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The committees in the European Parliament are being constituted from today. At least the chair and the first deputy must be elected. Three further deputies can be elected later. It has been decided that at least one woman will be appointed as chair or first vice-chair.
The firewall will also be raised: The chairmanship of the Culture Committee and the Transport Committee, which, according to D’Hondt, belongs to the radical right-wing Patriots for Europe Group, will be taken away from it and will go to the Greens (CULT) and the EPP (TRAN). Nela Riehl from Germany, who is new to Parliament and belongs to Volt, becomes chair of CULT. The chairmanship of TRAN goes to Elissavet Vozemberg-Vrionidi. The Italian Antonio Decaro (S&D) is to head the ENVI, while Bogdan Rzonca (EKR) from Poland is to head the Petitions Committee. It remains to be seen whether the PiS politician will get a majority. Who is a member of which committee was decided in plenary on Friday.
The German CDU/CSU group will have three chairmen: David McAllister will again head the Foreign Affairs Committee (AFET), Sven Simon will be head of the Constitutional Committee AFCO, Niclas Herbst will be head of the Audit Committee CONT. The first deputies will be Monika Hohlmeier (CSU) on the Budget Committee BUDG, Christian Doleschal (CSU) on the Internal Market Committee IMCO and Marion Walsmann on the Legal Affairs Committee JURI. The second deputies are Norbert Lins on the Agriculture Committee AGRI, Hildegard Bentele on the Development Committee DEVE.
The committees not only elect their leadership, they also hold their first substantive meeting. The first meeting of the coordinators will take place tomorrow. In addition, the heads of the 20 committees will elect the Chair of the Conference of Committee Chairs (CCC) at 12.30 pm. After the post of President of Parliament, this is perhaps the job with the most influence on legislation. Bernd Lange (SPD) has a good chance of resuming the position. Once all this has been achieved, the European Parliament will go into summer recess on Thursday.
Read the News to find out which other coordinators the S&Ds and Greens have appointed and how much influence the committee chairs actually have.
Have a good start this week!
Following the European elections, the EU Commission and Mercosur states are making a new attempt to conclude negotiations on the free trade agreement. Negotiators from both sides met online last week to discuss the supplementary agreement. In it, the EU wants to enshrine the sustainability commitments. Only a few points are still disputed, according to Brussels.
Even if the negotiators were to agree on a text soon: It is unlikely that the Mercosur agreement will come into force soon – the most important key factor is France. Emmanuel Macron and his Liberals have already been very skeptical about the Mercosur agreement in recent years. Now that the poles on the left and right, which are even more critical of free trade, have gained ground in the French parliamentary elections, France’s approval seems practically impossible. “A clear majority of the National Assembly is against free trade agreements, at least as we know them,” says French economic expert Neil Makaroff, who heads the think tank Strategic Perspectives.
The German government views the political situation in Paris with concern. In Berlin, people are thinking about how to deal with the foreseeable blockade. If no agreement is reached this year, the agreement that has been negotiated for more than 20 years will be lost, Berlin warns. Then the Latin American partners around Brazil’s President Lula da Silva would pull out.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Economics Minister Robert Habeck are thus urging the EU Commission to press ahead with talks with Mercosur. “We have not given responsibility for trade policy to Europe so that no more agreements are concluded,” said Scholz at a recent BDI event, “but so that more agreements are concluded.”
Berlin is not ruling out the possibility of adopting the negotiated Mercosur agreement with a qualified majority in the Council – if necessary, even without the consent of the critical states, including France, the Netherlands and Austria. The export-oriented German Engineering Federation VDMA is urging the Commission to “finally have the courage to push ahead with the free trade agreements” – even against the will of France if necessary.
However, such a vote on a politically charged issue such as the Mercosur agreement would be explosive and would probably be grist to the mill of EU critics in the outvoted countries. Green MEP Anna Cavazzini warns: “You can’t simply ignore the second largest member state.” Cavazzini is concerned that Germany and France are talking past each other: “These are two different worlds of economic policy,” she told Table.Briefings
For the future, many trade policy stakeholders agree that new agreements should be streamlined. Scholz wants them to be designed in such a way that they only need to be approved by the Council and the European Parliament. Such “EU-only” agreements could “prevent years of delays caused by the ratification processes in the member states,” he said. Economics Minister Robert Habeck argues similarly: he would prefer “a trade agreement that is 80 percent good and concluded quickly than a 100 or 120 percent perfect free trade agreement that is never concluded.”
But how should free trade agreements be streamlined? The VDMA argues that the focus should be on the pure trade part of the agreements and that “free trade agreements should not be overloaded with political objectives from other policy areas.” Certain sustainability criteria in particular are often perceived by trading partners as restrictive and in violation of sovereignty.
Cavazzini takes a different view: in view of the advancing climate crisis, sustainability criteria cannot be thrown overboard. In addition, the sustainability criteria are also about jobs in Europe, which should not be jeopardized by environmentally harmful and anti-worker practices in third countries. She believes that the French demand for mirror clauses should be taken seriously.
Instead, the Green politician is campaigning for free trade agreements that no longer necessarily cover all sectors. Instead, they should focus on the key sectors in which the EU and third countries have common interests, such as strategically important raw materials.
Makaroff takes a similar view. The goal can no longer be to simply increase trade flows. What is needed are balanced partnerships in which certain sectors are specifically promoted. In return for opening up markets and accepting European standards, the EU should support third countries with investments, says Makaroff to Table.Briefings.
Investments are the main concern of many third countries. They not only want to buy expensive European machinery and ship cheap raw materials to Europe in return, but are also looking for capital to develop their own industry. The political guidelines presented by Ursula von der Leyen before her re-election last week point to a further development of EU trade policy in this direction: instead of promising major new free trade agreements, von der Leyen is promoting “Clean Trade and Investment Partnerships.”
With this development, the EU would also be taking another small step away from WTO principles, which are no longer adhered to by the USA and China anyway. Strictly speaking, bilateral and regional trade agreements are only permissible under WTO law if “virtually all trade” is liberalized. “The WTO framework is simply a little out of date,” Makaroff comments on the deviation.
Shortly after the raw materials group Rio Tinto regained the mining license for the Serbian Jadar lithium project, Germany and the EU Commission have agreed on a partnership with Serbia. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and the Vice-President of the EU Commission, Maroš Šefčovič, thus traveled to Belgrade on Friday and met with Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić.
Following bilateral talks between Scholz and Vučić, a “Critical Raw Materials Summit” was held with representatives from industry and the financial sector. Serbia and the EU Commission signed a cooperation agreement for a strategic partnership on sustainable raw materials, battery value chains and electric vehicles.
With the aim of securing strategic raw materials for the energy transition and reducing one-sided dependencies on countries such as China, the EU is currently concluding numerous raw materials partnerships – most recently with Uzbekistan and Australia. The goal set out in the Critical Raw Materials Act is to source no more than 65 percent of a strategic raw material from a single country by 2030. Serbia’s lithium deposits make it an attractive partner: the multinational raw materials group Rio Tinto wants to mine up to 58,000 tons of lithium per year in the Jadar Valley in western Serbia. This should be enough to build 1.1 million electric vehicles.
The Jadar project is “good for Serbia” because it brings economic development opportunities for the region and the country, said Scholz at a subsequent press conference. The partners would uphold two principles. “It is about ensuring that mining takes place to the highest standards possible today in terms of environmental protection and biodiversity,” he explained. “We will support this and do our part to ensure that this actually happens.” At the same time, the project will create jobs, prosperity and added value in Serbia.
The Chancellor’s trip met with a positive response from the German business community: “The conclusion of a raw materials agreement between the EU and Serbia would be very important for the diversification of German and European industry,” Matthias Wachter, Head of the BDI Department for Raw Materials and International Cooperation, told the Reuters news agency in advance. It would also be an important step in bringing Serbia closer to the EU. Serbia has had the status of a candidate country since 2012.
Hildegard Müller, President of the German Association of the Automotive Industry, told Handelsblatt that the agreement with Serbia was “an important and correct signal.” The supply of raw materials is essential in order to achieve the climate protection targets. The automotive industry in particular is dependent on lithium for batteries due to the switch to electric vehicles. European manufacturers Mercedes and Stellantis are already in talks with President Vučić about investing in lithium processing and the production of electric car batteries, both sides confirmed in media reports.
However, this example also highlights the conflicting goals of raw material extraction: mining is always an interference with nature – even if it serves the energy transition and thus climate protection. Many citizens in Serbia fear immense environmental damage, as heavy metals for example, can get into the groundwater when lithium is mined.
Following massive protests against the lithium mine, the Serbian government decided in 2022 to put the project on hold and withdraw Rio Tinto’s mining license. Last week, however, the Serbian Constitutional Court declared this decision invalid. This clears the way for lithium mining and Rio Tinto received its license back.
The raw materials partnership between Serbia and the EU is intended to help the political and economic lobbies to revive the Jadar project, criticizes the Serbian NGO Kreni-Promeni. In a public letter prior to the trip, the NGO called on Scholz and Šefčovič as well as the recently re-elected Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to respect civil rights and include the perspective of the Serbian population. They also propose a meeting with the politicians to explain to them why “the vast majority of Serbian citizens reject the Jadar proposal.”
The NGO is also calling on the heads of the European Investment Bank, Nadia Calviño, and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), Odile Renaud-Basso, not to co-finance the lithium project.
It is not only the dangers to the environment that play a role: In the letter, Kreni-Premeni also criticizes the German government for its willingness to ignore “far-reaching red lines” such as restrictions on press freedom and the rule of law in return for raw materials cooperation.
Vučić has been criticized for ruling Serbia in an increasingly authoritarian manner. The last parliamentary elections in December were accompanied by considerable protests, with the opposition accusing him of unfair election conditions due to fraud and bribery. Serbia has been falling further and further down the Reporters Without Borders press freedom rankings for years; this year it has fallen to 98th place.
Vučić’s proximity to the regimes in China and Russia appears to be the geopolitical reason for the EU to agree a raw materials agreement as quickly as possible. With success: China and Russia are also courting Serbia for lithium. Vučić confirmed this in an interview with Handelsblatt – and assured: “But we have told them that we are discussing this issue with the Europeans. We are loyal to Europe.”
The digital industry and academia welcome the fact that the Commission’s new mandate will focus on the implementation and enforcement of the newly created digital laws. This is the formulation of the newly elected Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in her political guidelines.
The EU Commission has created a huge wave of regulation under her leadership, comments Bitkom. With the Digital Services Act (DSA) and the Digital Markets Act (DMA), the internet has practically been given a new constitution in the EU. And with the AI Act, a regulatory framework for artificial intelligence. “Now that the EU has focused on the actual and perceived risks of digitalization in the past five years, it must focus on the opportunities of digitalization in the next five years,” says Bitkom.
Cara Schwarz-Schilling takes a similar view. The Managing Director of WIK (Scientific Institute for Infrastructure and Communication Services) calls DSA, DMA, the Data and AI Act “huge experimental projects.” It is crucial “that energy is now put into successful implementation before new initiatives are launched.” Checking the power of large technology companies is necessary in view of their network effects. But whether this will really succeed with the help of the DMA is not yet clear.
According to the digital economy, the aim should be to improve the competitiveness and innovative strength of the European digital economy. “We need a boost for our digital sovereignty and for our digital resilience,” demands Bitkom. However, Cara Schwarz-Schilling has concerns if the new approach to competition policy planned by the Commission is a step in the right direction.
She sees the attempt to form European champions in the telecommunications sector as risky and potentially counterproductive. It is therefore not bad news that the White Paper on the future of connectivity, on which the Commission has just completed a consultation, is not mentioned in the guidelines. She believes that what Commissioner Thierry Breton is proposing to facilitate merger control is problematic. “Competition and industrial policy should not be geared exclusively towards competition with American companies.”
The creation of large European companies through state intervention leads to artificial market distortions. “Competition is the best engine for innovation. And trying to artificially strengthen companies does not guarantee that they will invest their profits in innovative activities that move Europe forward,” she warns. Past attempts to create large companies through industrial policy have usually not been successful. Airbus was successful, but that was an exception.
“Established companies have often missed opportunities to position themselves in new technology areas, such as cloud services,” criticizes Schwarz-Schilling. “Easing merger control could further restrict competition instead of promoting it. This strategy could lead to a concentration of market power, which in turn hinders innovation.” In order to make better use of Europe’s innovative potential, Schwarz-Schilling believes that the path envisaged in the guidelines of simplifying legislation for SMEs, supporting small innovative companies in their growth and “reducing the costs of failure” is certainly the more promising way forward.
The fact that the White Paper, which serves to prepare a future Digital Networks Act (DNA), is not explicitly mentioned does not mean that the Commission will not make a proposal on this in 2025. However, the focus of the guidelines is on artificial intelligence and data. Schwarz-Schilling welcomes this. Access to data is a major challenge for many companies. “Companies are reluctant to share their data and there are considerable difficulties in structuring data so that it can be used by others,” says Schwarz-Schilling. “Standards need to be developed to overcome these challenges.”
Schwarz-Schilling also welcomed the proposal to set up a European AI Research Council. “Because in this area, it really does make sense to pool resources due to the economies of scale, similar to CERN.” The researcher also emphasizes: “It is important that smaller AI players also have affordable access to computing capacities.” This, in turn, is what von der Leyen wants to achieve through the planned AI factories.
It was one of Germany’s most ambitious industrial projects: Desertec was to produce large quantities of renewable energy in North Africa, connecting the electricity grids in North Africa and these with Europe. Desertec was to produce up to 15 percent of Europe’s electricity. This would have required a gigantic investment of around €400 billion. But the project failed.
The good news, however, is that Desertec lives on. And not only that: Desertec is bigger today than ever before. Paul van Son, the Dutchman who drove the Desertec Industrial Initiative GmbH (DII) forward, has remained true to the project. However, Desertec has changed fundamentally. Under a new name, Dii Desert Energy is now an international industrial network based in Dubai.
There, van Son continues to pursue the original idea of Desertec, with one difference: Dii is now more of a think tank that aims to connect people, countries and markets in the field of clean energy. The goal is still the same: to produce emission-free, reliable and cost-effective energy in the deserts. Van Son believes Dii Desert Energy is on the right track: “The countries of the MENA region are increasingly exploiting their potential for emission-free energy generation,” he says.
Van Son studied engineering and energy management in Delft and then worked for Siemens in the network sector, followed by the energy company Essent. From 2009, he headed the Desertec Industrial Initiative in Munich – until it fell apart five years later when many shareholders such as Siemens and ABB did not want to extend their commitment.
However, RWE, the Chinese company State Grid Corporation and Acwa Power from Saudi Arabia have remained loyal to Dii Desert Energy even after the renaming and relocation. Thyssenkrupp also plays a leading role in the network. Numerous names from German industry have joined or rejoined the initiative: Eon, Bosch, Baywa, Siemens, Daimler Truck, Siemens Energy, Samson and Roland Berger.
Above all, Cornelius Matthes has remained loyal to Paul van Son. Today, Matthes heads the network as CEO, while van Son is the President. Matthes had the prospect of a promising career in asset management at Deutsche Bank. However, the opportunity to help shape the energy transition appealed to him more than a career in the banking hierarchy. “Without green hydrogen from the desert countries, the energy transition would not make any progress here,” says Matthes.
Matthes has been by van Son’s side all the way, with all the ups and downs. Today, he manages the network in Dubai. But Paul van Son continues to act in his role as President – as a driving force and visionary who is always pushing forward new ideas with a soft voice, kindness and emphasis.
This weekend, on July 13, Dii Desert Energy celebrated its fifteenth anniversary. “Our group had the first discussions about the Neom Green Hydrogen project, which reached financial close at $8.4 billion and is now being built,” Matthes said on the occasion. “We also discussed other crazy ideas that nobody would have thought would ever be realized.”
Van Son and Matthes even claim that Dii Desert Energy is now bigger and has had a greater impact than the Desertec Industrial Initiative ever could. Matthes soberly states the facts: “Since we launched the MENA Hydrogen Alliance five years ago, the Dii Desert Energy industrial group and think tank has made an impressive comeback: from 20 partners in 2019, we have grown six-fold and now have more than 120 partners from 35 countries.”
However, Dii Desert Energy is focusing strongly on the Middle East as well as North Africa. And yet: Desertec’s old cooperation countries – Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco – are still involved. In a few weeks, van Son will be celebrating his 71st birthday. But he clearly still feels comfortable in his role as President of Dii Desert Energy. It is a life for clean energy. Christian von Hiller
The committees in the European Parliament are being constituted from today. At least the chair and the first deputy must be elected. Three further deputies can be elected later. It has been decided that at least one woman will be appointed as chair or first vice-chair.
The firewall will also be raised: The chairmanship of the Culture Committee and the Transport Committee, which, according to D’Hondt, belongs to the radical right-wing Patriots for Europe Group, will be taken away from it and will go to the Greens (CULT) and the EPP (TRAN). Nela Riehl from Germany, who is new to Parliament and belongs to Volt, becomes chair of CULT. The chairmanship of TRAN goes to Elissavet Vozemberg-Vrionidi. The Italian Antonio Decaro (S&D) is to head the ENVI, while Bogdan Rzonca (EKR) from Poland is to head the Petitions Committee. It remains to be seen whether the PiS politician will get a majority. Who is a member of which committee was decided in plenary on Friday.
The German CDU/CSU group will have three chairmen: David McAllister will again head the Foreign Affairs Committee (AFET), Sven Simon will be head of the Constitutional Committee AFCO, Niclas Herbst will be head of the Audit Committee CONT. The first deputies will be Monika Hohlmeier (CSU) on the Budget Committee BUDG, Christian Doleschal (CSU) on the Internal Market Committee IMCO and Marion Walsmann on the Legal Affairs Committee JURI. The second deputies are Norbert Lins on the Agriculture Committee AGRI, Hildegard Bentele on the Development Committee DEVE.
The committees not only elect their leadership, they also hold their first substantive meeting. The first meeting of the coordinators will take place tomorrow. In addition, the heads of the 20 committees will elect the Chair of the Conference of Committee Chairs (CCC) at 12.30 pm. After the post of President of Parliament, this is perhaps the job with the most influence on legislation. Bernd Lange (SPD) has a good chance of resuming the position. Once all this has been achieved, the European Parliament will go into summer recess on Thursday.
Read the News to find out which other coordinators the S&Ds and Greens have appointed and how much influence the committee chairs actually have.
Have a good start this week!
Following the European elections, the EU Commission and Mercosur states are making a new attempt to conclude negotiations on the free trade agreement. Negotiators from both sides met online last week to discuss the supplementary agreement. In it, the EU wants to enshrine the sustainability commitments. Only a few points are still disputed, according to Brussels.
Even if the negotiators were to agree on a text soon: It is unlikely that the Mercosur agreement will come into force soon – the most important key factor is France. Emmanuel Macron and his Liberals have already been very skeptical about the Mercosur agreement in recent years. Now that the poles on the left and right, which are even more critical of free trade, have gained ground in the French parliamentary elections, France’s approval seems practically impossible. “A clear majority of the National Assembly is against free trade agreements, at least as we know them,” says French economic expert Neil Makaroff, who heads the think tank Strategic Perspectives.
The German government views the political situation in Paris with concern. In Berlin, people are thinking about how to deal with the foreseeable blockade. If no agreement is reached this year, the agreement that has been negotiated for more than 20 years will be lost, Berlin warns. Then the Latin American partners around Brazil’s President Lula da Silva would pull out.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Economics Minister Robert Habeck are thus urging the EU Commission to press ahead with talks with Mercosur. “We have not given responsibility for trade policy to Europe so that no more agreements are concluded,” said Scholz at a recent BDI event, “but so that more agreements are concluded.”
Berlin is not ruling out the possibility of adopting the negotiated Mercosur agreement with a qualified majority in the Council – if necessary, even without the consent of the critical states, including France, the Netherlands and Austria. The export-oriented German Engineering Federation VDMA is urging the Commission to “finally have the courage to push ahead with the free trade agreements” – even against the will of France if necessary.
However, such a vote on a politically charged issue such as the Mercosur agreement would be explosive and would probably be grist to the mill of EU critics in the outvoted countries. Green MEP Anna Cavazzini warns: “You can’t simply ignore the second largest member state.” Cavazzini is concerned that Germany and France are talking past each other: “These are two different worlds of economic policy,” she told Table.Briefings
For the future, many trade policy stakeholders agree that new agreements should be streamlined. Scholz wants them to be designed in such a way that they only need to be approved by the Council and the European Parliament. Such “EU-only” agreements could “prevent years of delays caused by the ratification processes in the member states,” he said. Economics Minister Robert Habeck argues similarly: he would prefer “a trade agreement that is 80 percent good and concluded quickly than a 100 or 120 percent perfect free trade agreement that is never concluded.”
But how should free trade agreements be streamlined? The VDMA argues that the focus should be on the pure trade part of the agreements and that “free trade agreements should not be overloaded with political objectives from other policy areas.” Certain sustainability criteria in particular are often perceived by trading partners as restrictive and in violation of sovereignty.
Cavazzini takes a different view: in view of the advancing climate crisis, sustainability criteria cannot be thrown overboard. In addition, the sustainability criteria are also about jobs in Europe, which should not be jeopardized by environmentally harmful and anti-worker practices in third countries. She believes that the French demand for mirror clauses should be taken seriously.
Instead, the Green politician is campaigning for free trade agreements that no longer necessarily cover all sectors. Instead, they should focus on the key sectors in which the EU and third countries have common interests, such as strategically important raw materials.
Makaroff takes a similar view. The goal can no longer be to simply increase trade flows. What is needed are balanced partnerships in which certain sectors are specifically promoted. In return for opening up markets and accepting European standards, the EU should support third countries with investments, says Makaroff to Table.Briefings.
Investments are the main concern of many third countries. They not only want to buy expensive European machinery and ship cheap raw materials to Europe in return, but are also looking for capital to develop their own industry. The political guidelines presented by Ursula von der Leyen before her re-election last week point to a further development of EU trade policy in this direction: instead of promising major new free trade agreements, von der Leyen is promoting “Clean Trade and Investment Partnerships.”
With this development, the EU would also be taking another small step away from WTO principles, which are no longer adhered to by the USA and China anyway. Strictly speaking, bilateral and regional trade agreements are only permissible under WTO law if “virtually all trade” is liberalized. “The WTO framework is simply a little out of date,” Makaroff comments on the deviation.
Shortly after the raw materials group Rio Tinto regained the mining license for the Serbian Jadar lithium project, Germany and the EU Commission have agreed on a partnership with Serbia. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and the Vice-President of the EU Commission, Maroš Šefčovič, thus traveled to Belgrade on Friday and met with Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić.
Following bilateral talks between Scholz and Vučić, a “Critical Raw Materials Summit” was held with representatives from industry and the financial sector. Serbia and the EU Commission signed a cooperation agreement for a strategic partnership on sustainable raw materials, battery value chains and electric vehicles.
With the aim of securing strategic raw materials for the energy transition and reducing one-sided dependencies on countries such as China, the EU is currently concluding numerous raw materials partnerships – most recently with Uzbekistan and Australia. The goal set out in the Critical Raw Materials Act is to source no more than 65 percent of a strategic raw material from a single country by 2030. Serbia’s lithium deposits make it an attractive partner: the multinational raw materials group Rio Tinto wants to mine up to 58,000 tons of lithium per year in the Jadar Valley in western Serbia. This should be enough to build 1.1 million electric vehicles.
The Jadar project is “good for Serbia” because it brings economic development opportunities for the region and the country, said Scholz at a subsequent press conference. The partners would uphold two principles. “It is about ensuring that mining takes place to the highest standards possible today in terms of environmental protection and biodiversity,” he explained. “We will support this and do our part to ensure that this actually happens.” At the same time, the project will create jobs, prosperity and added value in Serbia.
The Chancellor’s trip met with a positive response from the German business community: “The conclusion of a raw materials agreement between the EU and Serbia would be very important for the diversification of German and European industry,” Matthias Wachter, Head of the BDI Department for Raw Materials and International Cooperation, told the Reuters news agency in advance. It would also be an important step in bringing Serbia closer to the EU. Serbia has had the status of a candidate country since 2012.
Hildegard Müller, President of the German Association of the Automotive Industry, told Handelsblatt that the agreement with Serbia was “an important and correct signal.” The supply of raw materials is essential in order to achieve the climate protection targets. The automotive industry in particular is dependent on lithium for batteries due to the switch to electric vehicles. European manufacturers Mercedes and Stellantis are already in talks with President Vučić about investing in lithium processing and the production of electric car batteries, both sides confirmed in media reports.
However, this example also highlights the conflicting goals of raw material extraction: mining is always an interference with nature – even if it serves the energy transition and thus climate protection. Many citizens in Serbia fear immense environmental damage, as heavy metals for example, can get into the groundwater when lithium is mined.
Following massive protests against the lithium mine, the Serbian government decided in 2022 to put the project on hold and withdraw Rio Tinto’s mining license. Last week, however, the Serbian Constitutional Court declared this decision invalid. This clears the way for lithium mining and Rio Tinto received its license back.
The raw materials partnership between Serbia and the EU is intended to help the political and economic lobbies to revive the Jadar project, criticizes the Serbian NGO Kreni-Promeni. In a public letter prior to the trip, the NGO called on Scholz and Šefčovič as well as the recently re-elected Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to respect civil rights and include the perspective of the Serbian population. They also propose a meeting with the politicians to explain to them why “the vast majority of Serbian citizens reject the Jadar proposal.”
The NGO is also calling on the heads of the European Investment Bank, Nadia Calviño, and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), Odile Renaud-Basso, not to co-finance the lithium project.
It is not only the dangers to the environment that play a role: In the letter, Kreni-Premeni also criticizes the German government for its willingness to ignore “far-reaching red lines” such as restrictions on press freedom and the rule of law in return for raw materials cooperation.
Vučić has been criticized for ruling Serbia in an increasingly authoritarian manner. The last parliamentary elections in December were accompanied by considerable protests, with the opposition accusing him of unfair election conditions due to fraud and bribery. Serbia has been falling further and further down the Reporters Without Borders press freedom rankings for years; this year it has fallen to 98th place.
Vučić’s proximity to the regimes in China and Russia appears to be the geopolitical reason for the EU to agree a raw materials agreement as quickly as possible. With success: China and Russia are also courting Serbia for lithium. Vučić confirmed this in an interview with Handelsblatt – and assured: “But we have told them that we are discussing this issue with the Europeans. We are loyal to Europe.”
The digital industry and academia welcome the fact that the Commission’s new mandate will focus on the implementation and enforcement of the newly created digital laws. This is the formulation of the newly elected Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in her political guidelines.
The EU Commission has created a huge wave of regulation under her leadership, comments Bitkom. With the Digital Services Act (DSA) and the Digital Markets Act (DMA), the internet has practically been given a new constitution in the EU. And with the AI Act, a regulatory framework for artificial intelligence. “Now that the EU has focused on the actual and perceived risks of digitalization in the past five years, it must focus on the opportunities of digitalization in the next five years,” says Bitkom.
Cara Schwarz-Schilling takes a similar view. The Managing Director of WIK (Scientific Institute for Infrastructure and Communication Services) calls DSA, DMA, the Data and AI Act “huge experimental projects.” It is crucial “that energy is now put into successful implementation before new initiatives are launched.” Checking the power of large technology companies is necessary in view of their network effects. But whether this will really succeed with the help of the DMA is not yet clear.
According to the digital economy, the aim should be to improve the competitiveness and innovative strength of the European digital economy. “We need a boost for our digital sovereignty and for our digital resilience,” demands Bitkom. However, Cara Schwarz-Schilling has concerns if the new approach to competition policy planned by the Commission is a step in the right direction.
She sees the attempt to form European champions in the telecommunications sector as risky and potentially counterproductive. It is therefore not bad news that the White Paper on the future of connectivity, on which the Commission has just completed a consultation, is not mentioned in the guidelines. She believes that what Commissioner Thierry Breton is proposing to facilitate merger control is problematic. “Competition and industrial policy should not be geared exclusively towards competition with American companies.”
The creation of large European companies through state intervention leads to artificial market distortions. “Competition is the best engine for innovation. And trying to artificially strengthen companies does not guarantee that they will invest their profits in innovative activities that move Europe forward,” she warns. Past attempts to create large companies through industrial policy have usually not been successful. Airbus was successful, but that was an exception.
“Established companies have often missed opportunities to position themselves in new technology areas, such as cloud services,” criticizes Schwarz-Schilling. “Easing merger control could further restrict competition instead of promoting it. This strategy could lead to a concentration of market power, which in turn hinders innovation.” In order to make better use of Europe’s innovative potential, Schwarz-Schilling believes that the path envisaged in the guidelines of simplifying legislation for SMEs, supporting small innovative companies in their growth and “reducing the costs of failure” is certainly the more promising way forward.
The fact that the White Paper, which serves to prepare a future Digital Networks Act (DNA), is not explicitly mentioned does not mean that the Commission will not make a proposal on this in 2025. However, the focus of the guidelines is on artificial intelligence and data. Schwarz-Schilling welcomes this. Access to data is a major challenge for many companies. “Companies are reluctant to share their data and there are considerable difficulties in structuring data so that it can be used by others,” says Schwarz-Schilling. “Standards need to be developed to overcome these challenges.”
Schwarz-Schilling also welcomed the proposal to set up a European AI Research Council. “Because in this area, it really does make sense to pool resources due to the economies of scale, similar to CERN.” The researcher also emphasizes: “It is important that smaller AI players also have affordable access to computing capacities.” This, in turn, is what von der Leyen wants to achieve through the planned AI factories.
It was one of Germany’s most ambitious industrial projects: Desertec was to produce large quantities of renewable energy in North Africa, connecting the electricity grids in North Africa and these with Europe. Desertec was to produce up to 15 percent of Europe’s electricity. This would have required a gigantic investment of around €400 billion. But the project failed.
The good news, however, is that Desertec lives on. And not only that: Desertec is bigger today than ever before. Paul van Son, the Dutchman who drove the Desertec Industrial Initiative GmbH (DII) forward, has remained true to the project. However, Desertec has changed fundamentally. Under a new name, Dii Desert Energy is now an international industrial network based in Dubai.
There, van Son continues to pursue the original idea of Desertec, with one difference: Dii is now more of a think tank that aims to connect people, countries and markets in the field of clean energy. The goal is still the same: to produce emission-free, reliable and cost-effective energy in the deserts. Van Son believes Dii Desert Energy is on the right track: “The countries of the MENA region are increasingly exploiting their potential for emission-free energy generation,” he says.
Van Son studied engineering and energy management in Delft and then worked for Siemens in the network sector, followed by the energy company Essent. From 2009, he headed the Desertec Industrial Initiative in Munich – until it fell apart five years later when many shareholders such as Siemens and ABB did not want to extend their commitment.
However, RWE, the Chinese company State Grid Corporation and Acwa Power from Saudi Arabia have remained loyal to Dii Desert Energy even after the renaming and relocation. Thyssenkrupp also plays a leading role in the network. Numerous names from German industry have joined or rejoined the initiative: Eon, Bosch, Baywa, Siemens, Daimler Truck, Siemens Energy, Samson and Roland Berger.
Above all, Cornelius Matthes has remained loyal to Paul van Son. Today, Matthes heads the network as CEO, while van Son is the President. Matthes had the prospect of a promising career in asset management at Deutsche Bank. However, the opportunity to help shape the energy transition appealed to him more than a career in the banking hierarchy. “Without green hydrogen from the desert countries, the energy transition would not make any progress here,” says Matthes.
Matthes has been by van Son’s side all the way, with all the ups and downs. Today, he manages the network in Dubai. But Paul van Son continues to act in his role as President – as a driving force and visionary who is always pushing forward new ideas with a soft voice, kindness and emphasis.
This weekend, on July 13, Dii Desert Energy celebrated its fifteenth anniversary. “Our group had the first discussions about the Neom Green Hydrogen project, which reached financial close at $8.4 billion and is now being built,” Matthes said on the occasion. “We also discussed other crazy ideas that nobody would have thought would ever be realized.”
Van Son and Matthes even claim that Dii Desert Energy is now bigger and has had a greater impact than the Desertec Industrial Initiative ever could. Matthes soberly states the facts: “Since we launched the MENA Hydrogen Alliance five years ago, the Dii Desert Energy industrial group and think tank has made an impressive comeback: from 20 partners in 2019, we have grown six-fold and now have more than 120 partners from 35 countries.”
However, Dii Desert Energy is focusing strongly on the Middle East as well as North Africa. And yet: Desertec’s old cooperation countries – Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco – are still involved. In a few weeks, van Son will be celebrating his 71st birthday. But he clearly still feels comfortable in his role as President of Dii Desert Energy. It is a life for clean energy. Christian von Hiller