Emmanuel Macron’s interview on the Taiwan conflict caused a considerable stir over the weekend. With his stance on China and the United States, Macron is dividing Europe and leading the continent into geopolitical isolation, outraged CDU foreign policy expert Norbert Röttgen on Twitter. Macron is also acting against the spirit of Ursula von der Leyen’s recent policy speech, Finn Mayer-Kuckuck analyzes, showing how gratefully Macron’s interview is being received in China.
Green hydrogen and other e-fuels are intended to help the EU achieve energy independence. But project developers and machine builders see the market ramp-up of synthetic fuels threatened by hurdles to imports. Markus Grabitz knows the pitfalls for clean carbon sources.
Shortly before Easter, restrictions of a completely different kind caused unrest among NGOs and lobbyists in Brussels. The Commission restricted the information in its staff directory Whoiswho – more on this in the News.
More transparency specifically in the crypto asset markets is the topic this time in our Heads, with a portrait of EP reporter Stefan Berger.
Just hours after a feel-good trip by Emmanuel Macron together with Xi Jinping to southern China, the Chinese navy has begun a major maneuver around Taiwan. While several fleets practiced a blockade of the Taiwanese islands, Macron spoke in an interview of how Europe should “follow neither the United States nor China” on the Taiwan issue. It should go its own way and thus become the “third superpower”, the French president said in said interview with the newspaper Les Echos.
Macron thus at least contradicted the spirit of Ursula von der Leyen’s offensive speech last week. The EU Commission President called violence unacceptable in order to change the status quo in front of Xi. Instead of now also backing Taiwan in unambiguous terms, Macron signaled indifference on this issue and marked it as a power-political project of the United States. The German chancellor, unlike Macron, had clearly warned against an invasion of Taiwan, despite all the vagueness of his policy.
Several fleets had practiced between Saturday and Monday evening to encircle all of Taiwan and block shipping. Notional operational targets included an attack on the main island by an aircraft carrier group. Beijing’s naval exercise was an explicit response to Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen’s meeting with US House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy in Los Angeles late last week.
The People’s Liberation Army called the maneuver a “warning to separatist forces“. The fleets were deployed “north and south of the island of Taiwan and patrolling the sea and air space east of it”. West of Taiwan, as we know, is mainland China. Thus, all directions were covered. Unlike in August, however, no missiles flew over the Taiwanese heartland.
China was respectful enough not to start the maneuver on Thursday or Friday, when both von der Leyen and Macron were in Beijing. On Friday, Macron still made his side trip to southern Guangzhou before flying back to Paris. The trip together with Xi is seen as a special tribute to the French president. China wooed him because he came with a business delegation and was basically charming and approachable. Macron played along and was duly delighted by the hospitality.
Xi routinely used the opportunity to promote France’s move away from cooperation with the United States and towards China. Macron accommodated him with the interview by picking up on two Chinese narratives at once:
If the EU cannot solve the crisis in Ukraine, how can it do anything for Taiwan, Macron also asked fatalistically.
Macron’s words may sound appropriate in a European context and do not mark a completely new position. In fact, Europe is looking for a third, independent path. Xi, however, will chalk it up as a major success. The worst-case scenario for Chinese diplomacy and geostrategy is a firm US-European alliance. The ideal would be for Europe to unequivocally join China, but that is not going to happen. Almost as good, however, is a separation of the blocs that China can exploit situationally, especially since the Europeans are at odds among themselves. So within reason, Macron gave Xi what he wanted after the friendly visit.
In China, Macron’s words are logically understood to mean that the EU should stay out of the Taiwan issue. In fact, state media have translated Macron’s quotes as if he had said that Europe should “not become a vassal” of the United States and should not be drawn into the “confrontation between China and the United States over the Taiwan issue”. That would be the non-interference in internal affairs that China always demands. Macron made no further comment from Paris on the aggressive military exercise immediately following his visit. The EU’s External Action Service, on the other hand, did speak out, expressing “concern” about the large-scale maneuver.
The view of the US commitment to Taiwan as a mere means of power, which in Chinese reading also shone through in Macron’s speech, was also found in an opinion piece in the People’s Liberation Army newspaper (PLA Daily, 解放军报) on Monday. The US security guarantee for Taiwan is worthless, it stated. In a roundabout way, it also addressed the use of industrial decoupling as a geostrategic weapon. The US policy only serves to incite Taiwan’s residents against China, the military newspaper claimed. Events in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and Ukraine show that US promises were of no use to the respective countries and only destabilize them.
The EU is in the process of erecting trade barriers for the import of synthetic fuels. The delegated act defining the CO2 sources of RFNBO, which is currently being discussed by the co-legislators, sets higher production requirements in third countries than in the EU.
RFNBO (Renewable Fuels of Non-Biological Origin) are e-fuels for operating aircraft, ships and cars. According to REPowerEU, the EU aims to source ten million tons each of green hydrogen and its derivatives from domestic production and third countries in 2030.
And these are the restrictions that the delegated act imposes on imported RFNBO – import should not be allowed under two conditions:
Permitted is the import of
The delegated act is currently being discussed in the European Parliament’s Environment Committee (ENVI) and in the Council of Ministers. Observers assume that the co-legislators will not object to the legislative text and that it will therefore enter into force.
Within the EU, the criteria for CO2 enrichment are not as strict as elsewhere. Here, CO2 from point emissions is also permitted for a transitional period. Allowed are, for example, until 2036 CO2 from coal-fired power plants and until 2041 CO2 from industrial processes such as the production of cement and steel.
The Commission’s intention in drafting the legislation is to help “Direct Air Capture” technology achieve a breakthrough in the production of synthetic fuels. The fact is, however, that although this technology is available, the industrial costs are still too high.
If the legal act remains in place, this would have consequences: Cooperation with non-EU countries where energy from the sun and wind is abundantly available would become much more difficult. The delegated act would, for example, massively complicate the business of the H₂ Global foundation. It wants to enter into energy partnerships with sun- and wind-rich countries in the Global South for the production of RFNBO and has grants of €900 million available from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs for this purpose.
It is also still unclear what requirements the Commission will place on effective CO2 pricing, which will be a condition for imports from third countries. Would the Chinese ETS be recognized? In the US, only individual states have an Emissions Trading Scheme. Countries such as Morocco, the Gulf States or Chile and Argentina do not yet have a functioning ETS. This means that imports from these regions would be significantly more difficult or completely impossible.
Protests against the EU plans come, for example, from Thorsten Herdan, CEO EMEA of HIF. HIF has become known because the company, together with Porsche and Siemens Energy, has commissioned a demonstration plant for e-fuels in Haru Oni in Chile. HIF is currently building industrial-scale e-fuels production facilities in Chile, the US and several other locations.
Herdan calls on the EU to fundamentally revise the legal act once again: “It must not be applied in its current form with regard to the use of industrial CO2 emissions in countries outside the EU”. The delegated act would snub countries where HIF is developing projects such as Morocco, Chile, Uruguay, Australia and even the US, he said. “The EU would presume to ban them from using CO2 from industrial processes for renewable fuels, which would still be allowed within the EU”.
Herdan announces, “HIF will produce 140,000 metric tons of e-methanol, or the equivalent of 70 million liters of e-gasoline per year in Chile, starting in 2027”. He adds that it will be several years before Direct Air Capture is competitive on an industrial scale. Currently, HIF has several options for CO2 sources for production in Chile: biomass, liquid CO2 sources such as from bioethanol production in Brazil or paper mills in Chile, or industrial emissions.
Carola Kantz of the VDMA also takes a critical view of the very restrictive regulation on CO2 sources for e-fuels: “Of course, Direct Air Capture will play a major role in the future. However, it is highly questionable to set such high requirements for e-fuels already in the market ramp-up phase”.
Categorically excluding imports of carbon e-fuels from countries that do not implement ”effective CO2 pricing” excludes a large number of countries from the market ramp-up. The Commission must explain “how this barrier to trade can be overcome”, Kantz said.
One way of balancing the trade barriers would be via the CO2 Border Adjustment Mechanism CBAM. However, there are no concrete proposals for this.
It is time next week: On April 19, the European Parliament (EP) will vote in plenary on the new crypto regulation (MiCA) in Europe. The responsible rapporteur in the EP is the German Stefan Berger, for whom the European push was absolutely overdue: “The capitalization of the crypto-asset market has more than tripled in the last two years and in the meantime exceeded $2 trillion. That’s when action was needed”.
With the regulation, strong consumer protection has now been enforced, among other things. Thus, consumers would have a right to exchange – “and they can exchange their coins back into the original currency”.
According to Berger, supervision of the new crypto markets in Europe will be handled by the European Banking Authority (EBA), the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) and national supervisory authorities. “In Germany, this is the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin).” Is that enough to establish Bitcoins & Co, which are, after all, repeatedly mentioned in connection with speculation and the darknet, as a modern means of payment for everyone?
“Whether Bitcoin or other crypto assets – in the end, it should always be the market, i.e. the consumer, who decides which means of payment to use. MiCA provides the basis for the decision. The extent to which crypto-assets will be used as a means of payment or store of value in the future remains to be seen”, says Berger.
However, for the EPP man, a bankruptcy like the collapse of the crypto exchange FTX would have been different with the new regulation: “If MiCA had already been in force, there would certainly have been other instruments with which this scandal would in all likelihood not have happened like this”.
Berger is currently experiencing his first legislative term in Brussels. For the married father of a daughter, who never actually wanted to become a professional politician (“You should always have a second leg to stand on, otherwise you quickly become the plaything of party and faction.”), crypto regulation is a real highlight of his career: “With the new regulations, we are entering completely new territory. Being involved in this is something special. The fact that Europe is now moving forward here has caused a stir and recognition internationally”. The US, for example, would be well advised to “adopt MiCA content to build trust in the crypto market“.
The doctor of economics emphasizes the innovative character above all. “A framework like MiCA is an innovation booster because it creates legal certainty and trust in the crypto market. Innovations and new business models depend on this trust”. Before the 53-year-old dedicated himself to the complex crypto issue on the European stage, he was a member of the North Rhine-Westphalian state parliament for almost 20 years.
In North Rhine-Westphalia, the CDU politician, who is based in Schwalmtal on the Lower Rhine, remains the deputy state chairman of the Union of Small and Medium-Sized Businesses and the Economy. When his time permits, “which is rarely enough”, Berger likes to retreat with a book or listen to classical music.
Innovation, but also investments, especially those in a functioning infrastructure, as well as growth-promoting reforms are the key elements for Europe’s competitiveness, according to economist Berger. The EPP member, who sits on the European Parliament’s Economic and Financial Committee, will be addressing these issues intensively over the next few months when it comes to the realignment of European debt rules. For him, the thrust is clear: fine-tuning the Stability and Growth Pact may make sense, but the new set of rules must “guarantee Europe’s fiscal solidity because this is the basis of our economic strength”.
However, Berger is looking forward to the negotiations with the member states with some concern – especially those with a red-green orientation. “I’m afraid that if we don’t manage to formulate new, clear rules that are supported by numerical benchmarks, then there will be a softening, then the states will impose leeway at the expense of stability”.
The effectiveness of public funds in the future is by no means guaranteed, he said, as demonstrated by the use of funds from the “NextGenEU” program: “I once asked what initiatives were created through the grants, and no one could really give an answer”.
Reference was made only to an initiative in Spain, where EU funds were used to test the four-day week in the country. For Berger, this reinforces the impression that the states were “very happy” to use the EU subsidies to relieve the burden on national budgets.
“I’ll sum it up this way”, says the conservative, “the flash in the pan to combat the Corona pandemic has now burned out without really having any seminal economic effect. A new initiative with direct payments to the member states, financed and secured via the EU, must therefore no longer exist”.
Berger also takes a critical stance with regard to the EPP’s position on the Italian party ‘Fratelli d’Italia’. He understands the contact made by EPP Group Chairman Manfred Weber with the Italian head of government, Giorgia Meloni, in order to sound out ways to strengthen the conservatives in parliament. However, the political past of the Fratelli d’Italia is problematic, he said.
The CDU politician expects the EPP and thus also the CDU/CSU to back Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in next year’s European election campaign, should she seek a second mandate. “This is probably our only opportunity as Christian Democrats to influence European politics”.
But Berger doesn’t expect the incumbent commission chief to run a time-consuming active campaign. “She will use her notoriety qua office”. In Germany, however, he said his party will still have a face to campaign with, but the Union’s top candidate will “move into the European Parliament, but not into the Berlaymont building in Brussels“. Christof Roche
Emmanuel Macron’s interview on the Taiwan conflict caused a considerable stir over the weekend. With his stance on China and the United States, Macron is dividing Europe and leading the continent into geopolitical isolation, outraged CDU foreign policy expert Norbert Röttgen on Twitter. Macron is also acting against the spirit of Ursula von der Leyen’s recent policy speech, Finn Mayer-Kuckuck analyzes, showing how gratefully Macron’s interview is being received in China.
Green hydrogen and other e-fuels are intended to help the EU achieve energy independence. But project developers and machine builders see the market ramp-up of synthetic fuels threatened by hurdles to imports. Markus Grabitz knows the pitfalls for clean carbon sources.
Shortly before Easter, restrictions of a completely different kind caused unrest among NGOs and lobbyists in Brussels. The Commission restricted the information in its staff directory Whoiswho – more on this in the News.
More transparency specifically in the crypto asset markets is the topic this time in our Heads, with a portrait of EP reporter Stefan Berger.
Just hours after a feel-good trip by Emmanuel Macron together with Xi Jinping to southern China, the Chinese navy has begun a major maneuver around Taiwan. While several fleets practiced a blockade of the Taiwanese islands, Macron spoke in an interview of how Europe should “follow neither the United States nor China” on the Taiwan issue. It should go its own way and thus become the “third superpower”, the French president said in said interview with the newspaper Les Echos.
Macron thus at least contradicted the spirit of Ursula von der Leyen’s offensive speech last week. The EU Commission President called violence unacceptable in order to change the status quo in front of Xi. Instead of now also backing Taiwan in unambiguous terms, Macron signaled indifference on this issue and marked it as a power-political project of the United States. The German chancellor, unlike Macron, had clearly warned against an invasion of Taiwan, despite all the vagueness of his policy.
Several fleets had practiced between Saturday and Monday evening to encircle all of Taiwan and block shipping. Notional operational targets included an attack on the main island by an aircraft carrier group. Beijing’s naval exercise was an explicit response to Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen’s meeting with US House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy in Los Angeles late last week.
The People’s Liberation Army called the maneuver a “warning to separatist forces“. The fleets were deployed “north and south of the island of Taiwan and patrolling the sea and air space east of it”. West of Taiwan, as we know, is mainland China. Thus, all directions were covered. Unlike in August, however, no missiles flew over the Taiwanese heartland.
China was respectful enough not to start the maneuver on Thursday or Friday, when both von der Leyen and Macron were in Beijing. On Friday, Macron still made his side trip to southern Guangzhou before flying back to Paris. The trip together with Xi is seen as a special tribute to the French president. China wooed him because he came with a business delegation and was basically charming and approachable. Macron played along and was duly delighted by the hospitality.
Xi routinely used the opportunity to promote France’s move away from cooperation with the United States and towards China. Macron accommodated him with the interview by picking up on two Chinese narratives at once:
If the EU cannot solve the crisis in Ukraine, how can it do anything for Taiwan, Macron also asked fatalistically.
Macron’s words may sound appropriate in a European context and do not mark a completely new position. In fact, Europe is looking for a third, independent path. Xi, however, will chalk it up as a major success. The worst-case scenario for Chinese diplomacy and geostrategy is a firm US-European alliance. The ideal would be for Europe to unequivocally join China, but that is not going to happen. Almost as good, however, is a separation of the blocs that China can exploit situationally, especially since the Europeans are at odds among themselves. So within reason, Macron gave Xi what he wanted after the friendly visit.
In China, Macron’s words are logically understood to mean that the EU should stay out of the Taiwan issue. In fact, state media have translated Macron’s quotes as if he had said that Europe should “not become a vassal” of the United States and should not be drawn into the “confrontation between China and the United States over the Taiwan issue”. That would be the non-interference in internal affairs that China always demands. Macron made no further comment from Paris on the aggressive military exercise immediately following his visit. The EU’s External Action Service, on the other hand, did speak out, expressing “concern” about the large-scale maneuver.
The view of the US commitment to Taiwan as a mere means of power, which in Chinese reading also shone through in Macron’s speech, was also found in an opinion piece in the People’s Liberation Army newspaper (PLA Daily, 解放军报) on Monday. The US security guarantee for Taiwan is worthless, it stated. In a roundabout way, it also addressed the use of industrial decoupling as a geostrategic weapon. The US policy only serves to incite Taiwan’s residents against China, the military newspaper claimed. Events in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and Ukraine show that US promises were of no use to the respective countries and only destabilize them.
The EU is in the process of erecting trade barriers for the import of synthetic fuels. The delegated act defining the CO2 sources of RFNBO, which is currently being discussed by the co-legislators, sets higher production requirements in third countries than in the EU.
RFNBO (Renewable Fuels of Non-Biological Origin) are e-fuels for operating aircraft, ships and cars. According to REPowerEU, the EU aims to source ten million tons each of green hydrogen and its derivatives from domestic production and third countries in 2030.
And these are the restrictions that the delegated act imposes on imported RFNBO – import should not be allowed under two conditions:
Permitted is the import of
The delegated act is currently being discussed in the European Parliament’s Environment Committee (ENVI) and in the Council of Ministers. Observers assume that the co-legislators will not object to the legislative text and that it will therefore enter into force.
Within the EU, the criteria for CO2 enrichment are not as strict as elsewhere. Here, CO2 from point emissions is also permitted for a transitional period. Allowed are, for example, until 2036 CO2 from coal-fired power plants and until 2041 CO2 from industrial processes such as the production of cement and steel.
The Commission’s intention in drafting the legislation is to help “Direct Air Capture” technology achieve a breakthrough in the production of synthetic fuels. The fact is, however, that although this technology is available, the industrial costs are still too high.
If the legal act remains in place, this would have consequences: Cooperation with non-EU countries where energy from the sun and wind is abundantly available would become much more difficult. The delegated act would, for example, massively complicate the business of the H₂ Global foundation. It wants to enter into energy partnerships with sun- and wind-rich countries in the Global South for the production of RFNBO and has grants of €900 million available from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs for this purpose.
It is also still unclear what requirements the Commission will place on effective CO2 pricing, which will be a condition for imports from third countries. Would the Chinese ETS be recognized? In the US, only individual states have an Emissions Trading Scheme. Countries such as Morocco, the Gulf States or Chile and Argentina do not yet have a functioning ETS. This means that imports from these regions would be significantly more difficult or completely impossible.
Protests against the EU plans come, for example, from Thorsten Herdan, CEO EMEA of HIF. HIF has become known because the company, together with Porsche and Siemens Energy, has commissioned a demonstration plant for e-fuels in Haru Oni in Chile. HIF is currently building industrial-scale e-fuels production facilities in Chile, the US and several other locations.
Herdan calls on the EU to fundamentally revise the legal act once again: “It must not be applied in its current form with regard to the use of industrial CO2 emissions in countries outside the EU”. The delegated act would snub countries where HIF is developing projects such as Morocco, Chile, Uruguay, Australia and even the US, he said. “The EU would presume to ban them from using CO2 from industrial processes for renewable fuels, which would still be allowed within the EU”.
Herdan announces, “HIF will produce 140,000 metric tons of e-methanol, or the equivalent of 70 million liters of e-gasoline per year in Chile, starting in 2027”. He adds that it will be several years before Direct Air Capture is competitive on an industrial scale. Currently, HIF has several options for CO2 sources for production in Chile: biomass, liquid CO2 sources such as from bioethanol production in Brazil or paper mills in Chile, or industrial emissions.
Carola Kantz of the VDMA also takes a critical view of the very restrictive regulation on CO2 sources for e-fuels: “Of course, Direct Air Capture will play a major role in the future. However, it is highly questionable to set such high requirements for e-fuels already in the market ramp-up phase”.
Categorically excluding imports of carbon e-fuels from countries that do not implement ”effective CO2 pricing” excludes a large number of countries from the market ramp-up. The Commission must explain “how this barrier to trade can be overcome”, Kantz said.
One way of balancing the trade barriers would be via the CO2 Border Adjustment Mechanism CBAM. However, there are no concrete proposals for this.
It is time next week: On April 19, the European Parliament (EP) will vote in plenary on the new crypto regulation (MiCA) in Europe. The responsible rapporteur in the EP is the German Stefan Berger, for whom the European push was absolutely overdue: “The capitalization of the crypto-asset market has more than tripled in the last two years and in the meantime exceeded $2 trillion. That’s when action was needed”.
With the regulation, strong consumer protection has now been enforced, among other things. Thus, consumers would have a right to exchange – “and they can exchange their coins back into the original currency”.
According to Berger, supervision of the new crypto markets in Europe will be handled by the European Banking Authority (EBA), the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) and national supervisory authorities. “In Germany, this is the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin).” Is that enough to establish Bitcoins & Co, which are, after all, repeatedly mentioned in connection with speculation and the darknet, as a modern means of payment for everyone?
“Whether Bitcoin or other crypto assets – in the end, it should always be the market, i.e. the consumer, who decides which means of payment to use. MiCA provides the basis for the decision. The extent to which crypto-assets will be used as a means of payment or store of value in the future remains to be seen”, says Berger.
However, for the EPP man, a bankruptcy like the collapse of the crypto exchange FTX would have been different with the new regulation: “If MiCA had already been in force, there would certainly have been other instruments with which this scandal would in all likelihood not have happened like this”.
Berger is currently experiencing his first legislative term in Brussels. For the married father of a daughter, who never actually wanted to become a professional politician (“You should always have a second leg to stand on, otherwise you quickly become the plaything of party and faction.”), crypto regulation is a real highlight of his career: “With the new regulations, we are entering completely new territory. Being involved in this is something special. The fact that Europe is now moving forward here has caused a stir and recognition internationally”. The US, for example, would be well advised to “adopt MiCA content to build trust in the crypto market“.
The doctor of economics emphasizes the innovative character above all. “A framework like MiCA is an innovation booster because it creates legal certainty and trust in the crypto market. Innovations and new business models depend on this trust”. Before the 53-year-old dedicated himself to the complex crypto issue on the European stage, he was a member of the North Rhine-Westphalian state parliament for almost 20 years.
In North Rhine-Westphalia, the CDU politician, who is based in Schwalmtal on the Lower Rhine, remains the deputy state chairman of the Union of Small and Medium-Sized Businesses and the Economy. When his time permits, “which is rarely enough”, Berger likes to retreat with a book or listen to classical music.
Innovation, but also investments, especially those in a functioning infrastructure, as well as growth-promoting reforms are the key elements for Europe’s competitiveness, according to economist Berger. The EPP member, who sits on the European Parliament’s Economic and Financial Committee, will be addressing these issues intensively over the next few months when it comes to the realignment of European debt rules. For him, the thrust is clear: fine-tuning the Stability and Growth Pact may make sense, but the new set of rules must “guarantee Europe’s fiscal solidity because this is the basis of our economic strength”.
However, Berger is looking forward to the negotiations with the member states with some concern – especially those with a red-green orientation. “I’m afraid that if we don’t manage to formulate new, clear rules that are supported by numerical benchmarks, then there will be a softening, then the states will impose leeway at the expense of stability”.
The effectiveness of public funds in the future is by no means guaranteed, he said, as demonstrated by the use of funds from the “NextGenEU” program: “I once asked what initiatives were created through the grants, and no one could really give an answer”.
Reference was made only to an initiative in Spain, where EU funds were used to test the four-day week in the country. For Berger, this reinforces the impression that the states were “very happy” to use the EU subsidies to relieve the burden on national budgets.
“I’ll sum it up this way”, says the conservative, “the flash in the pan to combat the Corona pandemic has now burned out without really having any seminal economic effect. A new initiative with direct payments to the member states, financed and secured via the EU, must therefore no longer exist”.
Berger also takes a critical stance with regard to the EPP’s position on the Italian party ‘Fratelli d’Italia’. He understands the contact made by EPP Group Chairman Manfred Weber with the Italian head of government, Giorgia Meloni, in order to sound out ways to strengthen the conservatives in parliament. However, the political past of the Fratelli d’Italia is problematic, he said.
The CDU politician expects the EPP and thus also the CDU/CSU to back Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in next year’s European election campaign, should she seek a second mandate. “This is probably our only opportunity as Christian Democrats to influence European politics”.
But Berger doesn’t expect the incumbent commission chief to run a time-consuming active campaign. “She will use her notoriety qua office”. In Germany, however, he said his party will still have a face to campaign with, but the Union’s top candidate will “move into the European Parliament, but not into the Berlaymont building in Brussels“. Christof Roche
