If you are planning your summer vacation on Lake Garda, you will probably notice an unusually low water level this year. 70 cubic meters of water per second are currently being diverted from the lake towards the Po Valley. There, desperate farmers are trying to brave Italy’s drought of the century. With water from Lake Garda, they are trying to keep the Po from drying up completely and save part of the harvest.
The Italian government sees itself in a comparatively better position with regard to natural gas supplies. Prime Minister Mario Draghi is adamant that Italy is better prepared for a Russian supply stop than its European neighbors, and that no bottlenecks are to be feared in the winter. Isabel Cuesta Camacho took a closer look at how Italy has managed to become less dependent on Russia within a short period of time.
Canada announced on Saturday that it would return the turbine serviced there for the Nord Stream 1 pipeline to Germany. Russia had argued that the missing turbine was one of the reasons for curtailing gas supplies. Despite the sanctions and clear criticism from Kyiv, Siemens wants to install the turbine in Russia as quickly as possible. Maintenance work on the pipeline will start today and is expected to last about ten days.
In Germany, the discussion about the enforcement of the Digital Services Act (DSA) could become complicated. The DSA stipulates rules for which very different authorities are responsible in Germany – and for whose implementation many national requirements must be adjusted. Falk Steiner explains the enormous task the federal and state governments now face.
Faced with the cut-off of Russian gas supplies, Italy affirms that it will be able to get through the winter without emergencies. In recent weeks, Italy has stepped up gas storage and increased its cooperation with African countries on gas supplies. The Minister for Ecological Transition, Roberto Cingolani, continues to expect that Italy will be able to get through the winter without supply shortages. He already announced this in February (Europe.Table reported).
“In Italy, we are preparing for this winter on the energy front. The measures under consideration ensure that there will be no emergency next winter,” Prime Minister Mario Draghi also said at a press conference after the European Council in Brussels in late June. Italy’s dependence on Russian gas has dropped from 40 percent to 25 percent, Draghi said. Russia has systematically cut its gas supplies to Europe, starting June 15 with a 40 percent cut for Germany. On June 16, Russia supplied 15 percent less gas to Italy, and 50 percent less the following day.
After the meeting of the gas emergency committee at the end of June, the Ministry of Ecological Transition decided to tighten the measures. It commissioned the Italian transmission system operator Snam to supply the lacking volumes in order to reach the target of 5.4 billion cubic meters set for June. Meanwhile, Italy has more than tripled its storage levels. They currently stand at 60 percent. Italy has the second-largest gas storage capacity in Europe after Germany and, unlike the Federal Republic, also has strategic gas reserves. The reserves were created by law in 2000.
Natural gas production from domestic deposits is also rising in Italy for the first time in four years. The Italian “Plan for the Transition to Sustainable Energy for Eligible Areas” (PiTESAI) had actually envisaged a reduction in domestic production from 20 percent in 2000 to 3 to 4 percent in 2020. This is now to be reviewed, according to Minister Roberto Cingolani, in order to cope with the current crisis and reduce gas imports. In areas such as the lower Adriatic, production from already active fields can be increased.
As a secure base for the winter, the Italian government aims to exceed 85 percent gas reserves by the end of the year, Minister Cingolani said on the sidelines of the Energy Council in Luxembourg on June 27. “In the meantime, our operation to diversify sources of supply with other countries will allow for new flows that will more than compensate for what has been or will be lost in Russian supplies,” Cingolani said. These supplies would already arrive, especially through the pipelines of the southern routes.
In recent months, the government has taken steps to diversify its gas supply sources and thereby reduce its dependence on Russia. Between eight and ten billion cubic meters of natural gas could come from Algeria, Libya and Azerbaijan in two years. Italy could also secure supplies from North Sea producers. Draghi also met his Israeli counterpart Naftali Bennett in mid-June to discuss the planned Eastmed-Poseidon pipeline. This would allow natural gas supplies from Israel via Cyprus and Greece to Otranto in southeastern Italy.
Meanwhile, liquefied natural gas is transported via ship to the three Italian regasification plants in the Ligurian cities of La Spezia and Livorno and in Rovigo on the Adriatic coast. The import quota could increase by another five million cubic meters as the plants could process 20 to 25 percent more feedstock. Additional LNG could come from Qatar, Egypt and Israel. In April, the government already signed new supply contracts with Angola and the Republic of Congo. The United States has also committed to supplying at least an additional 30 billion cubic meters of liquefied natural gas to Europe for the coming winter, some of it to Italy. As a result, the Snam Group has acquired a regasification vessel that it plans to station off the west coast near Piombino. A second vessel is due to arrive at the port of Ravenna on Italy’s east coast by the end of the year.
Cingolani further told Italian media that no critical point has yet been reached: “The development of the gas flow is constantly monitored in cooperation with the operators.” While the minister did not want to downplay the difficult situation that a winter with fewer foreign gas supplies could mean. But Italy would be less affected than other European countries if Russia were to turn off the gas tap altogether.
According to the Ministry of Ecological Restructuring, 43.3 percent of Italy’s natural gas imports in 2020 will come from Russia, by far the country’s largest gas supplier. Algeria (22.8 percent), Norway and Qatar (around 10 percent each) also play an important role. In 2021, 38 percent of the gas consumed in Italy came from Russia.
The search for alternative sources, meanwhile, does not rule out the possibility of the Italian government pushing ahead with a proposal at the European level for a gas price cap.
Now that the DSA has been passed in the European Parliament, the EU Commission, which will be responsible for supervising the particularly large platforms and search engines (VLOP and VLOSE), can slowly get to work: “Enforcement is key,” wrote Commissioner for the Internal Market Thierry Breton in a LinkedIn post explaining the EU approach to DMA and DSA enforcement.
The Commission wants to pull together more than 100 employees in the Connect Directorate General, the de facto digital ministry, and from the Competition Directorate General, and in some cases recruit new staff, in order to enforce DMA and DSA within the scope of their responsibilities. But the interplay of the DSA, DMA, Data Governance Act, Data Act, AI Act and other legislation is complex, which is why the EU Commission is now planning an implementation strategy (Europe.Table reported). While the DMA has repercussions for the enforcement of competition law in the member states, there is not much to do on their part. With the DSA, this is more complicated.
As a regulation, the DSA is directly binding European law. However, it contains many provisions whose enforcement is the responsibility of national authorities and courts. This leads to a need for action at the federal and state levels, as shown by a June response from the German government to a minor interpellation from the CDU and CSU parliamentary groups, when the DSA was already negotiated. “Due to the fully harmonizing effect of the DSA, the national legal framework must be fundamentally revised. This applies to the Telemedia Act (TMG), the Network Enforcement Act and presumably also to the Federal Protection of Young Persons Act (JuSchG),” the German government’s response reads. “As part of the revision, it is also possible that a need for consequential amendments in other laws could arise. The states must examine on their own authority whether adjustments are necessary in the Interstate Media Treaty and the Interstate Treaty on the Protection of Minors.”
Specifically for the Network Enforcement Act (NetzDG), the Federal Ministry of Justice under FDP leader Marco Buschmann needs to examine a need for adjustments. The DSA uses a different regulatory technique than the Network Enforcement Act, the Federal Government told the opposition. The requirements for reporting procedures are roughly comparable, it says. The DSA leaves the definition of illegal content to national law or other EU law.
However, it also states, “According to current knowledge, ‘illegal content’ under the DSA is any information that does not comply with Union law or the law of a member state. Accordingly, the concept of ‘illegal content’ will be different from the concept of ‘unlawful content’ under the NetzDG, which is determined exclusively by national criminal law.”
As a result, it is supposed to be a kind of double-door principle: Illegal according to DSA is what is illegal according to national law, if this national law complies with European law. Banned is then what is banned, if such a ban is legal in the EU. Officially, none of the interviewees wants to confirm that this was created as a mechanism primarily with states with a problematic rule of law in mind, such as Poland or Hungary.
To prevent authorities of individual member states from crippling the entire process, whether for economic or political motives, the DSA has provided for both a comparatively strong position of enforcement authorities, but also conflict resolution mechanisms. “Member states must create independent authorities (“digital service coordinators”). These are to monitor compliance with the DSA and be able to issue fines of up to 6 percent of a company’s annual global revenue, for example,” explains Paul Seeliger of the German Research Institute for Public Administration. “The digital services coordinators can initiate cross-border initiatives to call on passive counterparts to take action. Even in this process, however, the final decision on whether and how to punish violations remains with the local competent authorities.” Whether the attempt to learn from the enforcement experience with the GDPR will be successful remains to be seen in practice, says Seeliger.
Germany already has bodies responsible for most of the regulations: For the content moderation process, for example, there is the Federal Office of Justice in Bonn, which has 37 offices responsible for overseeing platforms under the Network Enforcement Act. The state media authorities are currently responsible for issues relating to the lawfulness of content under the Interstate Treaty on Media Services, insofar as they have been assigned the authority by the states. For data protection aspects, the independent data protection supervisory authorities of the German states are generally responsible, depending on the location of the respective company. And many of the new regulations are additional regulations to enforcement mechanisms that already exist. For example, if the terms of use or the interface design mislead consumers, it would already be theoretically possible today for consumer associations to control the terms and conditions under the Act on Applications for an Injunction. The DSA would have to be included in the catalog of applicable laws so that injunctions or even model declaratory actions are also possible.
But that is not absolutely necessary for DSA enforcement in all areas, says Paul Seeliger. The legal expert at the German Research Institute for Public Administration does not necessarily see the DSA as the legal instrument of choice for the regulation of dark patterns, for example: “The DSA sees itself as a catch-all law for dark patterns and explicitly regulates only a very small section. In particular, competition and data protection law take precedence as special legal matters.”
In the end, it is up to the German government – together with the federal states – to tie together the complex mixture into effective enforcement in Germany. It must make decisions, such as who should act as Digital Services Coordinator in Germany. But this could turn out to be a tough fight. It is unlikely that the state legislatures will transfer some of their responsibilities to a federal authority.
In a guest article for the FAZ, Green Party media politician and Bundestag Digital Committee Chairwoman Tabea Rößner already signaled: She does not see that the Federal Network Agency could be solely responsible as Digital Services Coordinator. Together with Cologne-based media lawyer Karl-Eberhard Hain, she outlines several options for how the German DSC could be organized.
Several options seem unrealistic to the authors, such as the creation of a joint federal-state authority acting as a DSC. The transfer of sole responsibility to the Federal Network Agency or to the joint media institution body ZAK, the Commission on Licensing and Supervision, which is not itself an independently constituted authority, also does not appear to the authors to be covered by the DSA. Instead, Rößner and Hain argue that one authority should be given primary responsibility and the other players should retain their responsibilities – the Digital Services Coordinator should then actively involve the other players in their own work via mirror departments. Rößner and Hain are thinking aloud about whether one of the large state media authorities could be entrusted with the task. It is no secret that Tobias Schmid, Head of the State Media Authority in North Rhine-Westphalia, would be up for the task.
The Federal Ministry for Digital and Transport (BMDV), which is politically responsible for the DSA at the federal level, would probably prefer the Federal Network Agency in principle, but in the opinion of Rößner and Hain, it does not currently meet the criteria of the European legislator with regard to the DSA. This is because the Federal Network Agency is still technically subordinate to the Federal Ministry for Economics and Ministry for Digital and Transport and bound by instructions. After an ECJ ruling in 2021, its independence will have to be strengthened anyway in order to meet the requirements of the common rules for the internal market in natural gas and repealing Directive 2003/55/EC. According to government circles, this is actually to happen this year. Then independence could be extended to all areas of responsibility, including preemptively the DSA.
The responsible parties are thus now faced with a daunting task: On the one hand, they have a duty to devise a functioning supervisory regime for DSA in Germany. At the same time, they must merge the complicated interaction of media supervisory authorities, data protection authorities, the Federal Office of Justice and other players into a meaningful whole – politically delicate terrain in a federal state. Here, a long, complicated and particularly German process looms, making the timely establishment of institutions before the DSA regulations take effect in early 2024 seem ambitious. It will probably keep jurists as well as the responsible ministries and politicians busy for many months.
Agora Agriculture was only founded just about two months ago. Christine Chemnitz shares the leadership of the independent think tank for agriculture, food and forestry with Harald Grethe. Agora Agriculture is part of the Agora think tanks, which also include Agora Energiewende and Agora Industry. Chemnitz comes from a small village in Lower Saxony, studied agricultural sciences in Göttingen and Berlin, and then earned her doctorate in agricultural economics at Humboldt University in Berlin.
She is currently setting up the organization, there are no regular working days yet. At present, the most important task is to assemble a strong and creative team. By the end of the year, 14 people are to be hired. There are times when Christine Chemnitz spends an entire day reading applications.
Her focus is on multiple fields – for example, the restructuring of livestock farming, sustainable agriculture, the rewetting of peatlands, or sustainable nutrition. To this end, current situations and strategies for action are analyzed.
Even though the company’s staff is currently still being built up, Agora Agriculture’s goals are clear: “Firstly, the transformation of agriculture and nutrition toward greater sustainability must gain momentum so that sustainability goals such as carbon neutrality and biodiversity protection can be achieved,” Chemnitz explains.
Secondly, while academic institutions help inform decision-makers in the political arena, the altitude of scientific publications is often too high. Many issues have not yet been sufficiently discussed with interest groups, have not yet been thought through far enough and translated into legislative processes, and have not yet been communicated widely enough and in a way that everyone understands. Agora Agriculture is addressing these issues. The aim is to make it easier for policymakers to utilize science-based concepts.
“For this purpose, Agora Agriculture wants to engage in dialogue with all key players from the fields of science, politics and public administration, civil society, the media and business,” says Chemnitz, who headed the international agricultural policy unit at the Heinrich Böll Foundation for 15 years, during which she was also involved in the writing of a book for young people on meat consumption and processing.
Chemnitz’s professional orientation is also reflected in her private life. Namely, she likes to spend her free time outdoors, with her children in Brandenburg. “Even though I’ve lived in Berlin for more than 25 years, I don’t think I’ll ever be a city person and I like being out in nature.” Sarah Tekath
If you are planning your summer vacation on Lake Garda, you will probably notice an unusually low water level this year. 70 cubic meters of water per second are currently being diverted from the lake towards the Po Valley. There, desperate farmers are trying to brave Italy’s drought of the century. With water from Lake Garda, they are trying to keep the Po from drying up completely and save part of the harvest.
The Italian government sees itself in a comparatively better position with regard to natural gas supplies. Prime Minister Mario Draghi is adamant that Italy is better prepared for a Russian supply stop than its European neighbors, and that no bottlenecks are to be feared in the winter. Isabel Cuesta Camacho took a closer look at how Italy has managed to become less dependent on Russia within a short period of time.
Canada announced on Saturday that it would return the turbine serviced there for the Nord Stream 1 pipeline to Germany. Russia had argued that the missing turbine was one of the reasons for curtailing gas supplies. Despite the sanctions and clear criticism from Kyiv, Siemens wants to install the turbine in Russia as quickly as possible. Maintenance work on the pipeline will start today and is expected to last about ten days.
In Germany, the discussion about the enforcement of the Digital Services Act (DSA) could become complicated. The DSA stipulates rules for which very different authorities are responsible in Germany – and for whose implementation many national requirements must be adjusted. Falk Steiner explains the enormous task the federal and state governments now face.
Faced with the cut-off of Russian gas supplies, Italy affirms that it will be able to get through the winter without emergencies. In recent weeks, Italy has stepped up gas storage and increased its cooperation with African countries on gas supplies. The Minister for Ecological Transition, Roberto Cingolani, continues to expect that Italy will be able to get through the winter without supply shortages. He already announced this in February (Europe.Table reported).
“In Italy, we are preparing for this winter on the energy front. The measures under consideration ensure that there will be no emergency next winter,” Prime Minister Mario Draghi also said at a press conference after the European Council in Brussels in late June. Italy’s dependence on Russian gas has dropped from 40 percent to 25 percent, Draghi said. Russia has systematically cut its gas supplies to Europe, starting June 15 with a 40 percent cut for Germany. On June 16, Russia supplied 15 percent less gas to Italy, and 50 percent less the following day.
After the meeting of the gas emergency committee at the end of June, the Ministry of Ecological Transition decided to tighten the measures. It commissioned the Italian transmission system operator Snam to supply the lacking volumes in order to reach the target of 5.4 billion cubic meters set for June. Meanwhile, Italy has more than tripled its storage levels. They currently stand at 60 percent. Italy has the second-largest gas storage capacity in Europe after Germany and, unlike the Federal Republic, also has strategic gas reserves. The reserves were created by law in 2000.
Natural gas production from domestic deposits is also rising in Italy for the first time in four years. The Italian “Plan for the Transition to Sustainable Energy for Eligible Areas” (PiTESAI) had actually envisaged a reduction in domestic production from 20 percent in 2000 to 3 to 4 percent in 2020. This is now to be reviewed, according to Minister Roberto Cingolani, in order to cope with the current crisis and reduce gas imports. In areas such as the lower Adriatic, production from already active fields can be increased.
As a secure base for the winter, the Italian government aims to exceed 85 percent gas reserves by the end of the year, Minister Cingolani said on the sidelines of the Energy Council in Luxembourg on June 27. “In the meantime, our operation to diversify sources of supply with other countries will allow for new flows that will more than compensate for what has been or will be lost in Russian supplies,” Cingolani said. These supplies would already arrive, especially through the pipelines of the southern routes.
In recent months, the government has taken steps to diversify its gas supply sources and thereby reduce its dependence on Russia. Between eight and ten billion cubic meters of natural gas could come from Algeria, Libya and Azerbaijan in two years. Italy could also secure supplies from North Sea producers. Draghi also met his Israeli counterpart Naftali Bennett in mid-June to discuss the planned Eastmed-Poseidon pipeline. This would allow natural gas supplies from Israel via Cyprus and Greece to Otranto in southeastern Italy.
Meanwhile, liquefied natural gas is transported via ship to the three Italian regasification plants in the Ligurian cities of La Spezia and Livorno and in Rovigo on the Adriatic coast. The import quota could increase by another five million cubic meters as the plants could process 20 to 25 percent more feedstock. Additional LNG could come from Qatar, Egypt and Israel. In April, the government already signed new supply contracts with Angola and the Republic of Congo. The United States has also committed to supplying at least an additional 30 billion cubic meters of liquefied natural gas to Europe for the coming winter, some of it to Italy. As a result, the Snam Group has acquired a regasification vessel that it plans to station off the west coast near Piombino. A second vessel is due to arrive at the port of Ravenna on Italy’s east coast by the end of the year.
Cingolani further told Italian media that no critical point has yet been reached: “The development of the gas flow is constantly monitored in cooperation with the operators.” While the minister did not want to downplay the difficult situation that a winter with fewer foreign gas supplies could mean. But Italy would be less affected than other European countries if Russia were to turn off the gas tap altogether.
According to the Ministry of Ecological Restructuring, 43.3 percent of Italy’s natural gas imports in 2020 will come from Russia, by far the country’s largest gas supplier. Algeria (22.8 percent), Norway and Qatar (around 10 percent each) also play an important role. In 2021, 38 percent of the gas consumed in Italy came from Russia.
The search for alternative sources, meanwhile, does not rule out the possibility of the Italian government pushing ahead with a proposal at the European level for a gas price cap.
Now that the DSA has been passed in the European Parliament, the EU Commission, which will be responsible for supervising the particularly large platforms and search engines (VLOP and VLOSE), can slowly get to work: “Enforcement is key,” wrote Commissioner for the Internal Market Thierry Breton in a LinkedIn post explaining the EU approach to DMA and DSA enforcement.
The Commission wants to pull together more than 100 employees in the Connect Directorate General, the de facto digital ministry, and from the Competition Directorate General, and in some cases recruit new staff, in order to enforce DMA and DSA within the scope of their responsibilities. But the interplay of the DSA, DMA, Data Governance Act, Data Act, AI Act and other legislation is complex, which is why the EU Commission is now planning an implementation strategy (Europe.Table reported). While the DMA has repercussions for the enforcement of competition law in the member states, there is not much to do on their part. With the DSA, this is more complicated.
As a regulation, the DSA is directly binding European law. However, it contains many provisions whose enforcement is the responsibility of national authorities and courts. This leads to a need for action at the federal and state levels, as shown by a June response from the German government to a minor interpellation from the CDU and CSU parliamentary groups, when the DSA was already negotiated. “Due to the fully harmonizing effect of the DSA, the national legal framework must be fundamentally revised. This applies to the Telemedia Act (TMG), the Network Enforcement Act and presumably also to the Federal Protection of Young Persons Act (JuSchG),” the German government’s response reads. “As part of the revision, it is also possible that a need for consequential amendments in other laws could arise. The states must examine on their own authority whether adjustments are necessary in the Interstate Media Treaty and the Interstate Treaty on the Protection of Minors.”
Specifically for the Network Enforcement Act (NetzDG), the Federal Ministry of Justice under FDP leader Marco Buschmann needs to examine a need for adjustments. The DSA uses a different regulatory technique than the Network Enforcement Act, the Federal Government told the opposition. The requirements for reporting procedures are roughly comparable, it says. The DSA leaves the definition of illegal content to national law or other EU law.
However, it also states, “According to current knowledge, ‘illegal content’ under the DSA is any information that does not comply with Union law or the law of a member state. Accordingly, the concept of ‘illegal content’ will be different from the concept of ‘unlawful content’ under the NetzDG, which is determined exclusively by national criminal law.”
As a result, it is supposed to be a kind of double-door principle: Illegal according to DSA is what is illegal according to national law, if this national law complies with European law. Banned is then what is banned, if such a ban is legal in the EU. Officially, none of the interviewees wants to confirm that this was created as a mechanism primarily with states with a problematic rule of law in mind, such as Poland or Hungary.
To prevent authorities of individual member states from crippling the entire process, whether for economic or political motives, the DSA has provided for both a comparatively strong position of enforcement authorities, but also conflict resolution mechanisms. “Member states must create independent authorities (“digital service coordinators”). These are to monitor compliance with the DSA and be able to issue fines of up to 6 percent of a company’s annual global revenue, for example,” explains Paul Seeliger of the German Research Institute for Public Administration. “The digital services coordinators can initiate cross-border initiatives to call on passive counterparts to take action. Even in this process, however, the final decision on whether and how to punish violations remains with the local competent authorities.” Whether the attempt to learn from the enforcement experience with the GDPR will be successful remains to be seen in practice, says Seeliger.
Germany already has bodies responsible for most of the regulations: For the content moderation process, for example, there is the Federal Office of Justice in Bonn, which has 37 offices responsible for overseeing platforms under the Network Enforcement Act. The state media authorities are currently responsible for issues relating to the lawfulness of content under the Interstate Treaty on Media Services, insofar as they have been assigned the authority by the states. For data protection aspects, the independent data protection supervisory authorities of the German states are generally responsible, depending on the location of the respective company. And many of the new regulations are additional regulations to enforcement mechanisms that already exist. For example, if the terms of use or the interface design mislead consumers, it would already be theoretically possible today for consumer associations to control the terms and conditions under the Act on Applications for an Injunction. The DSA would have to be included in the catalog of applicable laws so that injunctions or even model declaratory actions are also possible.
But that is not absolutely necessary for DSA enforcement in all areas, says Paul Seeliger. The legal expert at the German Research Institute for Public Administration does not necessarily see the DSA as the legal instrument of choice for the regulation of dark patterns, for example: “The DSA sees itself as a catch-all law for dark patterns and explicitly regulates only a very small section. In particular, competition and data protection law take precedence as special legal matters.”
In the end, it is up to the German government – together with the federal states – to tie together the complex mixture into effective enforcement in Germany. It must make decisions, such as who should act as Digital Services Coordinator in Germany. But this could turn out to be a tough fight. It is unlikely that the state legislatures will transfer some of their responsibilities to a federal authority.
In a guest article for the FAZ, Green Party media politician and Bundestag Digital Committee Chairwoman Tabea Rößner already signaled: She does not see that the Federal Network Agency could be solely responsible as Digital Services Coordinator. Together with Cologne-based media lawyer Karl-Eberhard Hain, she outlines several options for how the German DSC could be organized.
Several options seem unrealistic to the authors, such as the creation of a joint federal-state authority acting as a DSC. The transfer of sole responsibility to the Federal Network Agency or to the joint media institution body ZAK, the Commission on Licensing and Supervision, which is not itself an independently constituted authority, also does not appear to the authors to be covered by the DSA. Instead, Rößner and Hain argue that one authority should be given primary responsibility and the other players should retain their responsibilities – the Digital Services Coordinator should then actively involve the other players in their own work via mirror departments. Rößner and Hain are thinking aloud about whether one of the large state media authorities could be entrusted with the task. It is no secret that Tobias Schmid, Head of the State Media Authority in North Rhine-Westphalia, would be up for the task.
The Federal Ministry for Digital and Transport (BMDV), which is politically responsible for the DSA at the federal level, would probably prefer the Federal Network Agency in principle, but in the opinion of Rößner and Hain, it does not currently meet the criteria of the European legislator with regard to the DSA. This is because the Federal Network Agency is still technically subordinate to the Federal Ministry for Economics and Ministry for Digital and Transport and bound by instructions. After an ECJ ruling in 2021, its independence will have to be strengthened anyway in order to meet the requirements of the common rules for the internal market in natural gas and repealing Directive 2003/55/EC. According to government circles, this is actually to happen this year. Then independence could be extended to all areas of responsibility, including preemptively the DSA.
The responsible parties are thus now faced with a daunting task: On the one hand, they have a duty to devise a functioning supervisory regime for DSA in Germany. At the same time, they must merge the complicated interaction of media supervisory authorities, data protection authorities, the Federal Office of Justice and other players into a meaningful whole – politically delicate terrain in a federal state. Here, a long, complicated and particularly German process looms, making the timely establishment of institutions before the DSA regulations take effect in early 2024 seem ambitious. It will probably keep jurists as well as the responsible ministries and politicians busy for many months.
Agora Agriculture was only founded just about two months ago. Christine Chemnitz shares the leadership of the independent think tank for agriculture, food and forestry with Harald Grethe. Agora Agriculture is part of the Agora think tanks, which also include Agora Energiewende and Agora Industry. Chemnitz comes from a small village in Lower Saxony, studied agricultural sciences in Göttingen and Berlin, and then earned her doctorate in agricultural economics at Humboldt University in Berlin.
She is currently setting up the organization, there are no regular working days yet. At present, the most important task is to assemble a strong and creative team. By the end of the year, 14 people are to be hired. There are times when Christine Chemnitz spends an entire day reading applications.
Her focus is on multiple fields – for example, the restructuring of livestock farming, sustainable agriculture, the rewetting of peatlands, or sustainable nutrition. To this end, current situations and strategies for action are analyzed.
Even though the company’s staff is currently still being built up, Agora Agriculture’s goals are clear: “Firstly, the transformation of agriculture and nutrition toward greater sustainability must gain momentum so that sustainability goals such as carbon neutrality and biodiversity protection can be achieved,” Chemnitz explains.
Secondly, while academic institutions help inform decision-makers in the political arena, the altitude of scientific publications is often too high. Many issues have not yet been sufficiently discussed with interest groups, have not yet been thought through far enough and translated into legislative processes, and have not yet been communicated widely enough and in a way that everyone understands. Agora Agriculture is addressing these issues. The aim is to make it easier for policymakers to utilize science-based concepts.
“For this purpose, Agora Agriculture wants to engage in dialogue with all key players from the fields of science, politics and public administration, civil society, the media and business,” says Chemnitz, who headed the international agricultural policy unit at the Heinrich Böll Foundation for 15 years, during which she was also involved in the writing of a book for young people on meat consumption and processing.
Chemnitz’s professional orientation is also reflected in her private life. Namely, she likes to spend her free time outdoors, with her children in Brandenburg. “Even though I’ve lived in Berlin for more than 25 years, I don’t think I’ll ever be a city person and I like being out in nature.” Sarah Tekath
