For the first time in five years, the Conference of Minister Presidents is taking place in Brussels today and tomorrow. The 16 heads of government of the German states will meet with Commission President Ursula von der Leyen as well as several Commissioners. A lunch with the Permanent Representative, Michael Clauß, is also planned for Thursday. The main topics are: How can the exodus of industry be prevented? What is the Commission doing to tackle illegal migration? When will something happen in terms of cutting bureaucracy?
After all, the federal states are not directly involved in the EU legislative process but have rights of participation via the Bundesrat. But that does not stop the MPs from making concrete demands and voicing clear criticism. For example, in the “Brussels Declaration,” the seven-page document of the MPC in Brussels.
The heads of the federal states are calling, regardless of their party, for a “bridge electricity price for energy-intensive industry.” The current Chairman of the MPK, Lower Saxony’s Minister President Stephan Weil (SPD), is likely to remind von der Leyen of his state’s proposal on the matter from April and point out that problems under state aid law would have to be dealt with.
Weil’s deputy, NRW head of government Hendrik Wüst (CDU), is calling for “significant simplifications in state aid and public procurement law.” Wüst told Table.Media, “When it comes to speeding up procedures, the federal government all too often refers to Brussels and says: That is not possible under European law.” But because the German government does not lobby in Europe for corresponding changes, he said, he and the other MPs want to raise this demand directly with the Commission themselves. Let’s see whether they are heard.
In Germany, the budget discussions of the Bundestag are also on the agenda. And with them, the government period of the traffic light coalition enters its second half this week. We at Table.Media are asking you in a survey: Which political issues should the federal government tackle in the coming months, and in which policy areas do you expect agreements? How do you generally rate the work of the traffic light so far and the performance of the ministers? We invite you to participate and ask for your assessments. We look forward to receiving the results, which we will be happy to send to you.
Six million vehicles reach the end of their service life in Europe every year. At that point, they are considered end-of-life vehicles – and hold an enormous treasure trove of materials, from energy-intensive basic materials such as steel and aluminum to precious metals and rare earths.
The EU End-of-Life Vehicles Directive of 2000, which is implemented in Germany by the End-of-Life Vehicles Ordinance, sets out measures to prevent and limit waste from end-of-life vehicles and their components and to ensure that they are reused, recycled or recovered.
Since 2015, at least 95 percent of the unladen weight of all end-of-life vehicles must be reused or recycled. Of this, at least 85 percent by weight must be reused or recycled. The member states report annually on the quantity of end-of-life vehicles as well as the reuse and recycling rates; these are already very high: on average, the reuse rate is just under 95 percent and the recycling rate 89 percent in the EU. In Germany, it is only just below that, at 94 percent reuse and 87 percent recycling.
The EU Commission is now revising the directive and presented a draft regulation in July. This is because, despite high recycling rates, a number of obstacles stand in the way of a functioning circular economy in the automotive sector: Only small quantities of plastics have been recycled and reused to date, and the produced scrap metals are of low quality. In addition, the transition to electromobility and the increasing integration of electronics in vehicles will increase demand for copper and critical raw materials. Therefore, the revision focuses on targets for the use of recyclate material. It also addresses the problem of the “unknown whereabouts” of end-of-life vehicles.
The automotive industry is one of the largest consumers of primary raw materials and has so far made little use of recycled materials. According to the EU Commission, the European automotive sector comes up with:
In addition, there are the raw materials for batteries. Their demand will increase immensely with the ramp-up of e-mobility: cobalt, lithium, nickel, manganese and graphite. Specifications on the circularity of battery raw materials are regulated in the Battery Regulation, which comes into force at the beginning of 2024.
The Commission also assumes “that the automotive industry in Europe will become the largest consumer of critical raw materials for permanent magnets for electric motors.” There is immense dependence on China: 94 percent of permanent magnets are imported from China, and the rare earths required for them are largely mined and processed in China.
Copper and rare earths are already on the EU list of raw materials considered strategic due to current dependencies on individual exporting countries, their importance to industry and rapidly increasing demand. For them, the Critical Raw Materials Act currently negotiated in the EU Parliament provides for greater production capacity within the EU, import diversification and greater recycling capacity. Bauxite, the raw material for aluminum, is on the list of critical raw materials. They are subject to the objectives of monitoring and mitigating supply risk and ensuring their free movement within the EU internal market. According to the Council’s negotiating mandate, bauxite, alumina and aluminum are to be classified as strategic raw materials.
The Commission wants to promote the recycling and reuse of these raw materials in the automotive sector and thus set targets for the use of recyclate materials in vehicles in the new regulation. However, there is only one specific figure in the draft: 25 percent of the plastic used to build a new vehicle must come from recycling. Of that, 25 percent must in turn be recycled from end-of-life vehicles. For a possible definition of targets for the recycled content of rare earths, aluminum and magnesium and their alloys, the Commission is first to conduct feasibility studies.
According to a current position paper on the circular economy, the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA) is “striving to increase the use of secondary materials and thus use fewer virgin materials from fossil sources and ores.” To date, only a few secondary materials have been used; many projects relate primarily to recycling the batteries of EVs. BMW Group vehicles currently consist of “up to 30 percent recycled and reused material,” according to the company. Audi launched a project this year to “steadily increase the proportion of recyclates used in the Audi fleet over the next few years.”
Unlike the EU Commission’s draft legislation, the use of all material sources should be made possible, says Michael Püschner, head of the Environment and Sustainability department at the VDA. For example, the Commission’s draft only provides for a post-consumer and a closed-loop approach for plastics, in which the recyclate use quotas must be achieved through recovered materials of the same vehicle type. This, he said, is not feasible in practice. Therefore, there should be more and cross-industry options for companies to even begin to achieve specified quotas. The VDA thus proposes that the level and composition of the recycled content quota be fundamentally reconsidered and adapted to the actual market conditions.
Another obstacle to the circular economy: Around 78 percent of end-of-life vehicles are exported and are no longer available for recycling in Germany. According to a new publication by the Wuppertal Institute and the North Rhine-Westphalian state organization NRW.Energy4Climate, this is initially a welcome development, as continued use abroad extends the service life. However, it is questionable what will happen to the vehicles abroad.
Almost 90 percent of end-of-life vehicles from Germany are exported to other EU countries. However, this is often followed by exports to non-European countries, such as West Africa. According to the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), 42 percent of used vehicles traded in EU countries from 2015 to 2020 were exported to countries outside the EU. “Basically, significant amounts of secondary raw materials are lost for recycling in Germany with these exports, which increases the need for energy-intensive primary production and contributes to dependence on global supply chains, especially for critical raw materials,” the Wuppertal Institute analysis states.
In addition, around 150,000 end-of-life vehicles in Germany are not recorded every year. According to the analysis, that is due to unrecognized dismantling in illegal recycling facilities. This is also where the EU Commission’s proposal comes in: More inspections, digital tracking of end-of-life vehicles throughout the EU and higher fines for violations are intended to stop the disappearance of vehicles. The export of used vehicles that are not roadworthy is also to be banned.
The draft also includes the following requirements:
Public consultation on the draft is now open until the end of October.
The end of the mandate period is approaching and the EU politicians still have a lot to do to complete their legislative projects in the area of digital. The most attention is certainly focused on the AI-Act. Europe wants to present the world’s first comprehensive legal framework for artificial intelligence, hoping to trigger a Brussels Effect. But the negotiations are far from over – and there is more on the docket.
Even new proposals from the Commission are still expected in this mandate period, on:
However, there is no schedule for these topics yet. But the following topics are definitely on the digital agenda this fall:
Actors: Commission, Council and Parliament in trilogue
State of play: Since the end of August, the working groups have again been meeting twice a week for four hours each to negotiate. The negotiators are slowly moving forward. The currently most discussed topic, generative artificial intelligence, has not yet been on the agenda. The difficulty is that the Commission did not even include these models in its draft, nor do they fit into the structure of the law. This is because the law divides AI applications into risk classes. AI that is created for a variety of purposes cannot actually be grouped there.
The Council nevertheless formulated something on General Purpose AI (GPAI), the Parliament introduced Foundation Models. The working groups are not expected to discuss this topic until October. The same applies to the controversial topics of environmental impact, fundamental rights assessment and exceptions for law enforcement.
Schedule: The next round of the trilogue is scheduled for October 2 and 3, with a further date at the end of October. The aim is to reach an agreement under the Spanish Council Presidency.
Actors: lead committee is the JURI Committee, rapporteur Axel Voss (CDU)
State of play: The Commission’s draft on liability rules for AI is available. However, the Parliament does not want to start the consultation until the AI-Act has been completed.
Schedule: open
Actors: Commission
State of play: The Digital Services Act (DSA) and Digital Markets Act (DMA) are in force, but now it is a matter of application. The DSA is already legally binding for 19 very large online platforms and online search engines. Companies such as X (Twitter), Facebook, TikTok and Instagram must comply with transparency and data protection obligations, as well as combat illegal content and disinformation. However, Zalando and Amazon are taking legal action to defend themselves against their classification as very large online platforms.
DMA: The law is intended to curb unfair and distortive practices by very large technology companies. Today, the Commission intends to name the companies that form a key interface between businesses and consumers (Core Platform Services, or CPS) and thus fall under regulation. Seven gatekeepers – Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Samsung, Alphabet (Google), Meta (Facebook) and Bytedance (TikTok) – have notified the EU Commission that they meet the criteria. The aim is to ensure that the big players adapt their technology and business models so that smaller, innovative companies have a chance in the market.
Again, discussions are to be expected, as to whom the strict rules apply to or not, as the Commission has some discretion. As the Financial Times reports, Apple and Microsoft are resisting the Commission’s classification of their services – the chat app iMessage and the search engine Bing – as gatekeepers.
Andreas Schwab (CDU), rapporteur for the DMA and internal market policy spokesman for the EPP Group, has just written to Executive Vice President Margrethe Vestager on the subject of classification. Schwab points out that map services such as Google Maps are also used for online searches and thus be categorized as search engines. He also suggests that delegated acts should be used to extend obligations for search engines to other CPSs. He also advises that companies that are both social media and sales platforms should be counted as marketplaces.
Schedule: The DSA rules already apply to very large providers, and will apply to all beginning February 24, 2024. The obligations of the DMA apply from March 2024.
Actors: lead is the ITRE Committee, rapporteur is Alin Mituța (Renew)
State of play: Without digital infrastructure, there is no digitization. With the Gigabit Infrastructure Act (an update of the Broadband Cost Reduction Directive) presented in February 2023, the EU Commission aims to create uniform conditions and reduce the costs of network expansion. Currently, the parliamentary committee is in the phase of technical meetings. The rapporteur’s plan was to complete these by the summer break and then quickly schedule the vote.
Among the controversial issues negotiators discussed were,
Schedule: still open
Actors: Commission
State of play: The industry is eagerly awaiting the results of the consultation on the future of communications networks. The Commission emphasizes that this is a very broad-based – open-ended – survey on the expected technical development and the investments required. A politically explosive bone of contention is whether the large technology companies from the USA, which generate huge data traffic in Europe, should share in the costs of network operators for expanding their infrastructure (fair share).
Schedule: still open. The results of the consultation should come soon.
Actors: lead is the ITRE Committee, rapporteur Nicola Danti (Renew)
State of play: With the legal act, the EU wants to improve the cybersecurity of products that are connected to each other or the Internet. The Council adopted its position in July. The lead ITRE Committee adopted its positioning in June. At present, the CRA is not yet on the EP agenda.
Schedule: Following the EP mandate, the trilogue is to begin as soon as possible, probably before the end of October.
Actors: leading is the CULT Committee, rapporteur Sabine Verheyen (CDU)
State of play: The European Media Freedom Act (EMFA) aims to protect pluralism and the independence of the media – among other things, against political influence and surveillance. There has been a lot of criticism, especially from Germany, where media supervision is a matter for the states. One point of contention in Parliament is Article 17, in which there is to be an exception to the moderation obligation for media, which does not exist in the DSA.
Schedule: The Council defined its position in June. The trilogue is to begin as soon as possible. On Thursday (September 7), the lead CULT Committee will adopt its positions. The EP must then adopt its negotiating mandate as a whole. This is scheduled for the first week of the October session.
Actors: Commission, Council and Parliament in trilogue
State of play: Among other things, the highly controversial CSA regulation is intended to oblige operators to take stronger action against depictions of sexual abuse of children. The scope is one of the main points of contention: Which services should be provided with which obligations? Discussions among both the member states and the MEPs have not yet been concluded – yet the trilogue is to begin soon.
Schedule: Council vote on Sept. 28, LIBE lead committee vote scheduled for Oct. 9.
Actors: Commission, Council and Parliament in trilogue
State of play: The revised legal act on digital identity (eIDAS) is intended to make the use of digital identities in the EU more interoperable. The Parliament’s chief negotiator, Romana Jerković, had already reached an agreement in principle with the Swedish Council Presidency in June. However, many aspects, primarily technical, have still not been decided.
Schedule: Negotiations are expected to be completed in the coming weeks.
The “job interview” lasted a good two and a half hours. On Tuesday, the Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) and Culture and Education (CULT) committees heard Iliana Ivanova for the post of EU Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth. Ivanova had shown “that she is the right person for the job,” CULT Chairwoman Sabine Verheyen (CDU) said afterward. She said Ivanova has a profound understanding of the fields of education, culture and youth and will be “committed to advancing the initiatives launched under her predecessor and setting her own accents.”
The new appointment so close to the end of the mandate period had become necessary because the predecessor in office, Marija Gabriel, had resigned to become prime minister in her home country. Today, Gabriel is the Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Bulgaria.
Ivanova said three points were central to her. First, the key role of research and innovation for the EU growth model. Then, how Europe can best promote education and competence. “Because developing people’s potential is the best investment in our future.” And finally, the cohesive role of culture in our society. Research, development and innovation, she said, are prerequisites for a sustainable future.
Speaking in German, Ivanova said it was high time that the EU also used Horizon Europe as a tool for getting ahead on a global scale. Cooperation will always be crucial in this regard, she said. “We need to strengthen the international dimension of Horizon Europe and push for the association of third countries,” Ivanova urged. At the same time, she said, the EU must ensure reciprocity, as envisaged by the Economic Security Strategy. At the hearing, Ivanova spoke English and French, in addition to German and her native Bulgarian.
Before the hearing, Ivanova had already answered questions of the Parliament in writing. After the hearing, the Conference of Committee Chairs evaluated the outcome of the hearing and forwarded its conclusions to the Conference of Presidents. The latter will make the final assessment today and decide whether the hearing procedure is closed.
Then, the vote can take place at the September plenary session. The Parliament’s vote on individual candidates is by secret ballot and requires a simple majority. vis
At a good 24 percent of final consumption, the EU has almost twice the global average share of renewables today. But recently there has been little progress, looking at wind power: global expansion was 17 percent in 2022 compared to 2021, but only nine percent in the EU. Why is Europe slowing down?
With long guaranteed feed-in tariffs, even for technically outdated solar plants, there is no pressure to innovate. Strict species protection requirements mean small dormice can prevent large wind farms, or cause long approval procedures. And in the case that a lot of green power is produced in some places, the infrastructure and grids do not grow along, also because politicians are granting more and more options for legal action.
With the Ukraine war and the upheavals in the energy markets at the latest, the situation has changed, at least in Brussels. With a view to more energy sovereignty, it almost seems like a jolt has gone through the EU institutions. On September 13, the EU Parliament will vote on the new Renewable Energy Directive. Let’s not call it a booster, but this law is proof that Brussels can also be pragmatically non-bureaucratic.
Not only does the directive drastically increase the EU’s 2030 expansion target for final energy consumption from 30 to 45 percent from renewable energies, no, this time Brussels is not just saying “higher, faster, further” but also how this can be achieved more cheaply and with less regulation. Firstly, the expansion of renewables is classified as being of overriding public interest. This status guarantees faster approval procedures applying to all plants and their infrastructures. In addition, “acceleration areas” can be defined where exceptions to species protection requirements are possible. The individual dormouse must give way to the wind farm or biogas plant if the population of dormice is secured throughout Europe. The wonderful term “positive silence” ensures that building applications are automatically considered approved if there is no feedback after twelve months – a booster after all.
Second, the law is open to technology. The focus is on wind and solar but also hydropower, geothermal or tidal streams. The classification of “wood-based biomass” as renewable was controversial. Because trees grow back, there was a majority in favor. Even the traffic light coalition adapted the German heating law – after it was clear that the buck could not be passed to Brussels.
The third door opener is the realization that imports are crucial. Heat pumps, EVs, and green electricity and hydrogen in the industry will require at least five times the amount of green electricity to achieve climate neutrality. Europe will have to import 50 to 70 percent. That is why the EU needs to mandate import targets and corresponding strategies for national energy and climate plans.
Finally, the directive is an accelerator for innovation. Member states are required to plan five percent of their annual expansion quotas beyond the state of the art. Tenders and market premiums for wind, solar and biomass, pilot projects for floating solar cells, wind kites, river power plants, algae houses, solar roads or hydropower plants with energy from ocean waves. Nothing is impossible and almost everything has a future. Every relevant technology has a right to be explored. For far too long, Germany, for example, remained stuck in old patterns of thinking about feed-in tariffs, neglected storage technology, and lent economic glamor to outdated technology.
The EU thus offers an optimal framework for market-based solutions for the expansion of renewables. Brussels must flank this with even more pragmatism, less bureaucracy for cross-border grid projects, and exemptions from state aid law for investments in the value chain, without nerve- and project-killing notification procedures. We also need an EU electricity market design that makes renewables attractive also as capacity reserves and gives space to decentralized storage solutions.
The decisive factor is the member states. They must pick up the balls from Brussels without bureaucracy. The rapid designation of acceleration areas is just as crucial as an appetite for innovations open to technology. Increasing volatile power generation requires more grids that can provide intelligent intermediate storage, cushion peak loads, and deliver over long distances. We need to realize that most, but not everything, can be done electrically. Hydrogen must be given the future it deserves for the energy transition. Berlin must prioritize the Paris carbon target and accept the diversity of rainbow colors in hydrogen as well.
Brussels leaves it up to the countries to decide whether and in what proportions gas and hydrogen are mixed in the networks. Germany must thus exploit its unique locational advantage of its widely ramified gas network with its storage capacity. Instead of the traffic light coalition’s plans for a demand on dismantling the gas networks, there needs to be a ban on dismantling. The choice of whether to electrify, use hydrogen, biogas, or biomass must be open to every business and household. With the expected progress in expansion and import, this is more than wishful thinking. Only if Germany takes up the new EU requirements will we get back on the fast track in renewable energies. And at a reasonable cost.
For the first time in five years, the Conference of Minister Presidents is taking place in Brussels today and tomorrow. The 16 heads of government of the German states will meet with Commission President Ursula von der Leyen as well as several Commissioners. A lunch with the Permanent Representative, Michael Clauß, is also planned for Thursday. The main topics are: How can the exodus of industry be prevented? What is the Commission doing to tackle illegal migration? When will something happen in terms of cutting bureaucracy?
After all, the federal states are not directly involved in the EU legislative process but have rights of participation via the Bundesrat. But that does not stop the MPs from making concrete demands and voicing clear criticism. For example, in the “Brussels Declaration,” the seven-page document of the MPC in Brussels.
The heads of the federal states are calling, regardless of their party, for a “bridge electricity price for energy-intensive industry.” The current Chairman of the MPK, Lower Saxony’s Minister President Stephan Weil (SPD), is likely to remind von der Leyen of his state’s proposal on the matter from April and point out that problems under state aid law would have to be dealt with.
Weil’s deputy, NRW head of government Hendrik Wüst (CDU), is calling for “significant simplifications in state aid and public procurement law.” Wüst told Table.Media, “When it comes to speeding up procedures, the federal government all too often refers to Brussels and says: That is not possible under European law.” But because the German government does not lobby in Europe for corresponding changes, he said, he and the other MPs want to raise this demand directly with the Commission themselves. Let’s see whether they are heard.
In Germany, the budget discussions of the Bundestag are also on the agenda. And with them, the government period of the traffic light coalition enters its second half this week. We at Table.Media are asking you in a survey: Which political issues should the federal government tackle in the coming months, and in which policy areas do you expect agreements? How do you generally rate the work of the traffic light so far and the performance of the ministers? We invite you to participate and ask for your assessments. We look forward to receiving the results, which we will be happy to send to you.
Six million vehicles reach the end of their service life in Europe every year. At that point, they are considered end-of-life vehicles – and hold an enormous treasure trove of materials, from energy-intensive basic materials such as steel and aluminum to precious metals and rare earths.
The EU End-of-Life Vehicles Directive of 2000, which is implemented in Germany by the End-of-Life Vehicles Ordinance, sets out measures to prevent and limit waste from end-of-life vehicles and their components and to ensure that they are reused, recycled or recovered.
Since 2015, at least 95 percent of the unladen weight of all end-of-life vehicles must be reused or recycled. Of this, at least 85 percent by weight must be reused or recycled. The member states report annually on the quantity of end-of-life vehicles as well as the reuse and recycling rates; these are already very high: on average, the reuse rate is just under 95 percent and the recycling rate 89 percent in the EU. In Germany, it is only just below that, at 94 percent reuse and 87 percent recycling.
The EU Commission is now revising the directive and presented a draft regulation in July. This is because, despite high recycling rates, a number of obstacles stand in the way of a functioning circular economy in the automotive sector: Only small quantities of plastics have been recycled and reused to date, and the produced scrap metals are of low quality. In addition, the transition to electromobility and the increasing integration of electronics in vehicles will increase demand for copper and critical raw materials. Therefore, the revision focuses on targets for the use of recyclate material. It also addresses the problem of the “unknown whereabouts” of end-of-life vehicles.
The automotive industry is one of the largest consumers of primary raw materials and has so far made little use of recycled materials. According to the EU Commission, the European automotive sector comes up with:
In addition, there are the raw materials for batteries. Their demand will increase immensely with the ramp-up of e-mobility: cobalt, lithium, nickel, manganese and graphite. Specifications on the circularity of battery raw materials are regulated in the Battery Regulation, which comes into force at the beginning of 2024.
The Commission also assumes “that the automotive industry in Europe will become the largest consumer of critical raw materials for permanent magnets for electric motors.” There is immense dependence on China: 94 percent of permanent magnets are imported from China, and the rare earths required for them are largely mined and processed in China.
Copper and rare earths are already on the EU list of raw materials considered strategic due to current dependencies on individual exporting countries, their importance to industry and rapidly increasing demand. For them, the Critical Raw Materials Act currently negotiated in the EU Parliament provides for greater production capacity within the EU, import diversification and greater recycling capacity. Bauxite, the raw material for aluminum, is on the list of critical raw materials. They are subject to the objectives of monitoring and mitigating supply risk and ensuring their free movement within the EU internal market. According to the Council’s negotiating mandate, bauxite, alumina and aluminum are to be classified as strategic raw materials.
The Commission wants to promote the recycling and reuse of these raw materials in the automotive sector and thus set targets for the use of recyclate materials in vehicles in the new regulation. However, there is only one specific figure in the draft: 25 percent of the plastic used to build a new vehicle must come from recycling. Of that, 25 percent must in turn be recycled from end-of-life vehicles. For a possible definition of targets for the recycled content of rare earths, aluminum and magnesium and their alloys, the Commission is first to conduct feasibility studies.
According to a current position paper on the circular economy, the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA) is “striving to increase the use of secondary materials and thus use fewer virgin materials from fossil sources and ores.” To date, only a few secondary materials have been used; many projects relate primarily to recycling the batteries of EVs. BMW Group vehicles currently consist of “up to 30 percent recycled and reused material,” according to the company. Audi launched a project this year to “steadily increase the proportion of recyclates used in the Audi fleet over the next few years.”
Unlike the EU Commission’s draft legislation, the use of all material sources should be made possible, says Michael Püschner, head of the Environment and Sustainability department at the VDA. For example, the Commission’s draft only provides for a post-consumer and a closed-loop approach for plastics, in which the recyclate use quotas must be achieved through recovered materials of the same vehicle type. This, he said, is not feasible in practice. Therefore, there should be more and cross-industry options for companies to even begin to achieve specified quotas. The VDA thus proposes that the level and composition of the recycled content quota be fundamentally reconsidered and adapted to the actual market conditions.
Another obstacle to the circular economy: Around 78 percent of end-of-life vehicles are exported and are no longer available for recycling in Germany. According to a new publication by the Wuppertal Institute and the North Rhine-Westphalian state organization NRW.Energy4Climate, this is initially a welcome development, as continued use abroad extends the service life. However, it is questionable what will happen to the vehicles abroad.
Almost 90 percent of end-of-life vehicles from Germany are exported to other EU countries. However, this is often followed by exports to non-European countries, such as West Africa. According to the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), 42 percent of used vehicles traded in EU countries from 2015 to 2020 were exported to countries outside the EU. “Basically, significant amounts of secondary raw materials are lost for recycling in Germany with these exports, which increases the need for energy-intensive primary production and contributes to dependence on global supply chains, especially for critical raw materials,” the Wuppertal Institute analysis states.
In addition, around 150,000 end-of-life vehicles in Germany are not recorded every year. According to the analysis, that is due to unrecognized dismantling in illegal recycling facilities. This is also where the EU Commission’s proposal comes in: More inspections, digital tracking of end-of-life vehicles throughout the EU and higher fines for violations are intended to stop the disappearance of vehicles. The export of used vehicles that are not roadworthy is also to be banned.
The draft also includes the following requirements:
Public consultation on the draft is now open until the end of October.
The end of the mandate period is approaching and the EU politicians still have a lot to do to complete their legislative projects in the area of digital. The most attention is certainly focused on the AI-Act. Europe wants to present the world’s first comprehensive legal framework for artificial intelligence, hoping to trigger a Brussels Effect. But the negotiations are far from over – and there is more on the docket.
Even new proposals from the Commission are still expected in this mandate period, on:
However, there is no schedule for these topics yet. But the following topics are definitely on the digital agenda this fall:
Actors: Commission, Council and Parliament in trilogue
State of play: Since the end of August, the working groups have again been meeting twice a week for four hours each to negotiate. The negotiators are slowly moving forward. The currently most discussed topic, generative artificial intelligence, has not yet been on the agenda. The difficulty is that the Commission did not even include these models in its draft, nor do they fit into the structure of the law. This is because the law divides AI applications into risk classes. AI that is created for a variety of purposes cannot actually be grouped there.
The Council nevertheless formulated something on General Purpose AI (GPAI), the Parliament introduced Foundation Models. The working groups are not expected to discuss this topic until October. The same applies to the controversial topics of environmental impact, fundamental rights assessment and exceptions for law enforcement.
Schedule: The next round of the trilogue is scheduled for October 2 and 3, with a further date at the end of October. The aim is to reach an agreement under the Spanish Council Presidency.
Actors: lead committee is the JURI Committee, rapporteur Axel Voss (CDU)
State of play: The Commission’s draft on liability rules for AI is available. However, the Parliament does not want to start the consultation until the AI-Act has been completed.
Schedule: open
Actors: Commission
State of play: The Digital Services Act (DSA) and Digital Markets Act (DMA) are in force, but now it is a matter of application. The DSA is already legally binding for 19 very large online platforms and online search engines. Companies such as X (Twitter), Facebook, TikTok and Instagram must comply with transparency and data protection obligations, as well as combat illegal content and disinformation. However, Zalando and Amazon are taking legal action to defend themselves against their classification as very large online platforms.
DMA: The law is intended to curb unfair and distortive practices by very large technology companies. Today, the Commission intends to name the companies that form a key interface between businesses and consumers (Core Platform Services, or CPS) and thus fall under regulation. Seven gatekeepers – Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Samsung, Alphabet (Google), Meta (Facebook) and Bytedance (TikTok) – have notified the EU Commission that they meet the criteria. The aim is to ensure that the big players adapt their technology and business models so that smaller, innovative companies have a chance in the market.
Again, discussions are to be expected, as to whom the strict rules apply to or not, as the Commission has some discretion. As the Financial Times reports, Apple and Microsoft are resisting the Commission’s classification of their services – the chat app iMessage and the search engine Bing – as gatekeepers.
Andreas Schwab (CDU), rapporteur for the DMA and internal market policy spokesman for the EPP Group, has just written to Executive Vice President Margrethe Vestager on the subject of classification. Schwab points out that map services such as Google Maps are also used for online searches and thus be categorized as search engines. He also suggests that delegated acts should be used to extend obligations for search engines to other CPSs. He also advises that companies that are both social media and sales platforms should be counted as marketplaces.
Schedule: The DSA rules already apply to very large providers, and will apply to all beginning February 24, 2024. The obligations of the DMA apply from March 2024.
Actors: lead is the ITRE Committee, rapporteur is Alin Mituța (Renew)
State of play: Without digital infrastructure, there is no digitization. With the Gigabit Infrastructure Act (an update of the Broadband Cost Reduction Directive) presented in February 2023, the EU Commission aims to create uniform conditions and reduce the costs of network expansion. Currently, the parliamentary committee is in the phase of technical meetings. The rapporteur’s plan was to complete these by the summer break and then quickly schedule the vote.
Among the controversial issues negotiators discussed were,
Schedule: still open
Actors: Commission
State of play: The industry is eagerly awaiting the results of the consultation on the future of communications networks. The Commission emphasizes that this is a very broad-based – open-ended – survey on the expected technical development and the investments required. A politically explosive bone of contention is whether the large technology companies from the USA, which generate huge data traffic in Europe, should share in the costs of network operators for expanding their infrastructure (fair share).
Schedule: still open. The results of the consultation should come soon.
Actors: lead is the ITRE Committee, rapporteur Nicola Danti (Renew)
State of play: With the legal act, the EU wants to improve the cybersecurity of products that are connected to each other or the Internet. The Council adopted its position in July. The lead ITRE Committee adopted its positioning in June. At present, the CRA is not yet on the EP agenda.
Schedule: Following the EP mandate, the trilogue is to begin as soon as possible, probably before the end of October.
Actors: leading is the CULT Committee, rapporteur Sabine Verheyen (CDU)
State of play: The European Media Freedom Act (EMFA) aims to protect pluralism and the independence of the media – among other things, against political influence and surveillance. There has been a lot of criticism, especially from Germany, where media supervision is a matter for the states. One point of contention in Parliament is Article 17, in which there is to be an exception to the moderation obligation for media, which does not exist in the DSA.
Schedule: The Council defined its position in June. The trilogue is to begin as soon as possible. On Thursday (September 7), the lead CULT Committee will adopt its positions. The EP must then adopt its negotiating mandate as a whole. This is scheduled for the first week of the October session.
Actors: Commission, Council and Parliament in trilogue
State of play: Among other things, the highly controversial CSA regulation is intended to oblige operators to take stronger action against depictions of sexual abuse of children. The scope is one of the main points of contention: Which services should be provided with which obligations? Discussions among both the member states and the MEPs have not yet been concluded – yet the trilogue is to begin soon.
Schedule: Council vote on Sept. 28, LIBE lead committee vote scheduled for Oct. 9.
Actors: Commission, Council and Parliament in trilogue
State of play: The revised legal act on digital identity (eIDAS) is intended to make the use of digital identities in the EU more interoperable. The Parliament’s chief negotiator, Romana Jerković, had already reached an agreement in principle with the Swedish Council Presidency in June. However, many aspects, primarily technical, have still not been decided.
Schedule: Negotiations are expected to be completed in the coming weeks.
The “job interview” lasted a good two and a half hours. On Tuesday, the Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) and Culture and Education (CULT) committees heard Iliana Ivanova for the post of EU Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth. Ivanova had shown “that she is the right person for the job,” CULT Chairwoman Sabine Verheyen (CDU) said afterward. She said Ivanova has a profound understanding of the fields of education, culture and youth and will be “committed to advancing the initiatives launched under her predecessor and setting her own accents.”
The new appointment so close to the end of the mandate period had become necessary because the predecessor in office, Marija Gabriel, had resigned to become prime minister in her home country. Today, Gabriel is the Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Bulgaria.
Ivanova said three points were central to her. First, the key role of research and innovation for the EU growth model. Then, how Europe can best promote education and competence. “Because developing people’s potential is the best investment in our future.” And finally, the cohesive role of culture in our society. Research, development and innovation, she said, are prerequisites for a sustainable future.
Speaking in German, Ivanova said it was high time that the EU also used Horizon Europe as a tool for getting ahead on a global scale. Cooperation will always be crucial in this regard, she said. “We need to strengthen the international dimension of Horizon Europe and push for the association of third countries,” Ivanova urged. At the same time, she said, the EU must ensure reciprocity, as envisaged by the Economic Security Strategy. At the hearing, Ivanova spoke English and French, in addition to German and her native Bulgarian.
Before the hearing, Ivanova had already answered questions of the Parliament in writing. After the hearing, the Conference of Committee Chairs evaluated the outcome of the hearing and forwarded its conclusions to the Conference of Presidents. The latter will make the final assessment today and decide whether the hearing procedure is closed.
Then, the vote can take place at the September plenary session. The Parliament’s vote on individual candidates is by secret ballot and requires a simple majority. vis
At a good 24 percent of final consumption, the EU has almost twice the global average share of renewables today. But recently there has been little progress, looking at wind power: global expansion was 17 percent in 2022 compared to 2021, but only nine percent in the EU. Why is Europe slowing down?
With long guaranteed feed-in tariffs, even for technically outdated solar plants, there is no pressure to innovate. Strict species protection requirements mean small dormice can prevent large wind farms, or cause long approval procedures. And in the case that a lot of green power is produced in some places, the infrastructure and grids do not grow along, also because politicians are granting more and more options for legal action.
With the Ukraine war and the upheavals in the energy markets at the latest, the situation has changed, at least in Brussels. With a view to more energy sovereignty, it almost seems like a jolt has gone through the EU institutions. On September 13, the EU Parliament will vote on the new Renewable Energy Directive. Let’s not call it a booster, but this law is proof that Brussels can also be pragmatically non-bureaucratic.
Not only does the directive drastically increase the EU’s 2030 expansion target for final energy consumption from 30 to 45 percent from renewable energies, no, this time Brussels is not just saying “higher, faster, further” but also how this can be achieved more cheaply and with less regulation. Firstly, the expansion of renewables is classified as being of overriding public interest. This status guarantees faster approval procedures applying to all plants and their infrastructures. In addition, “acceleration areas” can be defined where exceptions to species protection requirements are possible. The individual dormouse must give way to the wind farm or biogas plant if the population of dormice is secured throughout Europe. The wonderful term “positive silence” ensures that building applications are automatically considered approved if there is no feedback after twelve months – a booster after all.
Second, the law is open to technology. The focus is on wind and solar but also hydropower, geothermal or tidal streams. The classification of “wood-based biomass” as renewable was controversial. Because trees grow back, there was a majority in favor. Even the traffic light coalition adapted the German heating law – after it was clear that the buck could not be passed to Brussels.
The third door opener is the realization that imports are crucial. Heat pumps, EVs, and green electricity and hydrogen in the industry will require at least five times the amount of green electricity to achieve climate neutrality. Europe will have to import 50 to 70 percent. That is why the EU needs to mandate import targets and corresponding strategies for national energy and climate plans.
Finally, the directive is an accelerator for innovation. Member states are required to plan five percent of their annual expansion quotas beyond the state of the art. Tenders and market premiums for wind, solar and biomass, pilot projects for floating solar cells, wind kites, river power plants, algae houses, solar roads or hydropower plants with energy from ocean waves. Nothing is impossible and almost everything has a future. Every relevant technology has a right to be explored. For far too long, Germany, for example, remained stuck in old patterns of thinking about feed-in tariffs, neglected storage technology, and lent economic glamor to outdated technology.
The EU thus offers an optimal framework for market-based solutions for the expansion of renewables. Brussels must flank this with even more pragmatism, less bureaucracy for cross-border grid projects, and exemptions from state aid law for investments in the value chain, without nerve- and project-killing notification procedures. We also need an EU electricity market design that makes renewables attractive also as capacity reserves and gives space to decentralized storage solutions.
The decisive factor is the member states. They must pick up the balls from Brussels without bureaucracy. The rapid designation of acceleration areas is just as crucial as an appetite for innovations open to technology. Increasing volatile power generation requires more grids that can provide intelligent intermediate storage, cushion peak loads, and deliver over long distances. We need to realize that most, but not everything, can be done electrically. Hydrogen must be given the future it deserves for the energy transition. Berlin must prioritize the Paris carbon target and accept the diversity of rainbow colors in hydrogen as well.
Brussels leaves it up to the countries to decide whether and in what proportions gas and hydrogen are mixed in the networks. Germany must thus exploit its unique locational advantage of its widely ramified gas network with its storage capacity. Instead of the traffic light coalition’s plans for a demand on dismantling the gas networks, there needs to be a ban on dismantling. The choice of whether to electrify, use hydrogen, biogas, or biomass must be open to every business and household. With the expected progress in expansion and import, this is more than wishful thinking. Only if Germany takes up the new EU requirements will we get back on the fast track in renewable energies. And at a reasonable cost.
