According to reports in Brussels, goods from Ukraine will be exempt from import duties for another year. This is what the Commission intends to propose on Wednesday. The economy of the country, which has been overrun by Putin’s military with a war of aggression for almost two years, needs the support. The exemption from customs duties should continue to apply to all goods, i.e. industrial products as well as agricultural products and foodstuffs.
There are no plans to ban imports of wheat, maize, rapeseed and sunflower seeds into the neighboring countries of Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Hungary. These were in place until September with the Commission’s approval. Instead, “protective measures” are planned for the agricultural markets of the EU member states.
There is massive unrest behind the scenes. It is no longer just about Ukrainian grain flooding the EU market, but also about sugar, eggs and poultry. Large international agricultural companies are deliberately relocating production capacities to the war-torn country.
EU imports are attractive for investors: wages are significantly lower in Ukraine and the higher EU standards, for example in terms of animal welfare and pesticide use, do not apply to them. Opposition to the unrestricted duty-free regime no longer comes only from the neighboring countries, but also from western member states. From France, for example. Quotas for the duty-free import of certain agricultural products and foodstuffs from Ukraine are now being discussed.
Have a good start to the week!
Autonomous vehicles, AI-controlled agriculture, telemedicine – many sectors are already dependent on high-performance digital infrastructure. This dependency will continue to grow. The Gigabit Infrastructure Act (GIA) is intended to accelerate the necessary broadband expansion by taking current technological and market developments into account and ensuring coherent and harmonized regulation in the member states.
On January 25, the Parliament, Council and Commission will continue the trilogue negotiations on the GIA. However, Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton is planning even more far-reaching changes to the market with the Digital Networks Act. He intends to present a White Paper on this on February 21.
The European Parliament, with rapporteur Alin Mituța (Renew), has made some changes to the GIA. Two points in particular are crucial. The Parliament wants:
The Council, in turn, has set its own priorities in its amendments to the Commission proposal. The Member States have, among other things:
The Commission’s proposal for tacit approval had been greeted with cheers from the industry. Likewise, that the Parliament wants to reduce the deadline for approval once again. However, the Member States have tried to turn back the clock in this and other areas, such as transitional periods and exemptions.
“Overall, we took a really positive view of the legislation,” says Jakob Greiner, Vice President for European Affairs at Deutsche Telekom, looking back. “By and large, we believe the proposal speeds up procedures for some member states and strengthens the principle of symmetrical regulation.” This means that all companies must grant each other access to their physical infrastructure at fair and reasonable prices. This means that there is no need to dig twice.
Associations such as VATM or Breko, in which Telekom’s competitors have joined forces, take a different view. They fear their business models for fiber optic expansion will not work if the market-dominant company (Telekom) can also use their physical infrastructure (keyword: superstructure). Conversely, however, Telekom is obliged to offer this to its competitors (asymmetric regulation).
Telekom considers this to be a purely German debate, as the superstructure complained about by Breko is normal in other countries. Austria has even released the wholesale broadband markets completely from regulation. Of course, Telekom would like to see the same. Overall, it fears that the Council and Parliament will ultimately reach a compromise in which the GIA fails to achieve its goal of generating more investment for faster broadband expansion.
For example, if the industry can no longer charge surcharges for calls, text messages and data transmission between EU countries. These intra-EU communication surcharges have been capped by the EU since 2019. The upper limit is 19 cents net per minute. It expires in May. However, the Commission has not made a new proposal. The Parliament thus wants to include the abolition of surcharges in the GIA. Roaming, i.e. making mobile calls in another EU country, has already been free of surcharges since 2017 – as decreed by the EU.
“Surcharges for calls to another EU country from home are very expensive and a source of confusion and annoyance for consumers,” says Ursula Pachl from the European consumer organization BEUC. She criticizes that the member states have ignored the European Parliament’s calls for a ban on surcharges. “This is long overdue in a single market and would be an important signal to show ahead of the EU elections what the EU can do for people.”
However, the surcharges for international calls within the EU are a welcome source of income for telephone providers – especially since the abolition of roaming charges. The member states apparently think the same. It remains to be seen who will prevail with which demand in the trilogue. The Council, preferring to return everything to the national discretion of the Member States, or the Parliament, which proposed some positive changes for the industry but wants to remove international surcharges. If the surcharges are removed, “then we see no advantage in the GIA,” says Greiner from Telekom.
The Digital Networks Act (DNA) will have an even greater impact on the sector than the GIA. He thinks about the telecoms sector day and night, Breton recently said at an event with CEOs of European telecoms groups. Last October in a post on Linkedin, he had already pointed to the direction he thought of: the creation of a single European market for telecommunications.
The corresponding White Paper builds on the results of last year’s consultation on the future of the connectivity sector and its infrastructure. In order to “seize the opportunities and counter the threats” arising from technological developments, the White Paper is intended to prepare a “forward-looking law on digital networks.” The Commission took a similar approach when preparing the AI Act.
In the next mandate with the DNA, the new Commission is then to define new rules for telecommunications regulation, redefine the political framework for digital infrastructures and promote investment along the entire value chain. One of Breton’s (former head of France Télécom, now Orange) concerns is that foreign investors are increasingly buying into struggling European telecommunications companies. Such as Saudi Arabia at Telefónica, the US investor KKR at Telecom Italia or the Emirates Telecom Group (Etisalat) at Vodafone.
Breton believes that the European market needs to consolidate so that European companies can keep up with the big players in markets such as the USA and China. But Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager wants to have her say. So February 21 will be exciting.
The debate about a European nuclear bomb is currently booming. Former Green Party Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer called for it in December, followed later by political scientist Herfried Münkler and Carlo Masala from the Bundeswehr University in Munich. Masala told the Funke media group: “If the Americans can no longer guarantee protection, we need a European nuclear shield.” US expert Josef Braml agrees: “Russia, which has only been weakened to a limited extent by the war in Ukraine, will remain an existential threat to Europe for the foreseeable future, which must also be deterred with European nuclear capabilities.”
Ex-NATO strategist Stefanie Babst considers such ideas to be absurd. In an interview with Table.Media, the military expert explains that it would be better to consider extending the US nuclear shield to countries such as Poland. “This is actually the logical step to take.” Politicians in Germany in particular would oppose this because they fear it would violate the NATO-Russia Founding Act of 1997. Among other things, this includes the renunciation of the stationing of nuclear weapons in the new Eastern European NATO member states. “The Russians show us every day that this agreement is dead.”
Liviu Horovitz from the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) and his former colleague Lydia Wachs (now at Stockholm University) believe it is very unlikely that the French protective shield will be extended to Europe in the foreseeable future. As early as January 2023, they analyzed the political and military challenges for this in a paper. The strategic French weapons are sufficient to destroy “political, economic and military nerve centers,” but not to strike flexibly, they write.
“France has a completely different arsenal than the US, the risks would be much greater, much more costly,” says Horovitz in an interview with Table.Media. It would “certainly take decades” for a European arsenal to have the same deterrent effect as a US arsenal, Wachs explains. And they are expensive. The French nuclear deterrent devours around a fifth of the defense budget every year. Building or expanding new structures would by far exceed these costs.
France has over 300 nuclear warheads, most of which are designed to be launched from submarines; a few can be fired from fighter planes. The British nuclear forces rely exclusively on sea-based systems and have more than 200 warheads.
The distinction between strategic and tactical nuclear weapons is crucial for the assessment of the nuclear shield for Europe. The former are not intended for direct combat. With their range of several thousand kilometers and their immense explosive power, they serve as a deterrent. The USA and Russia can reach anywhere in the world with these weapons. Tactical nuclear weapons also allow comparatively small strikes. Because France’s arsenal is inflexible, it would have to use strategic weapons – and expect a severe counter-strike.
Former NATO Assistant Secretary General for Defense Policy Heinrich Brauß therefore sees “no alternative” to a European nuclear deterrent.
In 2020, French President Emmanuel Macron said he hoped that a “strategic dialog” would emerge with European partners on the role of French nuclear deterrence in Europe. He also held out the prospect of participating in Force de Frappe exercises. So far, Germany has not responded to this invitation. However, the dialog initiative was not an offer to extend the French nuclear shield.
According to Wachs, it is “highly unlikely” that France will transfer decision-making power over its nuclear weapons to other European countries in the short to medium term. “The decision as to whether, when and how France’s vital interests are endangered and whether, when and how nuclear weapons are used is the sole responsibility of the French President in a specific threat situation that cannot be anticipated,” explains ex-NATO General Brauß. This is another reason why France is not part of the NATO nuclear command structure.
And a European nuclear shield presupposes that the states can make quick decisions together. The idea of a “common suitcase with a red button that moves between large EU countries,” as political scientist Münkler puts it, is unrealistic. Decisions at the EU level show how unlikely this is.
The alternative would therefore be an expansion of the protective shield under French responsibility, which would, however, take a “very long time,” according to Wachs. The European allies would have to trust that France would be prepared to accept major damage on its own territory to protect them, and an enemy would have to do the same. The fact that France would respond to a conventional attack by Russia on the Baltic States with the use of nuclear weapons, for example, is “very implausible” under the current conditions, says the scientist.
It is considered a foregone conclusion that the USA will shift its focus from Europe to the Indo-Pacific, regardless of whether Trump is re-elected. Horovitz considers it unrealistic that they will withdraw completely from Europe. “It’s too early to worry,” says Horovitz. It is more likely that the USA will first withdraw conventional weapons systems from Europe. “The first Trump administration primarily wanted the European NATO countries to meet the two percent target and rearm conventionally.” A debate on nuclear deterrence is important, but: “If the nuclear is gone, the conventional is long gone.”
According to reports in Brussels, goods from Ukraine will be exempt from import duties for another year. This is what the Commission intends to propose on Wednesday. The economy of the country, which has been overrun by Putin’s military with a war of aggression for almost two years, needs the support. The exemption from customs duties should continue to apply to all goods, i.e. industrial products as well as agricultural products and foodstuffs.
There are no plans to ban imports of wheat, maize, rapeseed and sunflower seeds into the neighboring countries of Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Hungary. These were in place until September with the Commission’s approval. Instead, “protective measures” are planned for the agricultural markets of the EU member states.
There is massive unrest behind the scenes. It is no longer just about Ukrainian grain flooding the EU market, but also about sugar, eggs and poultry. Large international agricultural companies are deliberately relocating production capacities to the war-torn country.
EU imports are attractive for investors: wages are significantly lower in Ukraine and the higher EU standards, for example in terms of animal welfare and pesticide use, do not apply to them. Opposition to the unrestricted duty-free regime no longer comes only from the neighboring countries, but also from western member states. From France, for example. Quotas for the duty-free import of certain agricultural products and foodstuffs from Ukraine are now being discussed.
Have a good start to the week!
Autonomous vehicles, AI-controlled agriculture, telemedicine – many sectors are already dependent on high-performance digital infrastructure. This dependency will continue to grow. The Gigabit Infrastructure Act (GIA) is intended to accelerate the necessary broadband expansion by taking current technological and market developments into account and ensuring coherent and harmonized regulation in the member states.
On January 25, the Parliament, Council and Commission will continue the trilogue negotiations on the GIA. However, Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton is planning even more far-reaching changes to the market with the Digital Networks Act. He intends to present a White Paper on this on February 21.
The European Parliament, with rapporteur Alin Mituța (Renew), has made some changes to the GIA. Two points in particular are crucial. The Parliament wants:
The Council, in turn, has set its own priorities in its amendments to the Commission proposal. The Member States have, among other things:
The Commission’s proposal for tacit approval had been greeted with cheers from the industry. Likewise, that the Parliament wants to reduce the deadline for approval once again. However, the Member States have tried to turn back the clock in this and other areas, such as transitional periods and exemptions.
“Overall, we took a really positive view of the legislation,” says Jakob Greiner, Vice President for European Affairs at Deutsche Telekom, looking back. “By and large, we believe the proposal speeds up procedures for some member states and strengthens the principle of symmetrical regulation.” This means that all companies must grant each other access to their physical infrastructure at fair and reasonable prices. This means that there is no need to dig twice.
Associations such as VATM or Breko, in which Telekom’s competitors have joined forces, take a different view. They fear their business models for fiber optic expansion will not work if the market-dominant company (Telekom) can also use their physical infrastructure (keyword: superstructure). Conversely, however, Telekom is obliged to offer this to its competitors (asymmetric regulation).
Telekom considers this to be a purely German debate, as the superstructure complained about by Breko is normal in other countries. Austria has even released the wholesale broadband markets completely from regulation. Of course, Telekom would like to see the same. Overall, it fears that the Council and Parliament will ultimately reach a compromise in which the GIA fails to achieve its goal of generating more investment for faster broadband expansion.
For example, if the industry can no longer charge surcharges for calls, text messages and data transmission between EU countries. These intra-EU communication surcharges have been capped by the EU since 2019. The upper limit is 19 cents net per minute. It expires in May. However, the Commission has not made a new proposal. The Parliament thus wants to include the abolition of surcharges in the GIA. Roaming, i.e. making mobile calls in another EU country, has already been free of surcharges since 2017 – as decreed by the EU.
“Surcharges for calls to another EU country from home are very expensive and a source of confusion and annoyance for consumers,” says Ursula Pachl from the European consumer organization BEUC. She criticizes that the member states have ignored the European Parliament’s calls for a ban on surcharges. “This is long overdue in a single market and would be an important signal to show ahead of the EU elections what the EU can do for people.”
However, the surcharges for international calls within the EU are a welcome source of income for telephone providers – especially since the abolition of roaming charges. The member states apparently think the same. It remains to be seen who will prevail with which demand in the trilogue. The Council, preferring to return everything to the national discretion of the Member States, or the Parliament, which proposed some positive changes for the industry but wants to remove international surcharges. If the surcharges are removed, “then we see no advantage in the GIA,” says Greiner from Telekom.
The Digital Networks Act (DNA) will have an even greater impact on the sector than the GIA. He thinks about the telecoms sector day and night, Breton recently said at an event with CEOs of European telecoms groups. Last October in a post on Linkedin, he had already pointed to the direction he thought of: the creation of a single European market for telecommunications.
The corresponding White Paper builds on the results of last year’s consultation on the future of the connectivity sector and its infrastructure. In order to “seize the opportunities and counter the threats” arising from technological developments, the White Paper is intended to prepare a “forward-looking law on digital networks.” The Commission took a similar approach when preparing the AI Act.
In the next mandate with the DNA, the new Commission is then to define new rules for telecommunications regulation, redefine the political framework for digital infrastructures and promote investment along the entire value chain. One of Breton’s (former head of France Télécom, now Orange) concerns is that foreign investors are increasingly buying into struggling European telecommunications companies. Such as Saudi Arabia at Telefónica, the US investor KKR at Telecom Italia or the Emirates Telecom Group (Etisalat) at Vodafone.
Breton believes that the European market needs to consolidate so that European companies can keep up with the big players in markets such as the USA and China. But Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager wants to have her say. So February 21 will be exciting.
The debate about a European nuclear bomb is currently booming. Former Green Party Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer called for it in December, followed later by political scientist Herfried Münkler and Carlo Masala from the Bundeswehr University in Munich. Masala told the Funke media group: “If the Americans can no longer guarantee protection, we need a European nuclear shield.” US expert Josef Braml agrees: “Russia, which has only been weakened to a limited extent by the war in Ukraine, will remain an existential threat to Europe for the foreseeable future, which must also be deterred with European nuclear capabilities.”
Ex-NATO strategist Stefanie Babst considers such ideas to be absurd. In an interview with Table.Media, the military expert explains that it would be better to consider extending the US nuclear shield to countries such as Poland. “This is actually the logical step to take.” Politicians in Germany in particular would oppose this because they fear it would violate the NATO-Russia Founding Act of 1997. Among other things, this includes the renunciation of the stationing of nuclear weapons in the new Eastern European NATO member states. “The Russians show us every day that this agreement is dead.”
Liviu Horovitz from the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) and his former colleague Lydia Wachs (now at Stockholm University) believe it is very unlikely that the French protective shield will be extended to Europe in the foreseeable future. As early as January 2023, they analyzed the political and military challenges for this in a paper. The strategic French weapons are sufficient to destroy “political, economic and military nerve centers,” but not to strike flexibly, they write.
“France has a completely different arsenal than the US, the risks would be much greater, much more costly,” says Horovitz in an interview with Table.Media. It would “certainly take decades” for a European arsenal to have the same deterrent effect as a US arsenal, Wachs explains. And they are expensive. The French nuclear deterrent devours around a fifth of the defense budget every year. Building or expanding new structures would by far exceed these costs.
France has over 300 nuclear warheads, most of which are designed to be launched from submarines; a few can be fired from fighter planes. The British nuclear forces rely exclusively on sea-based systems and have more than 200 warheads.
The distinction between strategic and tactical nuclear weapons is crucial for the assessment of the nuclear shield for Europe. The former are not intended for direct combat. With their range of several thousand kilometers and their immense explosive power, they serve as a deterrent. The USA and Russia can reach anywhere in the world with these weapons. Tactical nuclear weapons also allow comparatively small strikes. Because France’s arsenal is inflexible, it would have to use strategic weapons – and expect a severe counter-strike.
Former NATO Assistant Secretary General for Defense Policy Heinrich Brauß therefore sees “no alternative” to a European nuclear deterrent.
In 2020, French President Emmanuel Macron said he hoped that a “strategic dialog” would emerge with European partners on the role of French nuclear deterrence in Europe. He also held out the prospect of participating in Force de Frappe exercises. So far, Germany has not responded to this invitation. However, the dialog initiative was not an offer to extend the French nuclear shield.
According to Wachs, it is “highly unlikely” that France will transfer decision-making power over its nuclear weapons to other European countries in the short to medium term. “The decision as to whether, when and how France’s vital interests are endangered and whether, when and how nuclear weapons are used is the sole responsibility of the French President in a specific threat situation that cannot be anticipated,” explains ex-NATO General Brauß. This is another reason why France is not part of the NATO nuclear command structure.
And a European nuclear shield presupposes that the states can make quick decisions together. The idea of a “common suitcase with a red button that moves between large EU countries,” as political scientist Münkler puts it, is unrealistic. Decisions at the EU level show how unlikely this is.
The alternative would therefore be an expansion of the protective shield under French responsibility, which would, however, take a “very long time,” according to Wachs. The European allies would have to trust that France would be prepared to accept major damage on its own territory to protect them, and an enemy would have to do the same. The fact that France would respond to a conventional attack by Russia on the Baltic States with the use of nuclear weapons, for example, is “very implausible” under the current conditions, says the scientist.
It is considered a foregone conclusion that the USA will shift its focus from Europe to the Indo-Pacific, regardless of whether Trump is re-elected. Horovitz considers it unrealistic that they will withdraw completely from Europe. “It’s too early to worry,” says Horovitz. It is more likely that the USA will first withdraw conventional weapons systems from Europe. “The first Trump administration primarily wanted the European NATO countries to meet the two percent target and rearm conventionally.” A debate on nuclear deterrence is important, but: “If the nuclear is gone, the conventional is long gone.”
