Meloni’s Promise + Deal in Port Dispute + New Details on Euro 7
Meloni pledges support for NATO and Ukraine
New deal in dispute over Hamburg port?
What is ailing Franco-German relations?
Scholz and von der Leyen invite to reconstruction conference
Commission wants blank check to tighten Euro 7 retroactively
EU plans strategic partnership with Kazakhstan
Presidential election in Slovenia: defeat for new government
Heads: Thorsten Müller – New legal paths for climate
Apéro: Energy policy theater between Council and Commission
Dear reader,
On Saturday, London’s inner city was a sea of EU flags. “We want our star back,” one banner said. In Britain, thousands demonstrated for re-entry into the EU at the National Rejoin March amid political and economic chaos.
Meanwhile, a duel between ex-Prime Minister Boris Johnson and ex-Finance Minister Rishi Sunak emerged in the power tussle for the chairmanship of the Tory Party, yesterday. Nominations can be received until this afternoon. She was not worried that Johnson could win again, one protester told the Guardian: “That would be absolutely brilliant because then he would be the last nail in the Tory coffin.”
Further to Europe’s south, an election has long been decided. Over the weekend, the new center-right government under Giorgia Meloniwassworn in. In her analysis, Isabel Cuesta Camacho looks primarily at the foreign policy signals of the right-wing prime minister. She promises to work closely with European and NATO allies. But will she succeed in a coalition with Matteo Salvini and Silvio Berlusconi, two friends of Putin?
It is complicated between Germany and France: One obvious symptom is the postponement of the Franco-German Council of Ministers that was supposed to take place this week. Now, Chancellor Scholz is flying to Paris alone on Wednesday to smooth the waters. The reasons lie not only in substantive differences, writes Till Hoppe – Scholz and Macron are finding it difficult to establish a good working relationship.
“Other than marching on Rome, I will have to march on Gazprom.” With this phrase addressed to her team, Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s first woman Prime Minister, underlined the attitude with which she will face the biggest obstacle on her way to the top of the executive branch (the energy crisis and galloping inflation) while making an unmistakable reference to Mussolini’s seizure of power in 1922.
Meloni pledged her support for NATO, common European goals, and Ukraine on Saturday after being sworn into office by President Sergio Mattarella. Her pro-European and pro-Western stance sets her apart from her coalition partners Matteo Salvini of Lega Nord and Silvio Berlusconi of Forza Italia, two avowed friends of Putin.
“Italy is a vital NATO ally and close partner,” a congratulatory message from US President Biden said. Meloni thanked him and US Secretary of State Blinken on her Twitter account, “Thank you Antony Blinken. You know that the United States and all of our NATO partners can count on us to provide the best possible support to the brave Ukrainian people and to strengthen our strategic partnership.”
Coalition with two friends of Putin
On Saturday, Meloni had an initial telephone conversation with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, in which the two politicians confirmed their cooperation in addressing the critical challenges Europe is facing.
While Meloni’s Atlanticist policies were not in question, her pro-European stance only emerged in the final months before the elections and after her election victory. Her coalition partners Salvini and Berlusconi are two acknowledged friends of Putin who made unequivocal statements in support of Russian policies. In secretly recorded audios leaked to the media, Berlusconi claimed last week that he “restarted his friendship with Putin.” This prompted Meloni to reiterate her pro-European, pro-NATO position and support for Ukraine.
In the Sept. 25 election, Meloni won 26 percent of the vote. Five years earlier, the party garnered only four percent of the vote and was content with a supporting role in the right-wing coalition. Now Meloni leads a coalition of the three parties that occupied the center-right spectrum in Italy for the past two decades. A government with the offices of two vice presidents in the hands of Matteo Salvini and Antonio Tajani, Berlusconi’s right-hand man and former President of the EU Parliament.
Draghi’s crisis course to continue
Forza Italia was supposed to be the guarantor of a moderate international policy consistent with the Western agenda. In a television interview before the general election, Berlusconi said that Europe expected him and his party to lead a “liberal, pro-European and Atlanticist government.” The audios of the 86-year-old billionaire, who has already been indicted once for tax fraud, raise questions about how Meloni can keep her promise to maintain Italy’s support for Ukraine with such a Putin-friendly coalition partner. It is primarily Tajani’s responsibility to maintain this pro-European moderate guarantor and actively condemn Russia’s incursion into Ukraine.
Meloni’s main tasks are drafting a budget that curbs inflation and working with European partners to address the energy crisis. To this end, Meloni has chosen to reinforce the line previously drawn by Mario Draghi’s government. This means that there will be little experimentation in key ministerial portfolios.
Some of the new ministers already gathered experience in previous governments: New Finance Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti of the Lega Nord was Minister of Economic Development under Draghi, as was Tajani, now Vice President and Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Matteo Salvini, now also Minister of Infrastructures, who was already Vice President and Minister of the Interior in Giuseppe Conte’s first government. Meloni herself was Youth Minister under Berlusconi, who left Italy on the brink of bankruptcy eleven years ago. Now she succeeded in bringing the center-right parties back to Palazzo Chigi.
Anti-abortion activist as Family Minister
The more conservative and right-wing line of the government of the first female Prime Minister in the history of Italy was implemented in the Ministries of Education and Family. The new Ministry of Family, Birth, and Equal Opportunities is a statement of intent. Here, the anti-abortion policy disguised as birth promotion is deployed, and Meloni’s basic idea about family is underscored: A family can only consist of a father and a mother. The new Head of Ministry is Eugenia Rocella, a staunch anti-abortionist, paradoxically the daughter of one of the party founders of the Partito Radicale, which built its ideology on the right to abortion.
Although some ministries will not change significantly, the new Prime Minister aimed to rename them to make clear what she expects. For example, the Education Ministry will also be called the Ministry of Education and Merit (Istruzione e Merito). Merit is one of the values she proclaimed recently, including the promotion of women to key administrative positions. “Performance, not quotas,” as Meloni often says. The Ministry of Sports will also be the Ministry of Youth, which means that this is one of the values that must be promoted in the face of “youth deviations.”
The Ministry of Environmental Transition, the cornerstone of the previous government’s post-pandemic recovery plan (PNRR), will be renamed the Ministry of Energy Security. It is headed by a Forza Italia representative and, under the new name, seeks energy autonomy and an end to the dependency created by previous governments. The former Ministry of Economic Development is now called the Ministry of Economic Development and Made in Italy.
Energy
Energy policy
Italy
Ukraine
Port dispute: New deal without blocking minority for Cosco
A compromise is emerging in the dispute over the sale of shares in a container terminal of the majority state-owned Port of Hamburg to China. The new deal envisages that the Chinese port operator Cosco, which is also state-owned, will receive only 24.9 percent of the shares instead of the 35 percent previously planned. This is what China.Table learned from negotiating circles. The remaining 10 percent in the terminal will be withheld for the time being. Their transfer is only possible aft
Sources in the German government say that this is one of the possible options being considered by the government. However, the decision is not yet final.
Proponents of the project hope that this compromise will defuse the two most important arguments against the takeover. Chinese influence would be contained, because shareholders only have a veto right above a stake of 25 percent. However, the veto right would only have applied to the smallest of the Port of Hamburg’s four container terminals. Now that is apparently off the table. This means that China would have virtually no influence on the actual port operations. At most, Cosco could influence the volume of containers handled at the Tollerort terminal, whose ships already call at the terminal frequently. So its position as an important customer is strong.
The stake is sold by the public-owned terminal company Hamburger Hafen und Logistik AG (HHLA) – not to be confused with the port operator. At issue is Cosco Shipping Ports Limited’s (CSPL) stake in HHLA’s Container Terminal Tollerort (CTT) GmbH subsidiary. HHLA does not see any threat to the security of the country in this regard. It nevertheless felt compelled to reiterate its position on Thursday. “HHLA AG retains sole control over all major decisions,” it said in a press release. Tollerort-Gmbh is “ultimately an operating facility.” Cosco has no exclusive rights there, it said. “The terminal will remain open to container volumes from all customers.” Cosco will not gain access to strategic know-how: And, “The port infrastructure will remain the property of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg. IT and sales data will remain the sole responsibility of HHLA AG.”
HHLA also stressed that it knew nothing of any opposition from six federal ministries and added: “The account that the EU is supposed to have objected to the cooperation is not correct. The antitrust permission was granted by relevant authorities.”
Political mood underestimated
However, HHLA also made mistakes from the very beginning, which German Chancellor Olaf Scholz now has to pay for. The port company should never have promised such a large number of shares to the Chinese state-owned enterprise. But everyone involved, from HHLA itself to the port operators to the Hanseatic City Senate, saw above all a good deal: First, HHLA would profit from the sale of the shares, then from Cosco’s increasing container traffic. The world’s third-largest shipping company made $14 billion in profits in 2021 alone. Tollerort would become a “preferred hub” of Cosco as a result of the deal, HHLA announced in 2021. (China.Table reported)
The Port of Hamburg, in turn, expects the deal to increase its handling volume and strengthen its position toward rival ports along the North Sea: it already has been losing market share for years, especially to competitors such as Rotterdam and Antwerp.
At least the Port of Hamburg managed to gain market share in the first half of 2022. And this was primarily due to cooperation with China. While business with the USA slumped by 3.9 percent, business with China increased by 5.8 percent. Nevertheless, Rotterdam alone handles more containers than all German ports combined. In 2021, the Dutch location handled almost twice the volume of the Port of Hamburg.
Rotterdam’s success is due in no small part to Cosco. Cosco has held a 35 percent stake in Euromax Terminal in Rotterdam since 2016, without any political problems to date. This led HHLA to the false assumption that an equally high stake would not be a problem in Germany either – in an incorrect assessment of the political climate. Germany, an export nation, is much more dependent on China than the Netherlands. And the Germans have been very sensitive to these dependencies, especially since the start of the Ukraine war – even though the deal itself was signed just over a year ago, long before the Russian invasion.
Terminal investments are routine in the industry
On top of that, the situation is very complex. Shareholdings like Tollerort or Rotterdam are standard international practice. It would be Cosco’s 90th international stake in a port. Cosco also holds stakes in the US ports of Miami, Houston, Long Beach, Los Angeles and Seattle, without any political controversy over them. This has not stopped Washington from putting pressure on Germany behind the scenes against the deal.
Chinese investors are also already heavily involved in Europe. Cosco and its sister company China Merchants own terminals or even shares in entire port operating companies in 14 European ports – from Rotterdam and Antwerp to Le Havre, Bilbao, Valencia, Marseille and Malta. Cosco is one of the world’s largest port operators. The state-owned company even holds a majority stake in the Greek port of Piraeus (100 percent) and in the ports of Zeebrugge (85 percent) and Valencia (51 percent). In Antwerp, it holds less than 25 percent. In Wilhelmshaven, the China Logistic Group leased land for 99 years to build a logistics center in the Jade-Weser Port – and paid €100 million for it.
In addition, the situation is very complex. Shareholdings like Tollerort or Rotterdam are common internationally. It would be Cosco’s ninety-eighth international stake in a port. Cosco also has stakes in the US ports of Miami, Houston, Long Beach, Los Angeles and Seattle, with no political disputes over them. That hasn’t stopped Washington from putting pressure behind the scenes in Germany against the deal.
Cosco’s stake in Le Havre could also be the reason why France opposed the Hamburg deal. Above all, they fear that Cosco will draw business away from France to Germany. Of course, this is not what France’s President Emmanuel Macron said directly. He calls for “new rules of the game” for investments from China. The goal is to preserve strategic autonomy. We want to be able to continue to invest in China and have Chinese partners as long as it doesn’t touch the area of strategic autonomy, Macron said last Friday after the EU summit in Brussels.
Scholz wants ‘European ports initiative’
As China.Table learned, Scholz now wants to initiate a “European port initiative”. It is intended to prevent China from successfully playing off one European port operator against the other. If the EU finally spoke with one voice on this issue, that would not be possible.
The chancellor’s office thus seeks a compromise on share reduction and, at the same time, an EU alliance. This dual strategy is somewhat reminiscent of the NATO Double-Track Decision devised by then-Chancellor Helmut Schmidt in the 1980s: weaken the deal, but finalize it, and at the same time strive for disarmament. At that time, disarmament negotiations were started while new nuclear missiles were deployed. This strategy proved to be very successful.
With the initiative, Chancellor Olaf Scholz would address the concerns of his government coalition partners. The Greens, in particular, are ultimately opposed to an expansion of Chinese influence at this critical time. “The port of Hamburg is not just any port, after all,” said Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock. It is one of the key ports not only for Germany as an export nation but for Europe as a whole, she said. “We have to ask ourselves with every investment in German critical infrastructure what that could mean at that moment when China would turn against us as a democracy and community of values,” Baerbock said. Her party colleague, German Economy Minister Robert Habeck, also openly opposed the deal. He fears that “China will influence trade and the political direction of the port.”
The FDP also expresses concerns: The “enormous dependence” of the German economy on China is “depressing,” said Finance Minister Christian Lindner. His party colleague Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann said: “Selling critical infrastructure to China is a blatant mistake and should be stopped.”
Port participation a topic for the Chancellor’s trip
And the opposition also argues against the deal, albeit with false arguments: “German ports do not belong in Chinese hands. Especially since Europeans cannot acquire stakes in ports in China,” says Jens Spahn, Deputy Chairman of the conservative CDU/CSU parliamentary group. In reality, however, there is no such restriction in China. According to China.Table information from Hainan’s capital Haikou, HHLA and other Western port operators are currently in talks about acquiring a stake in the new port there, which is under construction for $1.5 billion.
What is also important now is a public signal that Cosco agrees with the solution. The state-owned company already emphasized that it is not interested in the veto right, but above all in new business. This is the word from the company in Beijing.
Time is short, because next Wednesday is the last meeting of the German government where this issue can be put on the agenda. The Foreign Trade and Payments Act stipulates that the government must raise concerns about a foreign investor’s purchase offer within four months. The deadline expires on October 31.
What is included on the agenda, however, is ultimately decided by the Chancellor. This leaves Scholz with the option of approving the deal by simply not addressing it. However, that would put a lot of strain on the climate in the governing coalition. That is why Scholz is looking for a compromise here, too. After all, in the dispute over the extended use of nuclear power in Germany, Scholz already put his foot down as chancellor to push through an extension until April against Habeck’s will. He cannot afford such an approach as often as he likes.
The discussion about the Port of Hamburg also comes at a highly inconvenient time. Scholz will travel to Beijing on Nov. 4. In the Chinese capital, the sign-off of this port participation is seen as a gesture of goodwill for a successful visit. If things go well, a deal on the purchase of 350 Airbus aircraft is also on the cards, China.Table learned. China’s Foreign Ministry, meanwhile, placed the port deal in the context of the good economic relations of the past 50 years. So there is a lot at stake. Frank Sieren
Germany and France rarely see eye to eye, at least not right away. The two most important EU states have diverging interests, and reconciling them has not always been possible in the past. Rarely, however, have the efforts failed as much as they did last week.
The postponement of the Franco-German Council of Ministers, scheduled originally for Wednesday, alarmed even experienced observers of the bilateral relationship. There have also been difficult periods under Chancellor Angela Merkel and President François Hollande, says a traffic light politician. He adds, instead of canceling the Council of Ministers and speaking badly about each other, they dealt with the differences of opinion professionally at the time.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz will now travel to Paris alone. He agreed with President Emmanuel Macron that the issues, some of which have been disputed for years, should finally be decided, Scholz said after the European Council on Friday. On some, he said, “a bit of work is still needed, but that’s not so surprising given the years of lead time.”
Scholz and Macron are reportedly having difficulties in establishing a good working relationship. The cool Hanseatic Scholz clashes with an extroverted (in France, many say: autocratic) president. It is still difficult to assess Scholz’s personality, says a senior diplomat in Paris.
The chancellor’s sparse style of communication also makes it difficult for him to find allies in the European Council: According to participants, the chancellor speaks out quite rarely in the round of heads of state and government, and when he does, he often says no. Another observer reports, his predecessor, Angela Merkel, exerted a lot of influence via informal talks on the sidelines of the summits. Scholz, however, had a hard time doing so.
Sometimes Berlin simply lacks intuition regarding the sensitivities of its EU partners. During the tough negotiations on the energy “defense umbrella,” those responsible in the Chancellor’s Office and the European policy coordination houses, Economics, and the Foreign Office failed to inform the other governments about the 200-billion-package in advance. And in doing so, they unnecessarily offended them, as many actors in Berlin admit.
Limited room for maneuver
As the weeks-long dispute over the remaining three nuclear power plants demonstrated, the traffic light coalition is already very preoccupied with itself. This is causing additional irritation in Paris and other capitals: It is difficult to assess the balance of power in the German government, says a French government official.
Foreign diplomats in Berlin repeatedly complain that they receive different answers when they ask the SPD-led chancellery, the Green Economy Ministry, or the FDP-led Finance Ministry. “Is there actually one German government or several?” asks one diplomat.
Some observers already long for the Merkel era, when her European policy adviser Uwe Corsepius firmly held the reins in the chancellor’s office. In the coalition agreement, the partners had undertaken to improve coordination on European policy. Anna Lührmann, Minister of State for Europe in the Foreign Office, recently conceded, that there was “definitely room for improvement” in coordination within the government. Especially in the informal discussions in the Council, for example on energy issues, Berlin finds it difficult to position itself proactively.
But Macron, too, has long lost the freedom of action he enjoyed during his first term in office. His Renaissance Party lost its majority in the National Assembly, and pressure from the street is growing. One observer in Berlin says that the president no longer represents great ideas, but only hard-core French interests.
Emmanuel Macron
European policy
Germany
Olaf Scholz
News
Scholz and von der Leyen invite to Conference on Reconstruction
As President of the G7 round, Chancellor Olaf Scholz joined EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in inviting participants to an International Expert Conference on the Recovery, Reconstruction and Modernization of Ukraine on Tuesday. “The point is that we are now sending a signal of hope, in the midst of the horror of war, that things are looking up again,” Scholz said.
Scholz sees the reconstruction of Ukraine after the end of Russia’s war of aggression as a decades-long task for the global community. “We will have to invest a lot to make this work,” Scholz said in his video podcast released Saturday ahead of reconstruction conferences for Ukraine this Monday and Tuesday in Berlin. He said, Ukraine, as well as the European Union, could not do it alone. He added: “Only the whole world community, which is now supporting Ukraine, can do it. And it must do it for a long time.”
In a joint guest article for the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung,” Scholz and von der Leyen also called for a “Marshall Plan” for Ukraine – which would be a generational task that had to begin immediately. With the Marshall Plan, the US financed reconstruction in Germany and other European countries with billions of US dollars between 1948 and 1952. The two politicians stressed, supporting Ukraine was also in the interests of the EU.
Germany currently chairs the G7 group, which includes France, Italy, Japan, Canada, the United States, and Great Britain. dpa/leo
European policy
Olaf Scholz
Ursula von der Leyen
Commission wants blank check to tighten Euro 7 retroactively
The Commission wants the right to tighten Euro 7 five years after it came into force. That’s according to the draft for the next stage of pollutant regulation for cars, trucks, and buses, which Europe.Table reported on Friday. Accordingly, the 110-page legislative text provides that the Commission can independently tighten limit values, boundary conditions, and test procedures over a period of five years. It apparently aims the approvement for authorization from the co-legislators in the legislative process. A blank check for changes after a standard has come into force without control by Parliament and member states would be a novelty. The industry would have no legal certainty in investment decisions.
As Europe.Table reported the draft for Euro 7 does not yet contain detailed limit values. However, it is foreseeable that Euro 7 will result in technically and financially feasible limits for cars and vans. The Commission announced that it would consider the difficult economic situation and the transformation costs for manufacturers. Therefore, limit values that were not significantly stricter than today would be proposed. A more detailed analysis now revealed that the draft provides for a significant tightening of the limits for certain vans. Manufacturers note as positive that the Commission is not proposing limits for nitrous oxide, methane, ethanol, and NMOG for passenger cars and commercial vehicles weighing up to 3.5 metric tons.
But as reported, the limits the Commission plans for trucks are, according to the draft, technically very demanding. There would be a need for high investment sums to comply with them. Experts say some limits cannot be met, even with sophisticated technology. mgr
Car Industry
Climate & Environment
Emissions
Green Deal
EU plans strategic partnership with Kazakhstan
The EU and Kazakhstan are expected to sign a strategic partnership agreement on sustainable raw materials, batteries, and green hydrogen in November. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev exchanged views on these plans in a video conference on Saturday. “We welcomed the agreement on our strategic partnership on sustainable raw materials, batteries and renewable hydrogen,” von der Leyen commented on the conversation on Twitter. The commission will now start working on a roadmap, a spokeswoman told Europe.Table. The two partners are expected to sign the agreement in November.
The website of Kazakhstan’s president said von der Leyen and Tokayev discussed “prospects for the development of an expanded strategic partnership.” “Special attention was placed on the interaction in trade and economic, investment, transport and logistics spheres.” The EU’s Global Gateway strategy for investment in global infrastructure could play an important role in strengthening ties between the EU and Central Asia, von der Leyen added in her post on Twitter. leo
Battery
Energy
Hydrogen
Raw materials
Slovenian presidential election: defeat for new government
In the Slovenian presidential election on Sunday, no candidate achieved the necessary absolute majority. In a runoff election on Nov. 13, conservative candidate Anze Logar will run against the non-party lawyer and human rights activist Natasa Pirc Musar. According to the election commission, this became apparent after a good 70 percent of the votes were counted.
The election was disappointing for the left-liberal government of Prime Minister Robert Golob, which has been in office since May of this year. The presidential candidate Milan Brglez, supported by his alliance, came in third by a wide margin.
The Head of State in Slovenia indeed has more protocol powers. However, the election was seen as the first test run for the new government. The current president, Social Democrat Borut Pahor, was not allowed to run again after two terms in office. dpa
Heads
Thorsten Müller – New Legal Paths for Climate
Thorsten Müller is Chairman of the Stiftung Umweltenergierecht.
“The transformation is not only about changing societies, but also about breaking down thought structures in law,” says Thorsten Müller. He is Chairman of the Stiftung Umweltenergierecht (Environmental Energy Law Foundation), which he established in 2011. The scientists at the Würzburg-based foundation are looking into needed changes in the legal framework to achieve energy and climate policy goals.
Müller rejects any prohibitions on thinking. His appeal is to look at the entire solution space. He moved the foundation into a new building a year and a half ago: with lots of wood and glass, bright and inspiring. “It’s a good place to think – which isn’t all bad for a scientist,” jokes the 48-year-old.
Instrument for social change
Müller advises the federal and state governments in climate policy transformation and related legal issues. He is also an active author and speaker. Behind the Stiftung Umweltenergierecht lies the realization “that the energy transition is something technical, economic, social, but this will ultimately only be shaped in a meaningful way if the legal framework evolves,” says Müller. He sees this as a mammoth task.
The scientist’s goal is to show possible ways that make changes achievable. Looking at our society, he notes that this only works “quite tenaciously” because Germans do not necessarily value change and would only implement it if it could not be avoided. “That’s a particularly bad advisor when it comes to climate protection,” the law graduate adds.
EU sometimes a brake block, sometimes an innovator
“Europe works a little differently. Significantly slower in normal cases because you have to take all the member states with you,” he says. This leads to political compromises, detours, and sometimes even wrong turns. Conversely, Europe is sometimes more forward-looking, for example with the promotion of renewables – and the opinion that this form of supply will at some point be the cheaper, more suitable variant for the future. In this country, on the other hand, small things are discussed very controversially. Müller sees the Green Deal as a very determined departure in the direction of climate neutrality. In Müller’s view, the member states will play a decisive role in determining whether climate protection takes place and succeeds.
As a lecturer at Leuphana University in Lüneburg, Müller sees knowledge as part of a discourse. He is currently lecturing on a part-time course introducing environmental and energy law. He finds it enriching to talk to many people who are themselves professionally active in this field. Born in Lower Saxony, he likes to spend his free time in the mountains and made Würzburg his adopted home. Julia Klann
Climate & Environment
Climate Policy
Energy
Environmental protection
Apéro
Since the outbreak of the energy crisis, a special kind of political theater has been taking place in Brussels: the sham rapprochements between the Council and the Commission. This could be observed once again at the EU Council meeting this early Friday morning. On the one hand, there are the pseudo work orders from the member states: once again, the Council asked the Commission to present measures that the Berlaymont long since proposed. Whether joint gas procurement or the new price index for LNG imports – thanks for pointing that out, already in the works. It becomes completely absurd when the member states demand things from the Commission that they themselves have been dilly-dallying over – and for years at that: for example, faster permits for renewables or solidarity agreements for a gas emergency.
Of course, the Council is about political signals, whether a majority of EU capitals actually support the Commission’s proposals. Some measures, such as the price cap for gas and gas-fired power generation, were proposed by Ursula von der Leyen and Kadri Simson only after massive pressure from some member states. But both sides are trying to gloss over the fact that they remain miles apart. Von der Leyen wanted assurances from the Council that the gas price cap would only come into force if the states agreed to eight conditions. She could not have set the hurdles any higher. Formally, von der Leyen received this assurance from the Council.
The summit declaration explicitly refers to the second paragraph of Article 23, which formulates many reasons why the gas price cap is a terrible idea. It is still completely unclear whether and how the Commission officials will be able to remove these obstacles – such as not boosting gas consumption. There are probably only two alternatives: Either both sides admit that they cannot find a solution that meets all the preconditions. In that case, the Commission’s hurdles and the Council’s approval would have been mere political theater.
Even more likely: The result will be a dangerous experiment with the internal energy market that jeopardizes the security of supply or leads to even higher costs. It is to be hoped that both sides will take enough time to weigh the consequences of their decisions. Manuel Berkel
Scholz and von der Leyen invite to reconstruction conference
Commission wants blank check to tighten Euro 7 retroactively
EU plans strategic partnership with Kazakhstan
Presidential election in Slovenia: defeat for new government
Heads: Thorsten Müller – New legal paths for climate
Apéro: Energy policy theater between Council and Commission
Dear reader,
On Saturday, London’s inner city was a sea of EU flags. “We want our star back,” one banner said. In Britain, thousands demonstrated for re-entry into the EU at the National Rejoin March amid political and economic chaos.
Meanwhile, a duel between ex-Prime Minister Boris Johnson and ex-Finance Minister Rishi Sunak emerged in the power tussle for the chairmanship of the Tory Party, yesterday. Nominations can be received until this afternoon. She was not worried that Johnson could win again, one protester told the Guardian: “That would be absolutely brilliant because then he would be the last nail in the Tory coffin.”
Further to Europe’s south, an election has long been decided. Over the weekend, the new center-right government under Giorgia Meloniwassworn in. In her analysis, Isabel Cuesta Camacho looks primarily at the foreign policy signals of the right-wing prime minister. She promises to work closely with European and NATO allies. But will she succeed in a coalition with Matteo Salvini and Silvio Berlusconi, two friends of Putin?
It is complicated between Germany and France: One obvious symptom is the postponement of the Franco-German Council of Ministers that was supposed to take place this week. Now, Chancellor Scholz is flying to Paris alone on Wednesday to smooth the waters. The reasons lie not only in substantive differences, writes Till Hoppe – Scholz and Macron are finding it difficult to establish a good working relationship.
“Other than marching on Rome, I will have to march on Gazprom.” With this phrase addressed to her team, Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s first woman Prime Minister, underlined the attitude with which she will face the biggest obstacle on her way to the top of the executive branch (the energy crisis and galloping inflation) while making an unmistakable reference to Mussolini’s seizure of power in 1922.
Meloni pledged her support for NATO, common European goals, and Ukraine on Saturday after being sworn into office by President Sergio Mattarella. Her pro-European and pro-Western stance sets her apart from her coalition partners Matteo Salvini of Lega Nord and Silvio Berlusconi of Forza Italia, two avowed friends of Putin.
“Italy is a vital NATO ally and close partner,” a congratulatory message from US President Biden said. Meloni thanked him and US Secretary of State Blinken on her Twitter account, “Thank you Antony Blinken. You know that the United States and all of our NATO partners can count on us to provide the best possible support to the brave Ukrainian people and to strengthen our strategic partnership.”
Coalition with two friends of Putin
On Saturday, Meloni had an initial telephone conversation with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, in which the two politicians confirmed their cooperation in addressing the critical challenges Europe is facing.
While Meloni’s Atlanticist policies were not in question, her pro-European stance only emerged in the final months before the elections and after her election victory. Her coalition partners Salvini and Berlusconi are two acknowledged friends of Putin who made unequivocal statements in support of Russian policies. In secretly recorded audios leaked to the media, Berlusconi claimed last week that he “restarted his friendship with Putin.” This prompted Meloni to reiterate her pro-European, pro-NATO position and support for Ukraine.
In the Sept. 25 election, Meloni won 26 percent of the vote. Five years earlier, the party garnered only four percent of the vote and was content with a supporting role in the right-wing coalition. Now Meloni leads a coalition of the three parties that occupied the center-right spectrum in Italy for the past two decades. A government with the offices of two vice presidents in the hands of Matteo Salvini and Antonio Tajani, Berlusconi’s right-hand man and former President of the EU Parliament.
Draghi’s crisis course to continue
Forza Italia was supposed to be the guarantor of a moderate international policy consistent with the Western agenda. In a television interview before the general election, Berlusconi said that Europe expected him and his party to lead a “liberal, pro-European and Atlanticist government.” The audios of the 86-year-old billionaire, who has already been indicted once for tax fraud, raise questions about how Meloni can keep her promise to maintain Italy’s support for Ukraine with such a Putin-friendly coalition partner. It is primarily Tajani’s responsibility to maintain this pro-European moderate guarantor and actively condemn Russia’s incursion into Ukraine.
Meloni’s main tasks are drafting a budget that curbs inflation and working with European partners to address the energy crisis. To this end, Meloni has chosen to reinforce the line previously drawn by Mario Draghi’s government. This means that there will be little experimentation in key ministerial portfolios.
Some of the new ministers already gathered experience in previous governments: New Finance Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti of the Lega Nord was Minister of Economic Development under Draghi, as was Tajani, now Vice President and Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Matteo Salvini, now also Minister of Infrastructures, who was already Vice President and Minister of the Interior in Giuseppe Conte’s first government. Meloni herself was Youth Minister under Berlusconi, who left Italy on the brink of bankruptcy eleven years ago. Now she succeeded in bringing the center-right parties back to Palazzo Chigi.
Anti-abortion activist as Family Minister
The more conservative and right-wing line of the government of the first female Prime Minister in the history of Italy was implemented in the Ministries of Education and Family. The new Ministry of Family, Birth, and Equal Opportunities is a statement of intent. Here, the anti-abortion policy disguised as birth promotion is deployed, and Meloni’s basic idea about family is underscored: A family can only consist of a father and a mother. The new Head of Ministry is Eugenia Rocella, a staunch anti-abortionist, paradoxically the daughter of one of the party founders of the Partito Radicale, which built its ideology on the right to abortion.
Although some ministries will not change significantly, the new Prime Minister aimed to rename them to make clear what she expects. For example, the Education Ministry will also be called the Ministry of Education and Merit (Istruzione e Merito). Merit is one of the values she proclaimed recently, including the promotion of women to key administrative positions. “Performance, not quotas,” as Meloni often says. The Ministry of Sports will also be the Ministry of Youth, which means that this is one of the values that must be promoted in the face of “youth deviations.”
The Ministry of Environmental Transition, the cornerstone of the previous government’s post-pandemic recovery plan (PNRR), will be renamed the Ministry of Energy Security. It is headed by a Forza Italia representative and, under the new name, seeks energy autonomy and an end to the dependency created by previous governments. The former Ministry of Economic Development is now called the Ministry of Economic Development and Made in Italy.
Energy
Energy policy
Italy
Ukraine
Port dispute: New deal without blocking minority for Cosco
A compromise is emerging in the dispute over the sale of shares in a container terminal of the majority state-owned Port of Hamburg to China. The new deal envisages that the Chinese port operator Cosco, which is also state-owned, will receive only 24.9 percent of the shares instead of the 35 percent previously planned. This is what China.Table learned from negotiating circles. The remaining 10 percent in the terminal will be withheld for the time being. Their transfer is only possible aft
Sources in the German government say that this is one of the possible options being considered by the government. However, the decision is not yet final.
Proponents of the project hope that this compromise will defuse the two most important arguments against the takeover. Chinese influence would be contained, because shareholders only have a veto right above a stake of 25 percent. However, the veto right would only have applied to the smallest of the Port of Hamburg’s four container terminals. Now that is apparently off the table. This means that China would have virtually no influence on the actual port operations. At most, Cosco could influence the volume of containers handled at the Tollerort terminal, whose ships already call at the terminal frequently. So its position as an important customer is strong.
The stake is sold by the public-owned terminal company Hamburger Hafen und Logistik AG (HHLA) – not to be confused with the port operator. At issue is Cosco Shipping Ports Limited’s (CSPL) stake in HHLA’s Container Terminal Tollerort (CTT) GmbH subsidiary. HHLA does not see any threat to the security of the country in this regard. It nevertheless felt compelled to reiterate its position on Thursday. “HHLA AG retains sole control over all major decisions,” it said in a press release. Tollerort-Gmbh is “ultimately an operating facility.” Cosco has no exclusive rights there, it said. “The terminal will remain open to container volumes from all customers.” Cosco will not gain access to strategic know-how: And, “The port infrastructure will remain the property of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg. IT and sales data will remain the sole responsibility of HHLA AG.”
HHLA also stressed that it knew nothing of any opposition from six federal ministries and added: “The account that the EU is supposed to have objected to the cooperation is not correct. The antitrust permission was granted by relevant authorities.”
Political mood underestimated
However, HHLA also made mistakes from the very beginning, which German Chancellor Olaf Scholz now has to pay for. The port company should never have promised such a large number of shares to the Chinese state-owned enterprise. But everyone involved, from HHLA itself to the port operators to the Hanseatic City Senate, saw above all a good deal: First, HHLA would profit from the sale of the shares, then from Cosco’s increasing container traffic. The world’s third-largest shipping company made $14 billion in profits in 2021 alone. Tollerort would become a “preferred hub” of Cosco as a result of the deal, HHLA announced in 2021. (China.Table reported)
The Port of Hamburg, in turn, expects the deal to increase its handling volume and strengthen its position toward rival ports along the North Sea: it already has been losing market share for years, especially to competitors such as Rotterdam and Antwerp.
At least the Port of Hamburg managed to gain market share in the first half of 2022. And this was primarily due to cooperation with China. While business with the USA slumped by 3.9 percent, business with China increased by 5.8 percent. Nevertheless, Rotterdam alone handles more containers than all German ports combined. In 2021, the Dutch location handled almost twice the volume of the Port of Hamburg.
Rotterdam’s success is due in no small part to Cosco. Cosco has held a 35 percent stake in Euromax Terminal in Rotterdam since 2016, without any political problems to date. This led HHLA to the false assumption that an equally high stake would not be a problem in Germany either – in an incorrect assessment of the political climate. Germany, an export nation, is much more dependent on China than the Netherlands. And the Germans have been very sensitive to these dependencies, especially since the start of the Ukraine war – even though the deal itself was signed just over a year ago, long before the Russian invasion.
Terminal investments are routine in the industry
On top of that, the situation is very complex. Shareholdings like Tollerort or Rotterdam are standard international practice. It would be Cosco’s 90th international stake in a port. Cosco also holds stakes in the US ports of Miami, Houston, Long Beach, Los Angeles and Seattle, without any political controversy over them. This has not stopped Washington from putting pressure on Germany behind the scenes against the deal.
Chinese investors are also already heavily involved in Europe. Cosco and its sister company China Merchants own terminals or even shares in entire port operating companies in 14 European ports – from Rotterdam and Antwerp to Le Havre, Bilbao, Valencia, Marseille and Malta. Cosco is one of the world’s largest port operators. The state-owned company even holds a majority stake in the Greek port of Piraeus (100 percent) and in the ports of Zeebrugge (85 percent) and Valencia (51 percent). In Antwerp, it holds less than 25 percent. In Wilhelmshaven, the China Logistic Group leased land for 99 years to build a logistics center in the Jade-Weser Port – and paid €100 million for it.
In addition, the situation is very complex. Shareholdings like Tollerort or Rotterdam are common internationally. It would be Cosco’s ninety-eighth international stake in a port. Cosco also has stakes in the US ports of Miami, Houston, Long Beach, Los Angeles and Seattle, with no political disputes over them. That hasn’t stopped Washington from putting pressure behind the scenes in Germany against the deal.
Cosco’s stake in Le Havre could also be the reason why France opposed the Hamburg deal. Above all, they fear that Cosco will draw business away from France to Germany. Of course, this is not what France’s President Emmanuel Macron said directly. He calls for “new rules of the game” for investments from China. The goal is to preserve strategic autonomy. We want to be able to continue to invest in China and have Chinese partners as long as it doesn’t touch the area of strategic autonomy, Macron said last Friday after the EU summit in Brussels.
Scholz wants ‘European ports initiative’
As China.Table learned, Scholz now wants to initiate a “European port initiative”. It is intended to prevent China from successfully playing off one European port operator against the other. If the EU finally spoke with one voice on this issue, that would not be possible.
The chancellor’s office thus seeks a compromise on share reduction and, at the same time, an EU alliance. This dual strategy is somewhat reminiscent of the NATO Double-Track Decision devised by then-Chancellor Helmut Schmidt in the 1980s: weaken the deal, but finalize it, and at the same time strive for disarmament. At that time, disarmament negotiations were started while new nuclear missiles were deployed. This strategy proved to be very successful.
With the initiative, Chancellor Olaf Scholz would address the concerns of his government coalition partners. The Greens, in particular, are ultimately opposed to an expansion of Chinese influence at this critical time. “The port of Hamburg is not just any port, after all,” said Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock. It is one of the key ports not only for Germany as an export nation but for Europe as a whole, she said. “We have to ask ourselves with every investment in German critical infrastructure what that could mean at that moment when China would turn against us as a democracy and community of values,” Baerbock said. Her party colleague, German Economy Minister Robert Habeck, also openly opposed the deal. He fears that “China will influence trade and the political direction of the port.”
The FDP also expresses concerns: The “enormous dependence” of the German economy on China is “depressing,” said Finance Minister Christian Lindner. His party colleague Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann said: “Selling critical infrastructure to China is a blatant mistake and should be stopped.”
Port participation a topic for the Chancellor’s trip
And the opposition also argues against the deal, albeit with false arguments: “German ports do not belong in Chinese hands. Especially since Europeans cannot acquire stakes in ports in China,” says Jens Spahn, Deputy Chairman of the conservative CDU/CSU parliamentary group. In reality, however, there is no such restriction in China. According to China.Table information from Hainan’s capital Haikou, HHLA and other Western port operators are currently in talks about acquiring a stake in the new port there, which is under construction for $1.5 billion.
What is also important now is a public signal that Cosco agrees with the solution. The state-owned company already emphasized that it is not interested in the veto right, but above all in new business. This is the word from the company in Beijing.
Time is short, because next Wednesday is the last meeting of the German government where this issue can be put on the agenda. The Foreign Trade and Payments Act stipulates that the government must raise concerns about a foreign investor’s purchase offer within four months. The deadline expires on October 31.
What is included on the agenda, however, is ultimately decided by the Chancellor. This leaves Scholz with the option of approving the deal by simply not addressing it. However, that would put a lot of strain on the climate in the governing coalition. That is why Scholz is looking for a compromise here, too. After all, in the dispute over the extended use of nuclear power in Germany, Scholz already put his foot down as chancellor to push through an extension until April against Habeck’s will. He cannot afford such an approach as often as he likes.
The discussion about the Port of Hamburg also comes at a highly inconvenient time. Scholz will travel to Beijing on Nov. 4. In the Chinese capital, the sign-off of this port participation is seen as a gesture of goodwill for a successful visit. If things go well, a deal on the purchase of 350 Airbus aircraft is also on the cards, China.Table learned. China’s Foreign Ministry, meanwhile, placed the port deal in the context of the good economic relations of the past 50 years. So there is a lot at stake. Frank Sieren
Germany and France rarely see eye to eye, at least not right away. The two most important EU states have diverging interests, and reconciling them has not always been possible in the past. Rarely, however, have the efforts failed as much as they did last week.
The postponement of the Franco-German Council of Ministers, scheduled originally for Wednesday, alarmed even experienced observers of the bilateral relationship. There have also been difficult periods under Chancellor Angela Merkel and President François Hollande, says a traffic light politician. He adds, instead of canceling the Council of Ministers and speaking badly about each other, they dealt with the differences of opinion professionally at the time.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz will now travel to Paris alone. He agreed with President Emmanuel Macron that the issues, some of which have been disputed for years, should finally be decided, Scholz said after the European Council on Friday. On some, he said, “a bit of work is still needed, but that’s not so surprising given the years of lead time.”
Scholz and Macron are reportedly having difficulties in establishing a good working relationship. The cool Hanseatic Scholz clashes with an extroverted (in France, many say: autocratic) president. It is still difficult to assess Scholz’s personality, says a senior diplomat in Paris.
The chancellor’s sparse style of communication also makes it difficult for him to find allies in the European Council: According to participants, the chancellor speaks out quite rarely in the round of heads of state and government, and when he does, he often says no. Another observer reports, his predecessor, Angela Merkel, exerted a lot of influence via informal talks on the sidelines of the summits. Scholz, however, had a hard time doing so.
Sometimes Berlin simply lacks intuition regarding the sensitivities of its EU partners. During the tough negotiations on the energy “defense umbrella,” those responsible in the Chancellor’s Office and the European policy coordination houses, Economics, and the Foreign Office failed to inform the other governments about the 200-billion-package in advance. And in doing so, they unnecessarily offended them, as many actors in Berlin admit.
Limited room for maneuver
As the weeks-long dispute over the remaining three nuclear power plants demonstrated, the traffic light coalition is already very preoccupied with itself. This is causing additional irritation in Paris and other capitals: It is difficult to assess the balance of power in the German government, says a French government official.
Foreign diplomats in Berlin repeatedly complain that they receive different answers when they ask the SPD-led chancellery, the Green Economy Ministry, or the FDP-led Finance Ministry. “Is there actually one German government or several?” asks one diplomat.
Some observers already long for the Merkel era, when her European policy adviser Uwe Corsepius firmly held the reins in the chancellor’s office. In the coalition agreement, the partners had undertaken to improve coordination on European policy. Anna Lührmann, Minister of State for Europe in the Foreign Office, recently conceded, that there was “definitely room for improvement” in coordination within the government. Especially in the informal discussions in the Council, for example on energy issues, Berlin finds it difficult to position itself proactively.
But Macron, too, has long lost the freedom of action he enjoyed during his first term in office. His Renaissance Party lost its majority in the National Assembly, and pressure from the street is growing. One observer in Berlin says that the president no longer represents great ideas, but only hard-core French interests.
Emmanuel Macron
European policy
Germany
Olaf Scholz
News
Scholz and von der Leyen invite to Conference on Reconstruction
As President of the G7 round, Chancellor Olaf Scholz joined EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in inviting participants to an International Expert Conference on the Recovery, Reconstruction and Modernization of Ukraine on Tuesday. “The point is that we are now sending a signal of hope, in the midst of the horror of war, that things are looking up again,” Scholz said.
Scholz sees the reconstruction of Ukraine after the end of Russia’s war of aggression as a decades-long task for the global community. “We will have to invest a lot to make this work,” Scholz said in his video podcast released Saturday ahead of reconstruction conferences for Ukraine this Monday and Tuesday in Berlin. He said, Ukraine, as well as the European Union, could not do it alone. He added: “Only the whole world community, which is now supporting Ukraine, can do it. And it must do it for a long time.”
In a joint guest article for the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung,” Scholz and von der Leyen also called for a “Marshall Plan” for Ukraine – which would be a generational task that had to begin immediately. With the Marshall Plan, the US financed reconstruction in Germany and other European countries with billions of US dollars between 1948 and 1952. The two politicians stressed, supporting Ukraine was also in the interests of the EU.
Germany currently chairs the G7 group, which includes France, Italy, Japan, Canada, the United States, and Great Britain. dpa/leo
European policy
Olaf Scholz
Ursula von der Leyen
Commission wants blank check to tighten Euro 7 retroactively
The Commission wants the right to tighten Euro 7 five years after it came into force. That’s according to the draft for the next stage of pollutant regulation for cars, trucks, and buses, which Europe.Table reported on Friday. Accordingly, the 110-page legislative text provides that the Commission can independently tighten limit values, boundary conditions, and test procedures over a period of five years. It apparently aims the approvement for authorization from the co-legislators in the legislative process. A blank check for changes after a standard has come into force without control by Parliament and member states would be a novelty. The industry would have no legal certainty in investment decisions.
As Europe.Table reported the draft for Euro 7 does not yet contain detailed limit values. However, it is foreseeable that Euro 7 will result in technically and financially feasible limits for cars and vans. The Commission announced that it would consider the difficult economic situation and the transformation costs for manufacturers. Therefore, limit values that were not significantly stricter than today would be proposed. A more detailed analysis now revealed that the draft provides for a significant tightening of the limits for certain vans. Manufacturers note as positive that the Commission is not proposing limits for nitrous oxide, methane, ethanol, and NMOG for passenger cars and commercial vehicles weighing up to 3.5 metric tons.
But as reported, the limits the Commission plans for trucks are, according to the draft, technically very demanding. There would be a need for high investment sums to comply with them. Experts say some limits cannot be met, even with sophisticated technology. mgr
Car Industry
Climate & Environment
Emissions
Green Deal
EU plans strategic partnership with Kazakhstan
The EU and Kazakhstan are expected to sign a strategic partnership agreement on sustainable raw materials, batteries, and green hydrogen in November. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev exchanged views on these plans in a video conference on Saturday. “We welcomed the agreement on our strategic partnership on sustainable raw materials, batteries and renewable hydrogen,” von der Leyen commented on the conversation on Twitter. The commission will now start working on a roadmap, a spokeswoman told Europe.Table. The two partners are expected to sign the agreement in November.
The website of Kazakhstan’s president said von der Leyen and Tokayev discussed “prospects for the development of an expanded strategic partnership.” “Special attention was placed on the interaction in trade and economic, investment, transport and logistics spheres.” The EU’s Global Gateway strategy for investment in global infrastructure could play an important role in strengthening ties between the EU and Central Asia, von der Leyen added in her post on Twitter. leo
Battery
Energy
Hydrogen
Raw materials
Slovenian presidential election: defeat for new government
In the Slovenian presidential election on Sunday, no candidate achieved the necessary absolute majority. In a runoff election on Nov. 13, conservative candidate Anze Logar will run against the non-party lawyer and human rights activist Natasa Pirc Musar. According to the election commission, this became apparent after a good 70 percent of the votes were counted.
The election was disappointing for the left-liberal government of Prime Minister Robert Golob, which has been in office since May of this year. The presidential candidate Milan Brglez, supported by his alliance, came in third by a wide margin.
The Head of State in Slovenia indeed has more protocol powers. However, the election was seen as the first test run for the new government. The current president, Social Democrat Borut Pahor, was not allowed to run again after two terms in office. dpa
Heads
Thorsten Müller – New Legal Paths for Climate
Thorsten Müller is Chairman of the Stiftung Umweltenergierecht.
“The transformation is not only about changing societies, but also about breaking down thought structures in law,” says Thorsten Müller. He is Chairman of the Stiftung Umweltenergierecht (Environmental Energy Law Foundation), which he established in 2011. The scientists at the Würzburg-based foundation are looking into needed changes in the legal framework to achieve energy and climate policy goals.
Müller rejects any prohibitions on thinking. His appeal is to look at the entire solution space. He moved the foundation into a new building a year and a half ago: with lots of wood and glass, bright and inspiring. “It’s a good place to think – which isn’t all bad for a scientist,” jokes the 48-year-old.
Instrument for social change
Müller advises the federal and state governments in climate policy transformation and related legal issues. He is also an active author and speaker. Behind the Stiftung Umweltenergierecht lies the realization “that the energy transition is something technical, economic, social, but this will ultimately only be shaped in a meaningful way if the legal framework evolves,” says Müller. He sees this as a mammoth task.
The scientist’s goal is to show possible ways that make changes achievable. Looking at our society, he notes that this only works “quite tenaciously” because Germans do not necessarily value change and would only implement it if it could not be avoided. “That’s a particularly bad advisor when it comes to climate protection,” the law graduate adds.
EU sometimes a brake block, sometimes an innovator
“Europe works a little differently. Significantly slower in normal cases because you have to take all the member states with you,” he says. This leads to political compromises, detours, and sometimes even wrong turns. Conversely, Europe is sometimes more forward-looking, for example with the promotion of renewables – and the opinion that this form of supply will at some point be the cheaper, more suitable variant for the future. In this country, on the other hand, small things are discussed very controversially. Müller sees the Green Deal as a very determined departure in the direction of climate neutrality. In Müller’s view, the member states will play a decisive role in determining whether climate protection takes place and succeeds.
As a lecturer at Leuphana University in Lüneburg, Müller sees knowledge as part of a discourse. He is currently lecturing on a part-time course introducing environmental and energy law. He finds it enriching to talk to many people who are themselves professionally active in this field. Born in Lower Saxony, he likes to spend his free time in the mountains and made Würzburg his adopted home. Julia Klann
Climate & Environment
Climate Policy
Energy
Environmental protection
Apéro
Since the outbreak of the energy crisis, a special kind of political theater has been taking place in Brussels: the sham rapprochements between the Council and the Commission. This could be observed once again at the EU Council meeting this early Friday morning. On the one hand, there are the pseudo work orders from the member states: once again, the Council asked the Commission to present measures that the Berlaymont long since proposed. Whether joint gas procurement or the new price index for LNG imports – thanks for pointing that out, already in the works. It becomes completely absurd when the member states demand things from the Commission that they themselves have been dilly-dallying over – and for years at that: for example, faster permits for renewables or solidarity agreements for a gas emergency.
Of course, the Council is about political signals, whether a majority of EU capitals actually support the Commission’s proposals. Some measures, such as the price cap for gas and gas-fired power generation, were proposed by Ursula von der Leyen and Kadri Simson only after massive pressure from some member states. But both sides are trying to gloss over the fact that they remain miles apart. Von der Leyen wanted assurances from the Council that the gas price cap would only come into force if the states agreed to eight conditions. She could not have set the hurdles any higher. Formally, von der Leyen received this assurance from the Council.
The summit declaration explicitly refers to the second paragraph of Article 23, which formulates many reasons why the gas price cap is a terrible idea. It is still completely unclear whether and how the Commission officials will be able to remove these obstacles – such as not boosting gas consumption. There are probably only two alternatives: Either both sides admit that they cannot find a solution that meets all the preconditions. In that case, the Commission’s hurdles and the Council’s approval would have been mere political theater.
Even more likely: The result will be a dangerous experiment with the internal energy market that jeopardizes the security of supply or leads to even higher costs. It is to be hoped that both sides will take enough time to weigh the consequences of their decisions. Manuel Berkel
