With the start of the new year, Sweden took over the presidency of the Council of the EU, and Commission President Ursula von der Leyen immediately sent a New Year’s message to Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson on Twitter: “Your leadership will be crucial to preserve our unity in support of Ukraine.”
Sweden also took over numerous dossiers from the regular Brussels legislation in the Council. In her outlook on supply chains and the circular economy for 2023, my colleague Leonie Düngefeld explains what will happen in the coming months regarding the Raw Materials Act, the Supply Chain Act, ecodesign and packaging.
Our analysis of France focuses on long-term strategies in EU policy. Claire Stam breaks down how Emmanuel Macron pursues his European policy – personnel-wise, institutionally, and with political initiatives such as the carbon offset mechanism CBAM.
We have collected the EU schedule for the first half of 2023 for you at the very end of this issue: In this extra section, you will find the schedule for meetings of the Parliament, the Council and the Commission, as well as the most important events.
All the best for the New Year and a successful start into 2023!
It was one of the most intense debates of the past year: Should investments in nuclear power and natural gas be included in the green taxonomy? A veto attempt in Parliament failed; in July, MEPs voted in favor of the complementary delegated act in plenary. It now entered into force on Jan. 1. The action for annulment filed by Austria against the act before the Court of Justice of the European Union in October continues to be a tense issue (Europe.Table reported). However, it is estimated that the proceedings will drag on for at least two years.
For four of the six targets set out in the taxonomy, technical test criteria still need to be developed. These will then be defined in further delegated acts. It remains unclear when concrete proposals can be expected.
The planned EU legislative package to strengthen the supply of strategically important raw materials (Critical Raw Materials Act) is to be presented by the Commission at the end of March. Originally, this legislative package had also been announced for the end of 2022.
With it, the EU wants to secure the supply of raw materials to industrial sectors, which are vital for the energy transition and digitalization and thus for achieving the Green Deal and the Paris climate goals. The Commission wants to promote a more active raw materials policy, which other countries such as China, Japan or the USA have already been pursuing for some time. Key points and some targets and measures have already been announced (Europe.Table reported):
The Commission plans to present the draft on the Right to Repair, which has been postponed several times, in March 2023. This was announced by Ana Gallego Torres, Director-General for Justice and Consumers (DG JUST), at a hearing in the European Parliament’s Committee on Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO) in early December.
The proposed legislation aims to extend the service life of repairable consumer goods and prevent premature disposal. The Commission will likely propose extending the statutory warranty for such goods and tailoring it to individual product groups. It also wants to propose instruments to make repair more accessible and attractive to consumers after the warranty expires, for example, by making repair conditions more transparent.
The draft was originally scheduled to be presented in the summer of 2022, then at the end of November as part of the second circular economy package, but had been postponed until 2023 following a negative opinion from the internal Regulatory Scrutiny Board.
Further requirements for the reparability of products are to be set by the new Ecodesign Directive. In March 2022, the Commission presented its draft. In early December, Alessandra Moretti (S&D) presented the draft report to the Parliament’s Environment Committee. In it, she proposes to extend the scope of the directive to cover social sustainability of products as well as aspects of due diligence along the value chain, and to take into account EU climate targets as well as the overall material and consumption footprint when developing eco-design requirements, as well as to prioritize some products (such as iron, steel, aluminum or textiles). The draft is expected to be voted on in the Environment Committee in the spring.
The proposal started in the Working Party on Competitiveness and Growth. Progress was presented at the Council meetings in late September and early December. The Competitiveness Council will meet again on February 6 and March 2.
As part of the second circular economy package, the Commission presented the reform of the Regulation on Packaging and Packaging Waste in late November. With it, it wants to hold producers and member states accountable and make recycling and reuse the norm. Precise rules for compostable plastic are laid down in a second draft presented by the Commission (for more details, see our analysis).
The public consultation on the draft will run until February 14. Then the work in the Council and Parliament will also begin.
At the beginning of November, rapporteur Lara Wolters (S&D) presented the draft report for the EU Supply Chain Act in the Legal Affairs Committee, which goes far beyond the Commission proposal (Europe.Table reported). In March, the committee will vote on the report after discussing the proposed amendments; the vote in plenary is planned for May.
The Council, on the other hand, significantly toned down the Commission’s draft in its position, which it voted on at the beginning of December, and decided, for example, not to automatically include the financial sector in due diligence obligations. France prevailed with its demand (Europe.Table reported).
Emmanuel Macron is the first president to so extensively integrate European policy into France’s domestic politics, notes Eric Maurice, head of the Schuman Foundation’s Brussels branch. “We’re getting to a point where certain French ideas are much more accepted in Europe. This is the case, for example, with strategic autonomy, industrial sovereignty or carbon border adjustment,” he notes.
The history of the carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) speaks for itself: First proposed by French President Jacques Chirac and demanded by Nicolas Sarkozy, who declared that “those who produce dirty must pay,” the project of a CO2 tax at the EU borders was met with distrust by France’s European partners. François Hollande nevertheless put it on the table once again, but without further success. Then Emmanuel Macron continued to advocate the position. In Brussels, it is now a done deal.
“There is a very strong steering in Brussels coming from the Elysée Palace,” adds Eric Maurice. This Elysée dynamic is reflected in the appointments of strategic posts in Brussels: EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel both owe their positions to the French president’s intervention.
This meant that Paris could then rely on the election of Ursula von der Leyen to obtain a major EU commissioner portfolio, in this case the industrial portfolio held by Thierry Breton, according to Brussels diplomatic circles. Added to this is the appointment of Christine Lagarde as president of the European Central Bank (ECB), one diplomat points out.
The election of Pascal Canfin, a former Green Party member who switched to Renew, as chairman of the influential Envi Committee – the largest committee in the European Parliament – gives Paris influence over the Fit-for-55 “super-package”. And an eye should also be kept on the liberal group, which has moved from “Alde” to “Renew.”
“The group is under strong French influence, and there is a French management of the Renew party,” reports a French MEP. He explains that the vast majority of French MEPs in the group are serving their first mandate. “And they came in with the idea of defending the position of the Elysée Palace,” he reports. But the logic and the way things are done in the European Parliament is quite different, he emphasizes.
The parliamentarian notes that German parliamentarians will never openly say that it is necessary to defend Berlin’s position. “They will say that you have to defend the position of industry, civil society or the whole group, but not national interests. Even if that is the case, they will never say that,” he said.
The MEP also criticizes the double role of Stéphane Séjourné: that of the President of the Renew Group in Brussels and that of the Secretary-General of the Renaissance party, the new name of La République en Marche, which was founded by Emmanuel Macron. “It’s not possible to manage the party presidency in Paris and the party presidency in Brussels,” the parliamentarian laments. “You have to be 100 percent there in Brussels,” he adds, referring to the discontent of some non-French Renew MPs.
As for Pascal Canfin, in addition to his role as Chair of the Envi Committee, the former journalist has also been appointed Deputy Secretary General of Renaissance in France. The party has also entrusted him with the topic of “fair distribution of corporate profits,” which is currently hotly debated in France.
The Europeanization of French politics – and vice versa – is also noticeable among diplomats. The French president has a desire to strengthen bilateral relations between France and each of the 27 member states, according to a French diplomatic source. “This serves French positions in the Council of the European Union and the European Council,” he adds. “So we have a president who has visited each of the 27 member states,” he says. “We have negotiated action plans and strengthened bilateral relations, for example with Italy through the Treaty of Quirinal, with Germany through the Treaty of Aachen and with the Netherlands, where ministers meet regularly,” he explains.
The Élysée Palace can rely on a fundamental institutional element: the General Secretariat for European Affairs, better known in French-speaking countries by the acronym SGAE. This secretariat reports to the prime minister, who is tasked with coordinating the government’s actions, the diplomatic source explains. “In Paris, the SGAE helps us ensure the coherence of our European policy,” the diplomatic source reports.
This secretariat has been led by great experts of European machinery. SGAE’s current secretary, Laurence Boone, is an experienced specialist in European politics. As for her predecessors, Clément Beaune’s European enthusiasm and expertise in Brussels is well remembered and Philippe Leglise-Costa heads the Permanent Representation of France in Brussels.
Walburga Hemetsberger sees Europe as a pioneer in the energy transition and climate action. And the goal of defending this role – also when it comes to competitiveness. The urgency to expand renewables is just as clear to her as the competition “not only with China but also with the USA and India“. As CEO of SolarPower Europe, she describes her vision as follows: “For me, Europe means security and economic prosperity. And being innovative together.”
Born in Austria, Hemetsberger has been living in Brussels for many years. What is striking about her professional career: Her consistent connection to the energy sector. Before joining Europe’s solar energy association, she headed the Brussels office of Verbund AG, Austria’s largest utility company, and served as a board member of Hydrogen Europe. The 47-year-old studied law and business administration in Innsbruck. This background sharpens her view of the applicable legal framework in energy policy.
Even after 20 years in the EU headquarters city, Hemetsberger has not lost her Austrian dialect. However, speaking German is now something she is no longer used to due to her English-speaking work environment. She says, “I have always been a staunch European.” After graduating, she began to work for “the European cause”.
She was won over by the versatility of photovoltaics: on roofs, in the form of large solar farms, and in agriculture. Regarding PV, Europe exceeded the association’s forecasts in 2022. During the year, 41.4 gigawatts of new capacity was installed, according to SolarpowerEurope figures – enough to power 12.4 million homes.
“Solar energy is very democratic. Everyone can participate – on the roof of their own house or via a citizen’s share in the solar park. Everyone becomes an energy citizen and helps with the energy transition,” says Hemetsberger. She never tires of emphasizing that PV also makes sense in places with fewer hours of sunshine: “Together with wind, solar will be one of the two crucial technologies that will hopefully lead us out of the crisis.”
She sees the main obstacle currently in approval procedures, which are still too slow across Europe – especially in view of the huge interest in securing energy supplies. But Hemetsberger also acknowledges the small steps forward: She welcomes the options of Repowering, with which solar plants in Germany can henceforth be more easily outfitted with new, more efficient PV modules to increase the yield.
In her view, bringing workers into future-oriented technology fields is a huge opportunity. “The question is to what extent you can do that just through market-based mechanisms, or do you need steering instruments to bring the PV industry back here?” She hopes SolarPower Europe will bring solar manufacturing back to Europe. Walburga Hemetsberger knows, “Only if we produce gigawatts on a large scale in Europe can we be globally competitive at the end of the day.” Julia Klann
With the start of the new year, Sweden took over the presidency of the Council of the EU, and Commission President Ursula von der Leyen immediately sent a New Year’s message to Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson on Twitter: “Your leadership will be crucial to preserve our unity in support of Ukraine.”
Sweden also took over numerous dossiers from the regular Brussels legislation in the Council. In her outlook on supply chains and the circular economy for 2023, my colleague Leonie Düngefeld explains what will happen in the coming months regarding the Raw Materials Act, the Supply Chain Act, ecodesign and packaging.
Our analysis of France focuses on long-term strategies in EU policy. Claire Stam breaks down how Emmanuel Macron pursues his European policy – personnel-wise, institutionally, and with political initiatives such as the carbon offset mechanism CBAM.
We have collected the EU schedule for the first half of 2023 for you at the very end of this issue: In this extra section, you will find the schedule for meetings of the Parliament, the Council and the Commission, as well as the most important events.
All the best for the New Year and a successful start into 2023!
It was one of the most intense debates of the past year: Should investments in nuclear power and natural gas be included in the green taxonomy? A veto attempt in Parliament failed; in July, MEPs voted in favor of the complementary delegated act in plenary. It now entered into force on Jan. 1. The action for annulment filed by Austria against the act before the Court of Justice of the European Union in October continues to be a tense issue (Europe.Table reported). However, it is estimated that the proceedings will drag on for at least two years.
For four of the six targets set out in the taxonomy, technical test criteria still need to be developed. These will then be defined in further delegated acts. It remains unclear when concrete proposals can be expected.
The planned EU legislative package to strengthen the supply of strategically important raw materials (Critical Raw Materials Act) is to be presented by the Commission at the end of March. Originally, this legislative package had also been announced for the end of 2022.
With it, the EU wants to secure the supply of raw materials to industrial sectors, which are vital for the energy transition and digitalization and thus for achieving the Green Deal and the Paris climate goals. The Commission wants to promote a more active raw materials policy, which other countries such as China, Japan or the USA have already been pursuing for some time. Key points and some targets and measures have already been announced (Europe.Table reported):
The Commission plans to present the draft on the Right to Repair, which has been postponed several times, in March 2023. This was announced by Ana Gallego Torres, Director-General for Justice and Consumers (DG JUST), at a hearing in the European Parliament’s Committee on Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO) in early December.
The proposed legislation aims to extend the service life of repairable consumer goods and prevent premature disposal. The Commission will likely propose extending the statutory warranty for such goods and tailoring it to individual product groups. It also wants to propose instruments to make repair more accessible and attractive to consumers after the warranty expires, for example, by making repair conditions more transparent.
The draft was originally scheduled to be presented in the summer of 2022, then at the end of November as part of the second circular economy package, but had been postponed until 2023 following a negative opinion from the internal Regulatory Scrutiny Board.
Further requirements for the reparability of products are to be set by the new Ecodesign Directive. In March 2022, the Commission presented its draft. In early December, Alessandra Moretti (S&D) presented the draft report to the Parliament’s Environment Committee. In it, she proposes to extend the scope of the directive to cover social sustainability of products as well as aspects of due diligence along the value chain, and to take into account EU climate targets as well as the overall material and consumption footprint when developing eco-design requirements, as well as to prioritize some products (such as iron, steel, aluminum or textiles). The draft is expected to be voted on in the Environment Committee in the spring.
The proposal started in the Working Party on Competitiveness and Growth. Progress was presented at the Council meetings in late September and early December. The Competitiveness Council will meet again on February 6 and March 2.
As part of the second circular economy package, the Commission presented the reform of the Regulation on Packaging and Packaging Waste in late November. With it, it wants to hold producers and member states accountable and make recycling and reuse the norm. Precise rules for compostable plastic are laid down in a second draft presented by the Commission (for more details, see our analysis).
The public consultation on the draft will run until February 14. Then the work in the Council and Parliament will also begin.
At the beginning of November, rapporteur Lara Wolters (S&D) presented the draft report for the EU Supply Chain Act in the Legal Affairs Committee, which goes far beyond the Commission proposal (Europe.Table reported). In March, the committee will vote on the report after discussing the proposed amendments; the vote in plenary is planned for May.
The Council, on the other hand, significantly toned down the Commission’s draft in its position, which it voted on at the beginning of December, and decided, for example, not to automatically include the financial sector in due diligence obligations. France prevailed with its demand (Europe.Table reported).
Emmanuel Macron is the first president to so extensively integrate European policy into France’s domestic politics, notes Eric Maurice, head of the Schuman Foundation’s Brussels branch. “We’re getting to a point where certain French ideas are much more accepted in Europe. This is the case, for example, with strategic autonomy, industrial sovereignty or carbon border adjustment,” he notes.
The history of the carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) speaks for itself: First proposed by French President Jacques Chirac and demanded by Nicolas Sarkozy, who declared that “those who produce dirty must pay,” the project of a CO2 tax at the EU borders was met with distrust by France’s European partners. François Hollande nevertheless put it on the table once again, but without further success. Then Emmanuel Macron continued to advocate the position. In Brussels, it is now a done deal.
“There is a very strong steering in Brussels coming from the Elysée Palace,” adds Eric Maurice. This Elysée dynamic is reflected in the appointments of strategic posts in Brussels: EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel both owe their positions to the French president’s intervention.
This meant that Paris could then rely on the election of Ursula von der Leyen to obtain a major EU commissioner portfolio, in this case the industrial portfolio held by Thierry Breton, according to Brussels diplomatic circles. Added to this is the appointment of Christine Lagarde as president of the European Central Bank (ECB), one diplomat points out.
The election of Pascal Canfin, a former Green Party member who switched to Renew, as chairman of the influential Envi Committee – the largest committee in the European Parliament – gives Paris influence over the Fit-for-55 “super-package”. And an eye should also be kept on the liberal group, which has moved from “Alde” to “Renew.”
“The group is under strong French influence, and there is a French management of the Renew party,” reports a French MEP. He explains that the vast majority of French MEPs in the group are serving their first mandate. “And they came in with the idea of defending the position of the Elysée Palace,” he reports. But the logic and the way things are done in the European Parliament is quite different, he emphasizes.
The parliamentarian notes that German parliamentarians will never openly say that it is necessary to defend Berlin’s position. “They will say that you have to defend the position of industry, civil society or the whole group, but not national interests. Even if that is the case, they will never say that,” he said.
The MEP also criticizes the double role of Stéphane Séjourné: that of the President of the Renew Group in Brussels and that of the Secretary-General of the Renaissance party, the new name of La République en Marche, which was founded by Emmanuel Macron. “It’s not possible to manage the party presidency in Paris and the party presidency in Brussels,” the parliamentarian laments. “You have to be 100 percent there in Brussels,” he adds, referring to the discontent of some non-French Renew MPs.
As for Pascal Canfin, in addition to his role as Chair of the Envi Committee, the former journalist has also been appointed Deputy Secretary General of Renaissance in France. The party has also entrusted him with the topic of “fair distribution of corporate profits,” which is currently hotly debated in France.
The Europeanization of French politics – and vice versa – is also noticeable among diplomats. The French president has a desire to strengthen bilateral relations between France and each of the 27 member states, according to a French diplomatic source. “This serves French positions in the Council of the European Union and the European Council,” he adds. “So we have a president who has visited each of the 27 member states,” he says. “We have negotiated action plans and strengthened bilateral relations, for example with Italy through the Treaty of Quirinal, with Germany through the Treaty of Aachen and with the Netherlands, where ministers meet regularly,” he explains.
The Élysée Palace can rely on a fundamental institutional element: the General Secretariat for European Affairs, better known in French-speaking countries by the acronym SGAE. This secretariat reports to the prime minister, who is tasked with coordinating the government’s actions, the diplomatic source explains. “In Paris, the SGAE helps us ensure the coherence of our European policy,” the diplomatic source reports.
This secretariat has been led by great experts of European machinery. SGAE’s current secretary, Laurence Boone, is an experienced specialist in European politics. As for her predecessors, Clément Beaune’s European enthusiasm and expertise in Brussels is well remembered and Philippe Leglise-Costa heads the Permanent Representation of France in Brussels.
Walburga Hemetsberger sees Europe as a pioneer in the energy transition and climate action. And the goal of defending this role – also when it comes to competitiveness. The urgency to expand renewables is just as clear to her as the competition “not only with China but also with the USA and India“. As CEO of SolarPower Europe, she describes her vision as follows: “For me, Europe means security and economic prosperity. And being innovative together.”
Born in Austria, Hemetsberger has been living in Brussels for many years. What is striking about her professional career: Her consistent connection to the energy sector. Before joining Europe’s solar energy association, she headed the Brussels office of Verbund AG, Austria’s largest utility company, and served as a board member of Hydrogen Europe. The 47-year-old studied law and business administration in Innsbruck. This background sharpens her view of the applicable legal framework in energy policy.
Even after 20 years in the EU headquarters city, Hemetsberger has not lost her Austrian dialect. However, speaking German is now something she is no longer used to due to her English-speaking work environment. She says, “I have always been a staunch European.” After graduating, she began to work for “the European cause”.
She was won over by the versatility of photovoltaics: on roofs, in the form of large solar farms, and in agriculture. Regarding PV, Europe exceeded the association’s forecasts in 2022. During the year, 41.4 gigawatts of new capacity was installed, according to SolarpowerEurope figures – enough to power 12.4 million homes.
“Solar energy is very democratic. Everyone can participate – on the roof of their own house or via a citizen’s share in the solar park. Everyone becomes an energy citizen and helps with the energy transition,” says Hemetsberger. She never tires of emphasizing that PV also makes sense in places with fewer hours of sunshine: “Together with wind, solar will be one of the two crucial technologies that will hopefully lead us out of the crisis.”
She sees the main obstacle currently in approval procedures, which are still too slow across Europe – especially in view of the huge interest in securing energy supplies. But Hemetsberger also acknowledges the small steps forward: She welcomes the options of Repowering, with which solar plants in Germany can henceforth be more easily outfitted with new, more efficient PV modules to increase the yield.
In her view, bringing workers into future-oriented technology fields is a huge opportunity. “The question is to what extent you can do that just through market-based mechanisms, or do you need steering instruments to bring the PV industry back here?” She hopes SolarPower Europe will bring solar manufacturing back to Europe. Walburga Hemetsberger knows, “Only if we produce gigawatts on a large scale in Europe can we be globally competitive at the end of the day.” Julia Klann
