Today is the day: at 12 noon, the EU ambassadors are scheduled to vote on the EU Supply Chain Law in the Committee of Permanent Representatives (Coreper).
The decision of the member states has been delayed by almost three weeks – whether a qualified majority will be reached after all remains uncertain until the vote. Several Member States would keep their position open until the last second, explained a spokesperson. However, the fact that the Belgian Council Presidency has put the issue on the agenda suggests a realistic chance.
In the meantime, the German government’s Sustainable Finance Advisory Council has also spoken out in favor of adopting the CSDDD under the current Council Presidency. “The law is an opportunity to demonstrate that Europe not only defends its values but also lives them,” it said in a statement published on Monday. The advisory board advises the Federal Ministry of Finance on the Sustainable Finance Strategy. The ministry has so far blocked approval by the German government.
However, the German government is no longer involved in the consultations at this point, as its position seems too unalterable. According to government circles, Germany is indeed “on the outside.” Instead, according to information from Table.Media, the Belgian Council Presidency has tried to convince Italy in particular due to the size of its population. Rome is keeping a low profile, consulting and negotiating in the inner circle around Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
It happens not often that the two most important European politicians contradict each other so openly. At the meeting of more than 20 heads of state and government the previous evening, there was once again “very unanimous” agreement, said German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Tuesday, “that there will be no ground troops, no soldiers on Ukrainian soil sent there by European states or NATO states.”
French President Emmanuel Macron explicitly kept this option open in a late-night press conference. “Nothing can be excluded to achieve our objective: Russia cannot win that war,” he said in response to a question from journalists. They had discussed this very “openly and directly,” he added. He did not want to rule out the option for France and justified this with “strategic ambiguity.”
Specifically, Macron said that some of the measures agreed in Paris to support Ukraine did not rule out the possibility that France’s own soldiers would be required to provide security. Foreign Minister Stéphane Séjourné specified on Tuesday: “I am thinking in particular of mine clearance, cyber defense, the production of weapons on site, on Ukrainian territory. Some of its actions could require a presence on Ukrainian territory without crossing the threshold of fighting.” He also said that nothing should be ruled out.
Macron also met with opposition from other EU states on Tuesday. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk emphasized that he was not currently planning to deploy soldiers. However, he did not want to speculate at this point as to whether this position could change in the future under certain circumstances. Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson and Mark Rutte of the Netherlands expressed the same view.
The reactions in Berlin were particularly dismayed before the German government made public efforts to limit the damage. Scholz had already explained to Macron at the weekend what he thought of his initiative – namely nothing.
On Monday, before the meeting in Paris, the Chancellor also explicitly justified his rejection of Taurus cruise missiles for Kyiv by stating that this would require the deployment of German soldiers in the war zone. Jana Puglierin, Senior Policy Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), therefore speaks of an “open display of disagreement and, above all, dissonance in the Franco-German tandem.”
For his part, Macron used the press appearance to return the favor with arms deliveries to Ukraine. The president apparently felt provoked by Scholz’s public demands that the other EU partners should support Ukraine more, says Éric Maurice, Policy Analyst at the European Policy Center. The government in Paris is secretly supporting Ukraine more than the public figures from the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, for example, reflect, “and is obviously missing the recognition.”
With a new coalition for medium and longer-range missiles, Macron is, in turn, increasing the pressure on Scholz to also deliver long-range missiles to Ukraine: “We will organize this coalition from tonight with all states of goodwill,” said Macron on Monday. This is about the Ukrainian president’s express wish for weapons to be able to carry out air strikes in the depths of the Russian deployment zone.
Maurice doubts that Macron was acting out of domestic political calculation – he could “win nothing” with a discussion about ground troops, even among his own public. Rather, the president wanted to send a message of deterrence to Moscow: “That Europe is ready for anything should Russia go further – whatever it takes.“
ECFR expert Camille Grand argues similarly. Macron’s core message was that the Europeans would stand by Ukraine in the long term – and explore ways to deepen support, even if there was not yet a consensus. “He is opening a conversation about the forms of support for Ukraine rather than announcing immediate measures,” says Grand.
The fuss surrounding the issue of ground troops is also masking a new initiative by the Czech Republic to procure ammunition. Prague wants to buy around 800,000 artillery shells of 155-millimeter caliber from outside the EU and supply them to Ukraine. However, this requires funds amounting to $1.5 billion, which the Czech Republic is not prepared to raise alone.
A spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said that there was a consensus in the EU to give Ukraine everything it needed to win its defensive war. How this was done was largely in the hands of the member states. In any case, there was no decision at the EU level to support Ukraine with troops.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg expressed a similar view: the allies were providing unparalleled assistance to Ukraine. However, the alliance has no intention of sending combat troops.
But which are the countries that, according to Macron, are considering this and are said to have raised the issue in Paris? The Baltic states and Poland, as countries on the eastern flank, are in favor of evaluating all options, writes the French newspaper “Le Monde,” citing a diplomat. A decision would have to be made jointly and prepared step by step.
However, the public discussion was initiated by Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico, more in the sense of a warning. Individual countries are apparently prepared to send their soldiers directly to Ukraine, the left-wing nationalist said on Facebook before his departure to Paris. However, this would not persuade Russia to give in, on the contrary, it would increase the risk of the conflict spreading.
The Kremlin reacted promptly to Paris’ comments: sending troops would not only make a conflict between Russia and NATO likely, but inevitable. Macron only commented on the debate about ground troops on Monday after the conference in response to a question from a journalist who had referred to Robert Fico’s warnings. Seen in this light, the pro-Russian Slovakian’s calculation to serve the Kremlin’s narrative of NATO’s presence in Ukraine may have worked.
There are some similarities between the Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) Alliance and La France insoumise – and some acquaintances. Oskar Lafontaine, the former co-founder of the Left and later Wagenknecht’s husband, had a close relationship with Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Both were considered black sheep in their parties – Lafontaine in the SPD, Mélenchon in the Parti socialiste.
Mélenchon and Wagenknecht have since founded their own parties, which could work together in the European Parliament after the elections, despite some differences. Mélenchon’s La France insoumise (LFI) and the alliance around Sahra Wagenknecht are not only united by a strong cult of personality. They are united by the conviction that the institutions in “Brussels” are above all technocratic servants of an exploitative, capitalist system at the expense of the citizens. And both try not to sound too radical despite their harsh criticism of the system.
In 2017, Jean-Luc Mélenchon wanted to renegotiate the EU treaties; in the event of failure, he envisaged a unilateral exit by France, the abolition of the euro and the return of capital and goods controls at national borders as Plan B. Five years later, LFI still wants to rewrite the treaties to allow for “ecological protectionism,” for example, or the right of states to “create public monopolies in strategic sectors.” Exiting the eurozone and the EU is no longer mentioned.
Mélenchon and Wagenknecht are also united by their disdain for the European Parliament. Jean-Luc Mélenchon was mainly conspicuous by his absence during his time as an MEP from 2009 to 2017. “You rarely saw him, he even missed important votes,” recalls a French veteran of the Parliament. LFI used the European stage in particular to raise his profile domestically in France, says Eric Maurice, a political expert at the European Policy Center think tank.
Similar things are also said about Sahra Wagenknecht, who was often absent from both the Bundestag and the European Parliament. “A debate in the European Parliament is a horror,” she said in 2013, for example. “Yawning emptiness on the benches, in comparison, the Bundestag is fully occupied even at night. And nobody outside takes any notice of these debates.” Wagenknecht categorically ruled out entering the European Parliament in 2023 even before the party was officially founded: She belonged in the Bundestag.
This, in turn, could describe a commonality. According to political expert Maurice, LFI is using the European stage for national political purposes. “Ideologically, LFI differs from the Rassemblement national, but tactically, both parties are pursuing the same approach: using the European mandate to raise their political profile in France,” he observes.
The lead candidates Fabio de Masi and Thomas Geisel are to represent Wagenknecht in Brussels and Strasbourg. De Masi sat for the German Left Party with Mélenchon in the Left Group (GUE/NGL) from 2014 to 2017. It is questionable whether the Left Party and BSW could coexist in a bloc.
However, there are programmatic differences between LFI and BSW. “La France insoumise is a party that propagates multiculturalism. It is very open to immigration, for electoral reasons,” explains Maurice. Mélenchon scores highly with economically disadvantaged population groups in the French suburbs, where many immigrants live.
In a survey conducted after the 2022 presidential election, 69 percent of people of Muslim faith said they had voted for him, says Jérôme Fourquet, Head of Opinion Research and Corporate Strategy at the polling institute Ifop. LFI has even been accused of being too soft on radical Islam.
Wagenknecht’s party, on the other hand, is not opposed to all forms of immigration – but it is offensively opposed to the current system of accepting refugees. Targeting Muslims for votes is out of the question for the party – especially not before the state elections in three eastern German states, which are even more important for the BSW and will take place in the months following the European elections.
Another difference: the BSW European election manifesto sharply criticizes military spending – Mélenchon, on the other hand, advocates a renationalization of the arms industry and a militarily independent France.
In contrast, both demand that Europe should detach itself from the USA. The wording is almost identical: Europe should no longer be a vassal of the USA. Instead, they are calling for a balance with Vladimir Putin’s security policy interests: “radical diplomacy” should replace arms deliveries.
However, perhaps such commonalities will be sufficient to form a joint parliamentary group with other players after the election. After all, political groups in the European Parliament are almost always much more pluralistic than in Berlin, for example. “Parties always differ in nuances, even if they can be counted as part of a party family,” says Erlangen political scientist Cornelius Wurthmann. “However, a relationship in terms of content does not end with differences but begins with similarities. Otherwise, you’d be dealing with identical twins.” He also sees several potential coalition partners from smaller parties in other countries beyond LFI.
In 2019, the LFI list led by Manon Aubry received 6.31 percent of the vote and sent six MEPs to Parliament in Strasbourg and Brussels. According to polls, it is currently polling between seven and eight percent of the vote. The BSW does not yet have any reliable figures for the European elections. However, it is as good as certain that BSW MEPs will enter the EP – without a blocking clause, anything else would be a bitter defeat.
Kerstin Maria Rippel could obviously hardly wait for her job. Months before she became the new Managing Director of the German Steel Federation, she got in her car and drove to steel production sites all over Germany. “You can read a lot, talk a lot, but I wanted to experience, see and smell the industry,” says Rippel. What she noticed early on was that the local people identify strongly with their work and are incredibly proud of the steel they produce there.
However, the steel industry is up to its neck in a crisis and has to cope with a major transformation at the same time. Carbon emissions need to be reduced and the steel giants need to switch to green electricity and green hydrogen to achieve this. This, in turn, is expensive and enormously stressful for the industry.
Rippel now has to navigate this tricky terrain communicatively. She has to convince politicians that the steel industry is vital to Germany’s survival as a business location. She must bring the companies together to present a unified front. She has to modernize the association – and the local steelworkers need to stay happy so that the mood does not change. All of this is a huge challenge that Rippel now has to face.
The 51-year-old says of herself that she is a newcomer to the industry, which is fitting. Rippel studied law in Saarbrücken and Stuttgart, later trained as a journalist and gained her first experience at the German Association of the New Energy Economy. She worked there as a press officer before moving to transmission system operator 50Hertz in 2013, where she made a rapid rise. She went from team leader for energy policy to authorized signatory in less than six years, before receiving a call from the steel industry in 2023: Ms. Rippel, don’t you want to do something completely new and lead our trade association?
Rippel still remembers the request well. Steel? She had nothing to do with that and, like most people, was only familiar with the archaic images of blast furnaces. But she recognized at the time that the industry was facing a gigantic transformation – not just because the companies wanted to, but because they had to change. Rippel found this exciting, agreed and began her grand tour of the steelworks in Germany.
As long as her contract with 50Hertz was still running, she drove there at weekends, reading thick tomes about the steel industry, the technology behind it and its history. Today, the self-proclaimed newcomer can throw around technical terms – any steel nerd would melt away.
After her start, she turned things upside down and reorganized the lobby association’s communications: Unlike her predecessors, Rippel is active on LinkedIn, appears more open, gives interviews, wants to be present in public to tell the big story of the steel industry: “We currently cause a third of industrial emissions, we want to change that – and at the same time maintain Germany’s economic strength,” says Rippel. With green steel made in Germany, both can be achieved. “We are openly communicating how we can achieve this and what we need to do so – it’s an exciting story.”
It is important that the story catches on with politicians, but also with employees in the industry. Because they are worried. What will this transformation look like? What does it mean for their own jobs, for their own future? Rippel is well aware that the easiest way to address such concerns is with billions in subsidies.
In any case, the lobbyists believe that the transformation cannot be achieved without money from politicians: “The steel industry must abandon its old business case in order to produce green steel.” At the same time, there is still no competitive business case for green steel – partly because the prices for hydrogen or electricity are far too high, explains Rippel. “The phase in between should be bridged by subsidies, which we need to stimulate an initial supply of green steel.” Recently, the steel industry was able to look forward to large funding commitments, a few billion here, a few billion there. Rippel was obviously able to assert her convictions.
She will have been in office for a year in May and things seem to be going well so far. The funding commitments are in place, there have been no prophecies of doom from the industry so far and she thinks: “I am satisfied with what we have already achieved as a team.” When asked about this, she grades herself as “good” because she has initiated a lot. She did not want to give herself a “very good.” There is still enough to do. Nils Wischmeyer
Today is the day: at 12 noon, the EU ambassadors are scheduled to vote on the EU Supply Chain Law in the Committee of Permanent Representatives (Coreper).
The decision of the member states has been delayed by almost three weeks – whether a qualified majority will be reached after all remains uncertain until the vote. Several Member States would keep their position open until the last second, explained a spokesperson. However, the fact that the Belgian Council Presidency has put the issue on the agenda suggests a realistic chance.
In the meantime, the German government’s Sustainable Finance Advisory Council has also spoken out in favor of adopting the CSDDD under the current Council Presidency. “The law is an opportunity to demonstrate that Europe not only defends its values but also lives them,” it said in a statement published on Monday. The advisory board advises the Federal Ministry of Finance on the Sustainable Finance Strategy. The ministry has so far blocked approval by the German government.
However, the German government is no longer involved in the consultations at this point, as its position seems too unalterable. According to government circles, Germany is indeed “on the outside.” Instead, according to information from Table.Media, the Belgian Council Presidency has tried to convince Italy in particular due to the size of its population. Rome is keeping a low profile, consulting and negotiating in the inner circle around Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
It happens not often that the two most important European politicians contradict each other so openly. At the meeting of more than 20 heads of state and government the previous evening, there was once again “very unanimous” agreement, said German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Tuesday, “that there will be no ground troops, no soldiers on Ukrainian soil sent there by European states or NATO states.”
French President Emmanuel Macron explicitly kept this option open in a late-night press conference. “Nothing can be excluded to achieve our objective: Russia cannot win that war,” he said in response to a question from journalists. They had discussed this very “openly and directly,” he added. He did not want to rule out the option for France and justified this with “strategic ambiguity.”
Specifically, Macron said that some of the measures agreed in Paris to support Ukraine did not rule out the possibility that France’s own soldiers would be required to provide security. Foreign Minister Stéphane Séjourné specified on Tuesday: “I am thinking in particular of mine clearance, cyber defense, the production of weapons on site, on Ukrainian territory. Some of its actions could require a presence on Ukrainian territory without crossing the threshold of fighting.” He also said that nothing should be ruled out.
Macron also met with opposition from other EU states on Tuesday. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk emphasized that he was not currently planning to deploy soldiers. However, he did not want to speculate at this point as to whether this position could change in the future under certain circumstances. Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson and Mark Rutte of the Netherlands expressed the same view.
The reactions in Berlin were particularly dismayed before the German government made public efforts to limit the damage. Scholz had already explained to Macron at the weekend what he thought of his initiative – namely nothing.
On Monday, before the meeting in Paris, the Chancellor also explicitly justified his rejection of Taurus cruise missiles for Kyiv by stating that this would require the deployment of German soldiers in the war zone. Jana Puglierin, Senior Policy Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), therefore speaks of an “open display of disagreement and, above all, dissonance in the Franco-German tandem.”
For his part, Macron used the press appearance to return the favor with arms deliveries to Ukraine. The president apparently felt provoked by Scholz’s public demands that the other EU partners should support Ukraine more, says Éric Maurice, Policy Analyst at the European Policy Center. The government in Paris is secretly supporting Ukraine more than the public figures from the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, for example, reflect, “and is obviously missing the recognition.”
With a new coalition for medium and longer-range missiles, Macron is, in turn, increasing the pressure on Scholz to also deliver long-range missiles to Ukraine: “We will organize this coalition from tonight with all states of goodwill,” said Macron on Monday. This is about the Ukrainian president’s express wish for weapons to be able to carry out air strikes in the depths of the Russian deployment zone.
Maurice doubts that Macron was acting out of domestic political calculation – he could “win nothing” with a discussion about ground troops, even among his own public. Rather, the president wanted to send a message of deterrence to Moscow: “That Europe is ready for anything should Russia go further – whatever it takes.“
ECFR expert Camille Grand argues similarly. Macron’s core message was that the Europeans would stand by Ukraine in the long term – and explore ways to deepen support, even if there was not yet a consensus. “He is opening a conversation about the forms of support for Ukraine rather than announcing immediate measures,” says Grand.
The fuss surrounding the issue of ground troops is also masking a new initiative by the Czech Republic to procure ammunition. Prague wants to buy around 800,000 artillery shells of 155-millimeter caliber from outside the EU and supply them to Ukraine. However, this requires funds amounting to $1.5 billion, which the Czech Republic is not prepared to raise alone.
A spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said that there was a consensus in the EU to give Ukraine everything it needed to win its defensive war. How this was done was largely in the hands of the member states. In any case, there was no decision at the EU level to support Ukraine with troops.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg expressed a similar view: the allies were providing unparalleled assistance to Ukraine. However, the alliance has no intention of sending combat troops.
But which are the countries that, according to Macron, are considering this and are said to have raised the issue in Paris? The Baltic states and Poland, as countries on the eastern flank, are in favor of evaluating all options, writes the French newspaper “Le Monde,” citing a diplomat. A decision would have to be made jointly and prepared step by step.
However, the public discussion was initiated by Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico, more in the sense of a warning. Individual countries are apparently prepared to send their soldiers directly to Ukraine, the left-wing nationalist said on Facebook before his departure to Paris. However, this would not persuade Russia to give in, on the contrary, it would increase the risk of the conflict spreading.
The Kremlin reacted promptly to Paris’ comments: sending troops would not only make a conflict between Russia and NATO likely, but inevitable. Macron only commented on the debate about ground troops on Monday after the conference in response to a question from a journalist who had referred to Robert Fico’s warnings. Seen in this light, the pro-Russian Slovakian’s calculation to serve the Kremlin’s narrative of NATO’s presence in Ukraine may have worked.
There are some similarities between the Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) Alliance and La France insoumise – and some acquaintances. Oskar Lafontaine, the former co-founder of the Left and later Wagenknecht’s husband, had a close relationship with Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Both were considered black sheep in their parties – Lafontaine in the SPD, Mélenchon in the Parti socialiste.
Mélenchon and Wagenknecht have since founded their own parties, which could work together in the European Parliament after the elections, despite some differences. Mélenchon’s La France insoumise (LFI) and the alliance around Sahra Wagenknecht are not only united by a strong cult of personality. They are united by the conviction that the institutions in “Brussels” are above all technocratic servants of an exploitative, capitalist system at the expense of the citizens. And both try not to sound too radical despite their harsh criticism of the system.
In 2017, Jean-Luc Mélenchon wanted to renegotiate the EU treaties; in the event of failure, he envisaged a unilateral exit by France, the abolition of the euro and the return of capital and goods controls at national borders as Plan B. Five years later, LFI still wants to rewrite the treaties to allow for “ecological protectionism,” for example, or the right of states to “create public monopolies in strategic sectors.” Exiting the eurozone and the EU is no longer mentioned.
Mélenchon and Wagenknecht are also united by their disdain for the European Parliament. Jean-Luc Mélenchon was mainly conspicuous by his absence during his time as an MEP from 2009 to 2017. “You rarely saw him, he even missed important votes,” recalls a French veteran of the Parliament. LFI used the European stage in particular to raise his profile domestically in France, says Eric Maurice, a political expert at the European Policy Center think tank.
Similar things are also said about Sahra Wagenknecht, who was often absent from both the Bundestag and the European Parliament. “A debate in the European Parliament is a horror,” she said in 2013, for example. “Yawning emptiness on the benches, in comparison, the Bundestag is fully occupied even at night. And nobody outside takes any notice of these debates.” Wagenknecht categorically ruled out entering the European Parliament in 2023 even before the party was officially founded: She belonged in the Bundestag.
This, in turn, could describe a commonality. According to political expert Maurice, LFI is using the European stage for national political purposes. “Ideologically, LFI differs from the Rassemblement national, but tactically, both parties are pursuing the same approach: using the European mandate to raise their political profile in France,” he observes.
The lead candidates Fabio de Masi and Thomas Geisel are to represent Wagenknecht in Brussels and Strasbourg. De Masi sat for the German Left Party with Mélenchon in the Left Group (GUE/NGL) from 2014 to 2017. It is questionable whether the Left Party and BSW could coexist in a bloc.
However, there are programmatic differences between LFI and BSW. “La France insoumise is a party that propagates multiculturalism. It is very open to immigration, for electoral reasons,” explains Maurice. Mélenchon scores highly with economically disadvantaged population groups in the French suburbs, where many immigrants live.
In a survey conducted after the 2022 presidential election, 69 percent of people of Muslim faith said they had voted for him, says Jérôme Fourquet, Head of Opinion Research and Corporate Strategy at the polling institute Ifop. LFI has even been accused of being too soft on radical Islam.
Wagenknecht’s party, on the other hand, is not opposed to all forms of immigration – but it is offensively opposed to the current system of accepting refugees. Targeting Muslims for votes is out of the question for the party – especially not before the state elections in three eastern German states, which are even more important for the BSW and will take place in the months following the European elections.
Another difference: the BSW European election manifesto sharply criticizes military spending – Mélenchon, on the other hand, advocates a renationalization of the arms industry and a militarily independent France.
In contrast, both demand that Europe should detach itself from the USA. The wording is almost identical: Europe should no longer be a vassal of the USA. Instead, they are calling for a balance with Vladimir Putin’s security policy interests: “radical diplomacy” should replace arms deliveries.
However, perhaps such commonalities will be sufficient to form a joint parliamentary group with other players after the election. After all, political groups in the European Parliament are almost always much more pluralistic than in Berlin, for example. “Parties always differ in nuances, even if they can be counted as part of a party family,” says Erlangen political scientist Cornelius Wurthmann. “However, a relationship in terms of content does not end with differences but begins with similarities. Otherwise, you’d be dealing with identical twins.” He also sees several potential coalition partners from smaller parties in other countries beyond LFI.
In 2019, the LFI list led by Manon Aubry received 6.31 percent of the vote and sent six MEPs to Parliament in Strasbourg and Brussels. According to polls, it is currently polling between seven and eight percent of the vote. The BSW does not yet have any reliable figures for the European elections. However, it is as good as certain that BSW MEPs will enter the EP – without a blocking clause, anything else would be a bitter defeat.
Kerstin Maria Rippel could obviously hardly wait for her job. Months before she became the new Managing Director of the German Steel Federation, she got in her car and drove to steel production sites all over Germany. “You can read a lot, talk a lot, but I wanted to experience, see and smell the industry,” says Rippel. What she noticed early on was that the local people identify strongly with their work and are incredibly proud of the steel they produce there.
However, the steel industry is up to its neck in a crisis and has to cope with a major transformation at the same time. Carbon emissions need to be reduced and the steel giants need to switch to green electricity and green hydrogen to achieve this. This, in turn, is expensive and enormously stressful for the industry.
Rippel now has to navigate this tricky terrain communicatively. She has to convince politicians that the steel industry is vital to Germany’s survival as a business location. She must bring the companies together to present a unified front. She has to modernize the association – and the local steelworkers need to stay happy so that the mood does not change. All of this is a huge challenge that Rippel now has to face.
The 51-year-old says of herself that she is a newcomer to the industry, which is fitting. Rippel studied law in Saarbrücken and Stuttgart, later trained as a journalist and gained her first experience at the German Association of the New Energy Economy. She worked there as a press officer before moving to transmission system operator 50Hertz in 2013, where she made a rapid rise. She went from team leader for energy policy to authorized signatory in less than six years, before receiving a call from the steel industry in 2023: Ms. Rippel, don’t you want to do something completely new and lead our trade association?
Rippel still remembers the request well. Steel? She had nothing to do with that and, like most people, was only familiar with the archaic images of blast furnaces. But she recognized at the time that the industry was facing a gigantic transformation – not just because the companies wanted to, but because they had to change. Rippel found this exciting, agreed and began her grand tour of the steelworks in Germany.
As long as her contract with 50Hertz was still running, she drove there at weekends, reading thick tomes about the steel industry, the technology behind it and its history. Today, the self-proclaimed newcomer can throw around technical terms – any steel nerd would melt away.
After her start, she turned things upside down and reorganized the lobby association’s communications: Unlike her predecessors, Rippel is active on LinkedIn, appears more open, gives interviews, wants to be present in public to tell the big story of the steel industry: “We currently cause a third of industrial emissions, we want to change that – and at the same time maintain Germany’s economic strength,” says Rippel. With green steel made in Germany, both can be achieved. “We are openly communicating how we can achieve this and what we need to do so – it’s an exciting story.”
It is important that the story catches on with politicians, but also with employees in the industry. Because they are worried. What will this transformation look like? What does it mean for their own jobs, for their own future? Rippel is well aware that the easiest way to address such concerns is with billions in subsidies.
In any case, the lobbyists believe that the transformation cannot be achieved without money from politicians: “The steel industry must abandon its old business case in order to produce green steel.” At the same time, there is still no competitive business case for green steel – partly because the prices for hydrogen or electricity are far too high, explains Rippel. “The phase in between should be bridged by subsidies, which we need to stimulate an initial supply of green steel.” Recently, the steel industry was able to look forward to large funding commitments, a few billion here, a few billion there. Rippel was obviously able to assert her convictions.
She will have been in office for a year in May and things seem to be going well so far. The funding commitments are in place, there have been no prophecies of doom from the industry so far and she thinks: “I am satisfied with what we have already achieved as a team.” When asked about this, she grades herself as “good” because she has initiated a lot. She did not want to give herself a “very good.” There is still enough to do. Nils Wischmeyer
