to some extent also in Syria; the organization is in a state of relatively stable mutual deterrence from Israel. To trigger an extremely high-loss, high-consequence war, there would have to be very serious, long-term opportunity considerations. For the time being, there are no concrete indications of this in the public sphere.
What role could the German government play in ending the conflict – even in the longer term?
As President Biden would say on this, “That’s above my paygrade.”
Has the focus on the Ukraine war led to a neglect of the crises in the Middle East?
The geopolitical framework in the region has changed considerably over the past two years as a result of Chinese and Russian influence on actors such as Iran and Saudi Arabia. We are now dealing with different, if not opposing, tendencies and interests of all three major powers in the region. In any case, there can be no talk of neglecting the region, although the economic and potential military backing for Iran by China and Russia should considerably promote its room for maneuver and resilience to Western influence. Once again, however, the question must be asked as to what advantages should be drawn from the current escalation between Israel and Hamas, or its extensions in Tehran, Beijing or Moscow.
How likely do you think it is that Western weapons were supplied to Hamas through Afghanistan, as has now been reported?
First of all, these Western weapons should show up in the war zone and be determined in their origin.
How is it even possible that such an armament can take place in the tightly sealed Gaza Strip?
The question has been raised repeatedly for almost two decades. Ultimately, it is due to an elaborate, long-term system of counter-terrorism that has apparently never been effectively stopped, organized via a cross-border organized crime in the south of Israel (Negev) and in Egypt (Sinai), on water as well as on land, and for years also operated via a lucrative system of tunnel economy, through which Gaza was connected to the Sinai.
Do you think the timing of the operation was to torpedo negotiations between Israel, the US and Saudi Arabia on a peace deal between Riyadh and Jerusalem?
Due to its polarizing effect in the region, the current escalation of the Middle East conflict is in any case in the interest of Iran and its clientele. In this respect, this cui bono assumption is obvious. However, as is so often the case, it would first have to be substantiated by corresponding intelligence results. This is a clear case for the intelligence services.
Gerhard Conrad is a board member of the discussion group Intelligence Services in Germany. From 1990 to 2020, he worked for the German Federal Intelligence Service (BND), including as head of the management staff – and as a mediator in prisoner exchanges between Israel, Palestinian Hamas and Lebanese Hezbollah, which earned him the name “Mr. Hezbollah.” From 2016 to 2019, Conrad was Director of the EU Intelligence Analysis Centre (INTCEN) in Brussels.
Some of these figures were not necessarily expected. In Poland, electricity generation from photovoltaics doubled to four terawatt hours in 2022 compared to the previous year. Electricity generation from onshore wind increased by 19 percent to three TWh compared to 2021. Over the same period, coal saw a decline of 2.7 percent to 2.5 TWh.
At the same time, Poland climbed to eighth place among EU countries in terms of sales of heat pumps per 1,000 households in 2022. This explains why the Bosch Group announced the construction of a large plant not far from Warsaw: There, heat pumps will be manufactured for the Polish market and other European countries.
“The energy revolution is happening,” sums up Aleksandra Gawlikowska-Fyk, Program Director for the power sector at the Forum Energii think tank in Warsaw.
This is thanks to several programs of the Polish government, explains Adam Guibourge-Czetwertyński, State Secretary at the Ministry of Climate and Environment. The most important initiative among them, he said, was the “My Electricity” (Mój Prąd) program launched in 2019, which supported the installation of solar panels worth a total of €435 million. “Thanks to this program, about 500,000 producer-consumers have been created in Poland” – households that are both producers and consumers of electricity from small photovoltaic systems.
However, the state secretary emphasizes that Poland’s energy revolution is based on two pillars: renewable energies and nuclear energy. A strategy reflected in the recently updated energy plan, PEP2040, published in 2021: Poland, for example, plans to build three power plants, with the first coming online in 2033. Warsaw is also betting on Small Modular Reactors (SMR), mentioned in the new version of the plan.
Nevertheless, Poland is still a largely coal-dominated economy: this fossil fuel accounts for 70 percent of the mix, corresponding to a total production of 124 THw. By comparison, Germany produces 181 TWh of coal-fired electricity, equivalent to 31 percent of its energy mix. “Coal is mainly used for domestic heating,” explains Gawlikowska-Fyk.
This characteristic has a very concrete impact on the country: air pollution. In fact, poor air quality has become a political issue because it is closely related to health. “For example, when children are prevented from playing outside because of air pollution, it affects people directly and deeply,” explains the energy expert. It is a situation that has prompted large cities like Warsaw, as well as smaller communities like Piastow, to set up their own plans to combat air pollution. Among other things, they have introduced programs to replace old boilers, with or without government support.
Added to this pressure from the electorate is the pressure from the instruments the EU has introduced or tightened up as part of the Fit for 55 package. Above all, the emissions trading system, the EU ETS. Warsaw is forced to purchase allowances because the amount of carbon emissions in Poland is higher than the allocated amount of pollution allowances. In 2022, this amounted to almost €7 billion.
However, European data show that Germany alone accounts for a quarter of the EU’s total carbon emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels for energy purposes. Italy and Poland (12.4 percent each) and France (10.7 percent) follow on the list of the largest carbon emitters in 2022.
Warsaw continues to call for reform of the ETS, aware that the rise in the price of allowances can impact the price of domestic heating directly – and thus will have a strong influence on the elections. This also explains why Poland opposed the abolition of free emission allowances, without success.
Other energy and climate components of the European Green Deal were also targeted by Warsaw. For example, the national conservative government opposed the carbon border adjustment and the phase-out of internal combustion engine cars in the April 2023 Council. Poland is also challenging some Fit for 55 regulations before the European Court of Justice.
However, these disputes go beyond the energy and climate change framework, as they mainly relate to the reforms of the judicial system initiated by the Polish government. These unresolved legal disputes have led to the Commission blocking the disbursement of around €32 billion to Poland from the Covid reconstruction fund. A sum that could make a major contribution to financing Poland’s energy revolution – and whose availability is likely to depend on next Sunday’s election.
For Birgit Sippel, letting the legislative period die away is out of the question. The SPD MEP plays an important role in the negotiations on asylum reform. While many other legislative projects have already been completed, the next few months will be crucial for the legislative package on asylum and migration. Sippel hopes to conclude the negotiations between Parliament and member states in time for the European elections in June.
The way seems to have been paved since the governments agreed on a compromise on the so-called crisis regulation on Wednesday. Now tough negotiations lie ahead, says Sippel: Member states are insisting on “massive tightening of asylum law in crisis situations,” while the European Parliament is propagating a solidarity-based approach “in which member states should come to each other’s aid in crisis situations.”
The 63-year-old observes with concern how the debate on asylum and migration has now moved far to the right. And yet she shows herself willing to compromise because she probably suspects that the negotiations will not be any easier after the European elections if right-wing parties continue to gain strength.
Sippel warns: The fundamental challenge for Europe today is not to undermine its own credibility. One cannot exhort other countries to become more democratic and always uphold human rights while disregarding one’s own principles. This applies to migration policy as well as increasing surveillance and the threat of a shift to the right: “I am concerned that people are getting used to all this. If you’re not careful, then it’s too late – and we no longer live in a democracy.”
The Westphalian has been campaigning for her issues in the European Parliament since 2009. After training as a foreign language correspondent, she headed the regional office of MEP Helmut Kuhne before moving into the European Parliament in 2009. In the youth association of the SJD and in local politics in South Westphalia, she realized time and again that the decisive impetus for change in politics at all levels stems from the European headquarters: “I was fascinated by how much can be achieved trans-European.”
She learned an important lesson in the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, where she has been a full member since her first election. There, in 2015, she took a strong stance “against mass surveillance” on the issue of airline passenger data retention. Her parliamentary group, on the other hand, took a different view, which was problematic for Sippel in that she was her group’s rapporteur. The solution was: to maintain a posture and composure. Looking back today the open way in which she dealt with this difference, strengthened her within the group: “Because even with minority opinions, respectfully presented, you can gain a lot of acceptance in your own group.”
Sippel is not a particularly melancholy person. So, she sees two main areas of action where preventive measures can be taken. First, programs for encounters and exchanges must be strengthened. Sippel’s wish for the future is that every person in Europe should have had the opportunity to participate in such a program at least once by the time they reach the age of eighteen.
On the other hand, she said, it must be clear beyond doubt that the great tasks of our day cannot be solved by burdening no one: “It is not a scandal or a debate of envy if, in such a situation, one expects the very wealthy to contribute a little more financially.” On this basis, she said, targeted subsidies are the prerequisite for ensuring social cohesion in the future as well – despite all the approaching crises and dangers. Julius Schwarzwälder
Another war is looming in Europe’s immediate neighborhood: After the surprise attack on Israel from the Gaza Strip, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday announced a “long and difficult” fight against Hamas. Last night’s interim results were devastating: more than 700 Israelis were killed, and more than 100 were taken hostage by the attackers. Subsequent airstrikes killed a total of 370 people in the Gaza Strip, according to the Health Ministry.
The Israeli security services were completely caught off guard by the large-scale attack on land, at sea and from the air. In an interview with Markus Bickel, Gerhard Conrad, the former Middle East mediator and Director of the EU Intelligence Analysis Centre (INTCEN), compares the attack with the attacks of 9/11, 2001 and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
The responsible parties in Europe and the USA sided unreservedly with Israel. EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen spoke of “pure terrorism.” Chancellor Olaf Scholz stressed that Israel had the right “to defend itself against these barbaric attacks.” He announced an extensive phone call with US President Joe Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. Biden promised additional support for Israel’s military.
The influence of the Europeans on the conflict is manageable. However, more and more voices are now calling the EU’s financial aid to the Palestinians into question. In the EU Parliament, there is a “latent, unreflective sympathy for the Palestinians that is often blind to extremist tendencies,” CDU politician Armin Laschet, who is a board member of the Abraham Accords Institute for Peace and Regional Integration, told Table.Media.
The spokesman for the German Greens in the European Parliament, Rasmus Andresen, calls for a careful review of the funds flowing into the Palestinian territories. He said the EU has not given any money to the terrorist organization Hamas since at least 2007. “No one can want necessary humanitarian aid to be stopped, but project partners must be closely scrutinized,” he said.
The outcome of the state elections in Bavaria and Hesse was therefore overshadowed. Voters in both western German states made the AfD the second strongest party. The two big losers in the elections came from the Berlin traffic light coalition: The FDP was still threatening to leave both state parliaments late in the evening, and the SPD also recorded two miserable results. This has damaged not only Interior Minister Nancy Faeser but also Chancellor Scholz: He had encouraged Faeser to take on the fatal dual role of minister and top SPD candidate in Hesse.
Have a good start to the new week.
Mr. Conrad, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem are already talking about Israel’s 9/11 after the surprise attack. Rightly so?
As far as can be seen today, the concerted and apparently largely unimpeded breakthrough of armed Hamas elements through the Gaza border fortifications into the Israeli heartland is unprecedented. This is an event that Israel firmly believes should never have happened. All efforts on the reconnaissance of Hamas, to fortify the border and to defend against rocket fire had been aimed at preventing individual infiltrations and limiting the impact of rocket fire to the maximum.
October 7, 2023, dramatically demonstrated the limits of this approach. In this respect, the attack may well be compared to the 9/11, 2001 attacks in the United States. The historical reference to the Japanese surprise attack on the US naval base at Pearl Harbor in December 1941 is also quite appropriate. Even with a currently rather questionable limitation of the current conflict, profound consequences for the country’s security architecture and presumably also for political conditions are to be expected.
Could the protests by reservists and the ongoing mobilization against the Netanyahu government have weakened the security apparatus to such an extent that the complex Hamas operation was prepared without its knowledge?
It is still far too early to make a serious assessment of this remarkable event. First of all, the specific elements and levels of the undoubtedly serious failures must be determined: Was it due to a lack of intelligence? If so, how would this be explained in light of the extensive penetration of Gaza by Israeli intelligence and security services? Did Hamas find ways and means for complete secrecy or even deception of the enemy, and if so, what were they?
Another central question is how to explain the apparently slow and inadequate military response to Hamas’ breakthrough operations given the technically seamless monitoring of the border security installations, which has always been claimed. One possible explanation could be the rapid, apparently pre-planned geographic distribution of armed Hamas elements to numerous targets in the area of operations, taking advantage of the general holiday rest.
You have mediated between Hamas and Israel in the past. How long will it be before talks between the two sides are possible?
In the case of Gilad Shalit, it took more than five years (2006 to 2011) to conclude. Talks are conceivable only after the end of hostilities, which is not yet foreseeable. Among other things, it will be decisive who will be available as a future interlocutor after the Israeli government’s clear threats of retaliation against Hamas leaders. Much will depend on whether and, in particular, when the expected efforts to limit the damage, for example, on the part of Egypt, can take effect.
However, one limiting factor for an unrestrained escalation of violence is likely to be the apparently numerous civilian and military prisoners in the hands of Hamas, who are very likely to be misused as human shields. The Israeli side is likely to face considerable dilemmas here, which Hamas will know how to exploit against the backdrop of its many years of experience with the enemy. Hamas’ leadership already announced yesterday that it intends to use unprecedented hostage-taking to carry out an unprecedented exchange operation.
Couldn’t negotiations on releasing prisoners finally bring a larger solution to the conflict into view?
This is certainly a pious wish, but for the time being there are no discernible starting points for its realization. The decisive factor will initially be the situation in Israel and its geographical surroundings at the end of the military conflict: What devastation will have been wrought, what military and political ramifications will have resulted from the conflict, which actors will be available at the end of the war, and with what agenda and resources. The potential for catastrophic developments must first be reduced before one can think of far-reaching perspectives that are illusory from today’s perspective.
After shelling from Lebanon, is Israel threatening a multi-front war with Hezbollah as well?
For the time being, horizontal escalation remains a risk that must be kept in mind. Hezbollah’s actions to date, avowedly “in solidarity with Hamas,” appear more symbolic for now, not least because of their limitation to the Shebaa Farms/Mount Dov in the largely unsettled tri-border area of Israel, Lebanon and Syria.
What are Hezbollah’s interests in this situation?
Hezbollah would have a lot to lose in a war with Israel. It appears questionable whether this risk would be so readily accepted, and with what strategic objective. Hezbollah is more of a status quo power in Lebanon and to some extent also in Syria; the organization is in a state of relatively stable mutual deterrence from Israel. To trigger an extremely high-loss, high-consequence war, there would have to be very serious, long-term opportunity considerations. For the time being, there are no concrete indications of this in the public sphere.
What role could the German government play in ending the conflict – even in the longer term?
As President Biden would say on this, “That’s above my paygrade.”
Has the focus on the Ukraine war led to a neglect of the crises in the Middle East?
The geopolitical framework in the region has changed considerably over the past two years as a result of Chinese and Russian influence on actors such as Iran and Saudi Arabia. We are now dealing with different, if not opposing, tendencies and interests of all three major powers in the region. In any case, there can be no talk of neglecting the region, although the economic and potential military backing for Iran by China and Russia should considerably promote its room for maneuver and resilience to Western influence. Once again, however, the question must be asked as to what advantages should be drawn from the current escalation between Israel and Hamas, or its extensions in Tehran, Beijing or Moscow.
How likely do you think it is that Western weapons were supplied to Hamas through Afghanistan, as has now been reported?
First of all, these Western weapons should show up in the war zone and be determined in their origin.
How is it even possible that such an armament can take place in the tightly sealed Gaza Strip?
The question has been raised repeatedly for almost two decades. Ultimately, it is due to an elaborate, long-term system of counter-terrorism that has apparently never been effectively stopped, organized via a cross-border organized crime in the south of Israel (Negev) and in Egypt (Sinai), on water as well as on land, and for years also operated via a lucrative system of tunnel economy, through which Gaza was connected to the Sinai.
Do you think the timing of the operation was to torpedo negotiations between Israel, the US and Saudi Arabia on a peace deal between Riyadh and Jerusalem?
Due to its polarizing effect in the region, the current escalation of the Middle East conflict is in any case in the interest of Iran and its clientele. In this respect, this cui bono assumption is obvious. However, as is so often the case, it would first have to be substantiated by corresponding intelligence results. This is a clear case for the intelligence services.
Gerhard Conrad is a board member of the discussion group Intelligence Services in Germany. From 1990 to 2020, he worked for the German Federal Intelligence Service (BND), including as head of the management staff – and as a mediator in prisoner exchanges between Israel, Palestinian Hamas and Lebanese Hezbollah, which earned him the name “Mr. Hezbollah.” From 2016 to 2019, Conrad was Director of the EU Intelligence Analysis Centre (INTCEN) in Brussels.
Some of these figures were not necessarily expected. In Poland, electricity generation from photovoltaics doubled to four terawatt hours in 2022 compared to the previous year. Electricity generation from onshore wind increased by 19 percent to three TWh compared to 2021. Over the same period, coal saw a decline of 2.7 percent to 2.5 TWh.
At the same time, Poland climbed to eighth place among EU countries in terms of sales of heat pumps per 1,000 households in 2022. This explains why the Bosch Group announced the construction of a large plant not far from Warsaw: There, heat pumps will be manufactured for the Polish market and other European countries.
“The energy revolution is happening,” sums up Aleksandra Gawlikowska-Fyk, Program Director for the power sector at the Forum Energii think tank in Warsaw.
This is thanks to several programs of the Polish government, explains Adam Guibourge-Czetwertyński, State Secretary at the Ministry of Climate and Environment. The most important initiative among them, he said, was the “My Electricity” (Mój Prąd) program launched in 2019, which supported the installation of solar panels worth a total of €435 million. “Thanks to this program, about 500,000 producer-consumers have been created in Poland” – households that are both producers and consumers of electricity from small photovoltaic systems.
However, the state secretary emphasizes that Poland’s energy revolution is based on two pillars: renewable energies and nuclear energy. A strategy reflected in the recently updated energy plan, PEP2040, published in 2021: Poland, for example, plans to build three power plants, with the first coming online in 2033. Warsaw is also betting on Small Modular Reactors (SMR), mentioned in the new version of the plan.
Nevertheless, Poland is still a largely coal-dominated economy: this fossil fuel accounts for 70 percent of the mix, corresponding to a total production of 124 THw. By comparison, Germany produces 181 TWh of coal-fired electricity, equivalent to 31 percent of its energy mix. “Coal is mainly used for domestic heating,” explains Gawlikowska-Fyk.
This characteristic has a very concrete impact on the country: air pollution. In fact, poor air quality has become a political issue because it is closely related to health. “For example, when children are prevented from playing outside because of air pollution, it affects people directly and deeply,” explains the energy expert. It is a situation that has prompted large cities like Warsaw, as well as smaller communities like Piastow, to set up their own plans to combat air pollution. Among other things, they have introduced programs to replace old boilers, with or without government support.
Added to this pressure from the electorate is the pressure from the instruments the EU has introduced or tightened up as part of the Fit for 55 package. Above all, the emissions trading system, the EU ETS. Warsaw is forced to purchase allowances because the amount of carbon emissions in Poland is higher than the allocated amount of pollution allowances. In 2022, this amounted to almost €7 billion.
However, European data show that Germany alone accounts for a quarter of the EU’s total carbon emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels for energy purposes. Italy and Poland (12.4 percent each) and France (10.7 percent) follow on the list of the largest carbon emitters in 2022.
Warsaw continues to call for reform of the ETS, aware that the rise in the price of allowances can impact the price of domestic heating directly – and thus will have a strong influence on the elections. This also explains why Poland opposed the abolition of free emission allowances, without success.
Other energy and climate components of the European Green Deal were also targeted by Warsaw. For example, the national conservative government opposed the carbon border adjustment and the phase-out of internal combustion engine cars in the April 2023 Council. Poland is also challenging some Fit for 55 regulations before the European Court of Justice.
However, these disputes go beyond the energy and climate change framework, as they mainly relate to the reforms of the judicial system initiated by the Polish government. These unresolved legal disputes have led to the Commission blocking the disbursement of around €32 billion to Poland from the Covid reconstruction fund. A sum that could make a major contribution to financing Poland’s energy revolution – and whose availability is likely to depend on next Sunday’s election.
For Birgit Sippel, letting the legislative period die away is out of the question. The SPD MEP plays an important role in the negotiations on asylum reform. While many other legislative projects have already been completed, the next few months will be crucial for the legislative package on asylum and migration. Sippel hopes to conclude the negotiations between Parliament and member states in time for the European elections in June.
The way seems to have been paved since the governments agreed on a compromise on the so-called crisis regulation on Wednesday. Now tough negotiations lie ahead, says Sippel: Member states are insisting on “massive tightening of asylum law in crisis situations,” while the European Parliament is propagating a solidarity-based approach “in which member states should come to each other’s aid in crisis situations.”
The 63-year-old observes with concern how the debate on asylum and migration has now moved far to the right. And yet she shows herself willing to compromise because she probably suspects that the negotiations will not be any easier after the European elections if right-wing parties continue to gain strength.
Sippel warns: The fundamental challenge for Europe today is not to undermine its own credibility. One cannot exhort other countries to become more democratic and always uphold human rights while disregarding one’s own principles. This applies to migration policy as well as increasing surveillance and the threat of a shift to the right: “I am concerned that people are getting used to all this. If you’re not careful, then it’s too late – and we no longer live in a democracy.”
The Westphalian has been campaigning for her issues in the European Parliament since 2009. After training as a foreign language correspondent, she headed the regional office of MEP Helmut Kuhne before moving into the European Parliament in 2009. In the youth association of the SJD and in local politics in South Westphalia, she realized time and again that the decisive impetus for change in politics at all levels stems from the European headquarters: “I was fascinated by how much can be achieved trans-European.”
She learned an important lesson in the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, where she has been a full member since her first election. There, in 2015, she took a strong stance “against mass surveillance” on the issue of airline passenger data retention. Her parliamentary group, on the other hand, took a different view, which was problematic for Sippel in that she was her group’s rapporteur. The solution was: to maintain a posture and composure. Looking back today the open way in which she dealt with this difference, strengthened her within the group: “Because even with minority opinions, respectfully presented, you can gain a lot of acceptance in your own group.”
Sippel is not a particularly melancholy person. So, she sees two main areas of action where preventive measures can be taken. First, programs for encounters and exchanges must be strengthened. Sippel’s wish for the future is that every person in Europe should have had the opportunity to participate in such a program at least once by the time they reach the age of eighteen.
On the other hand, she said, it must be clear beyond doubt that the great tasks of our day cannot be solved by burdening no one: “It is not a scandal or a debate of envy if, in such a situation, one expects the very wealthy to contribute a little more financially.” On this basis, she said, targeted subsidies are the prerequisite for ensuring social cohesion in the future as well – despite all the approaching crises and dangers. Julius Schwarzwälder
