It is a kind of roadmap for the Brussels political scene: the agenda of the EU Commission. In the document entitled “Liste des Points Prévus” in French, the authority records which initiatives the College of 27 Commissioners intends to adopt in the upcoming weeks and months in the College. Whether a bill makes it onto the (non-binding) list, slips to the back of the list, or is even missing altogether can be a real political issue.
For weeks now, EU operations have had to make do without this guidance: After the summer break, the Commission has not published any new planning. Even in the cabinets of the Commissioners, there was puzzlement as to what would happen next.
Now, however, President Ursula von der Leyen’s team has sent out an updated version internally. The other commissioners can still make requests for changes before the new agenda is published. “Hopefully soon”, it is said.
Conspicuously absent from the list, which runs through the end of November and was tracked down by our colleagues at “Contexte,” are the two most politically sensitive initiatives:
With REACH, it is conceivable that the proposal will come after all, possibly in December. In the case of SFS, this is unlikely: “The Commission President seems reluctant to touch anything before the elections that could arouse the anger of potential EPP voters from the agricultural industry”, says Brussels.
In the end, the Competitiveness Council needed little more than an hour for the general direction on the Euro 7 pollutant standard. Germany voted against the proposal of the Spanish Council Presidency. The German government had called for more ambitious limits and stricter test conditions for commercial vehicles and also wanted to push through a provision for e-fuels in the Euro 7 legislation. But Germany was unable to prevail with these demands.
As the Czech transport minister noted, the Council went a long way and significantly toned down the Commission’s proposal in many places. Italy, France, the Czech Republic and four other member states had joined forces in May to prevent ambitious limit values and demanding test conditions.
This group, which threatened to block Euro 7, was generally opposed to stricter limits on exhaust and also wanted to push through later deadlines for entry into force. The Swedish and then the Spanish Council presidencies then moved ever closer to this group in their compromise proposals.
Essentially, the General Approach has now decided what the group of eight member states had called for in May. These are the key points of the pollutant standard:
In Parliament, the Environment Committee (ENVI) will vote on Oct. 12 on the report by Alexandr Vondra (ECR). This report also provides for a tightening of the limit values and test conditions compared with the Commission’s proposal. However, it remains to be seen whether they will get a majority for this. According to the timetable, the plenum will decide on Nov. 9. After that, the trilogues can begin.
With Euro 7, the EU has for the first time proposed a pollutant standard that regulates cars, vans, trucks and buses. The response from manufacturers to the Commission’s proposal was mixed: Car manufacturers lobbied for a more ambitious reform so that standards would continue to be set in the EU. China and the USA are also working on stricter pollutant standards.
Manufacturers of commercial vehicles said that the proposed limit values would in part only be achievable at great financial expense, and in part not at all, technically speaking. Manufacturers of passenger cars and commercial vehicles, however, demanded legal certainty as soon as possible.
Benjamin Krieger of CLEPA, the European suppliers’ umbrella organization, said: “The required technology is available and economically viable.” A return to Euro 6, as called for by the Council, is not necessary to keep mobility affordable and “will neither help implement stricter air quality standards nor stimulate innovation in the EU”.
Despite the insistence from Berlin, no regulation of e-fuels has been included in the legislative text. Industry Commissioner Thierry Breton addressed the demands from Berlin on e-fuels once again before the vote. “The regulation of e-fuels in the Euro 7 pollutant standard was not on the agenda.” However, he said, the Commission was committed to presenting all the necessary legislation.
The Commission’s legislative proposal on the definition of e-fuels has now been submitted to the member states. He hoped that the regulation would soon be “wrapped up”.
The Commission recently submitted to the member states the legislative proposal for passenger cars that may still run exclusively on e-fuels even after the internal combustion engine is phased out in 2035. This legislative proposal stipulates that the e-fuels used must emit exactly 100 percent less greenhouse gases than fossil fuels. This proposal is to be discussed for the first time in the responsible Technical Committee Motor Vehicles (TCMV) on Oct. 4.
At the TCMV meeting in November or December, the member states are to vote on this in the comitology procedure. The Federal Ministry of Transport is in charge here. Minister Volker Wissing (FDP) is against the 100 percent quota. He has spoken out in favor of a 70 percent quota. Voting on the legislative proposal is still underway in the federal government.
The list of results after the meeting between EU trade chief Valdis Dombrovskis and China’s Vice Premier He Lifeng is long. There even was no public outcry over the EU investigation into China’s alleged EV subsidies. However, the true atmosphere of the first face-to-face EU-China trade dialogue was difficult to read from the faces of Dombrovskis and He.
Both calmly presented their points to the press in the Chinese capital on Thursday. Dombrovskis stressed in advance how important it was for him to have personal exchanges on the ground. In addition to He, he had met Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao, Minister of Finance Liu Kun as well as Pan Gongsheng, the new governor of the People’s Bank of China.
At the 10th trade dialogue, the EU and China agreed, among other things, on several joint working groups and a possible commodity early warning system. The most important points and statements at a glance:
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced the upcoming investigation in her State of the European Union address. Before Dombrovski’s visit to Beijing, it was considered to be the biggest point of conflict with Beijing.
The EU trade commissioner did not address the investigation directly during his visit – but he showed a clear stance in several speeches, including one at Tsinghua University, the alma mater of China’s leader Xi Jinping, on Monday morning: “We recognize that the world needs China. But China also needs the world. The lack of reciprocity and level playing field from China, coupled with wider geopolitical shifts, has forced the EU to become more assertive,” Dombrovskis said. He delivered his 20-minute speech to students and faculty. “We have heard China’s concerns about the EU’s economic security plans.”
Before the meeting, Dombrovskis had also visited the representation of the EU Chamber of Commerce in Beijing. Last week, the chamber presented a sobering position paper and hoped Dombrovskis would speak out. “We discussed improving the business environment for EU companies,” the EU trade commissioner wrote on X, formerly Twitter, after the meeting. He said resolving the concerns was in the interest of both the EU and China.
Dombrovski’s visit is not the only one from Brussels: EU Environment Commissioner Virginijus Sinkevičius is also currently in China. On Monday, he met his Chinese counterpart Huang Runqiu and the Minister responsible for Water Resources, Li Guoying. The “cornerstone of our global cooperation” has been laid at the 9th Ministerial Dialogue on Environmental Policy, Sinkevičius wrote on X. The dialogue was essential for exchanges on biodiversity, waste management and pollution control. Last weekend, Sinkevičius spoke at the Blue Partnership Forum for the Ocean in Shenzhen, where he stressed China’s and the EU’s shared responsibility for the oceans.
EU leaders will continue to travel to the Chinese capital in the coming weeks. Energy Commissioner Kadri Simson is expected next week, EU top diplomat Josep Borrell is then scheduled to visit next month.
The day after the bloody escalation in northern Kosovo, Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić received the Russian ambassador in Belgrade. He had informed Vladimir Putin’s envoy that “ethnic cleansing” was being carried out “in Kosovo”, Vučić wrote on Instagram to the handshake picture. Not a word on the social media platform about the attack by heavily armed paramilitaries on the Kosovo police, presumably directed from Belgrade.
It is the parallel world of Aleksandar Vučić. Serbia’s president is blatantly lying, comments Reinhard Bütikofer, a member of the European Parliament, on X. There is no ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, he says, and Vučić’s narrative justifies Serbian extremism. And Bütikofer is not the only one who thinks it unlikely that the paramilitaries acted without support from Belgrade, as Vučić claims.
But the Serbian president’s priority the day after the confrontation between Kosovo police and heavily armed paramilitaries is above all an indication of how miserably the EU’s and the U.S.’s strategy failed, which in short consisted of increasing the pressure on Kosovo as the supposedly weaker party while sparing Belgrade.
The US and its special envoy Gabriel Escobar support this course. This is also because Serbia’s arms industry is to supply Ukraine with urgently needed ammunition. However, the scope of these deliveries is unclear.
So it is also about geopolitics. The EU’s foreign affairs representative Josep Borrell and his special envoy Miroslav Lajčák have been conducting the so-called dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina for three years without success. An agreement with a list of mutual concessions leading to normalization has been on the table since the spring.
Recently, however, the mediators unilaterally insisted that Kosovo first meet Belgrade’s demand for autonomy for the Serb minority. Pristina sees this, not without reason, as a first step toward the secession of northern Kosovo, all the more so because there is no guarantee that Serbia’s president will also deliver and take steps toward at least de facto recognition of the young state.
The mistrust in Pristina is well-founded because Vučić has repeatedly declared publicly that he is not prepared to make any concessions to Kosovo. After the deadly confrontation in northern Kosovo, even Josep Borrell felt compelled to speak more clearly for the first time. He spoke of a “cowardly terrorist attack on Kosovo’s police officers”, but without clearly naming the perpetrators.
Kosovo police may have caught the 30 or so paramilitaries bringing weapons to a nearby Serbian Orthodox monastery, local observers suspect. Similar allegations have circulated for some time. In any case, Kosovo police seized large quantities of heavy weapons after the confrontation, in which at least four paramilitaries were killed.
The most serious incident in a long time is also embarrassing for the NATO force Kfor, which is officially responsible for security between Kosovo and Serbia. Kfor is observing the situation in northern Kosovo, is present and ready to intervene, it is said. The incident bears the signature of Aleksandar Vulin, Serbia’s intelligence chief with particularly close ties to Moscow, observers say. The former interior minister, who is on the US sanctions list, may have deliberately provoked an escalation on behalf of Moscow.
The EU must clearly show solidarity with Kosovo, demands Reinhard Bütikofer, Member of the European Parliament. Josep Borrell’s statement was not enough, he said, and the EU must now speak plainly. Other MEPs have long criticized the approach of the mediator duo Borrell-Lajčák as unbalanced and counterproductive.
The EU most recently imposed unilateral punitive measures on Kosovo after Prime Minister Kurti had elected mayors in northern Kosovo escorted by police to their town halls in May, in violation of agreements, resulting in riots and many injuries.
Individual EU diplomats have also recently urged a more balanced approach, but without withdrawing confidence from Borrell and his special envoy Lajčák. The terrorist attack on the Kosovo police had the potential to trigger a rethink, one EU diplomat now said. It cannot be ruled out that the leniency toward Belgrade will soon be over and that the EU states will force Borrell to make a course correction.
European environmental and climate policy has accompanied Linda Kalcher since her studies. After completing her bachelor’s degree in Romance languages and literature in Bonn and Florence, she studied European Culture and Economy at the Ruhr University in Bochum. There, the Leverkusen native was also the spokesperson for the master’s program, a point of contact for 80 students from all over the world. “A precursor to later working in parliament“, she says today, in her mid-thirties.
Kalcher has now lived in Brussels for twelve years and speaks six European languages. For the first six years, she worked in the office of long-time SPD environmental politician Jo Leinen, and then at the European Climate Foundation (ECF). Last year, she also served as Senior Advisor to the Secretary-General of the United Nations.
Asked what the EU can learn from the UN’s climate policy, Kalcher calls on Europeans to show more solidarity with the Global South. The fact that investments in the transformation there are being neglected and that the payment of $100 billion promised in 2009 is still outstanding benefits China in particular in geopolitical terms. And it damages the credibility of Europe and the industrialized countries.
In order to alert decision-makers to grievances such as these and to provide closer advice on what is happening in the political arena, she founded the think tank Strategic Perspectives in October 2022. While the ECF works primarily on project funding and financing, Kalcher is now re-engaging more closely with Members of Parliament on climate policy.
According to Kalcher, the think tank’s work also fills a niche: although some think tanks already work at the level of national and European environmental policy and others at the European and international level – hardly any think tanks take a look at all three political levels.
In mid-May, Kalcher and her colleague Neil Makaroff published the first Strategic Perspectives report. In collaboration with Cambridge Econometrics, they model the effects of the Green Deal and RePowerEU and provide recommendations for successful implementation. They have also collected examples of socially responsible climate policies from across Europe, such as the heat levy in the Czech Republic and the German “€49 ticket”, which allows nationwide use of public transport.
Kalcher is optimistic about the future, saying: “We’ve found that the climate targets are still achievable by 2030, while also creating 500,000 new jobs.”
What surprised her about the results, however, was that the share of natural gas in energy supply was falling only quite slowly. “One reason for this is the massive expansion of LNG terminals in Italy, Germany and France.” If measures like these are met with incomprehension within Europe, Kalcher believes it is important to keep all perspectives in mind and explain them to the governments of various countries – including those outside Europe.
The fact that this is not always easy is currently evident: “There is no debate about heat pumps like there is in Germany in countries like France, the Czech Republic or Poland.” There, sales figures – also thanks to government subsidies – have gone up significantly since 2022 in response to the war in Ukraine. Why heat pumps are so controversial in Germany is therefore one of the questions currently occupying Kalcher’s mind when it comes to European energy policy. Carlos Hanke Barajas
It is a kind of roadmap for the Brussels political scene: the agenda of the EU Commission. In the document entitled “Liste des Points Prévus” in French, the authority records which initiatives the College of 27 Commissioners intends to adopt in the upcoming weeks and months in the College. Whether a bill makes it onto the (non-binding) list, slips to the back of the list, or is even missing altogether can be a real political issue.
For weeks now, EU operations have had to make do without this guidance: After the summer break, the Commission has not published any new planning. Even in the cabinets of the Commissioners, there was puzzlement as to what would happen next.
Now, however, President Ursula von der Leyen’s team has sent out an updated version internally. The other commissioners can still make requests for changes before the new agenda is published. “Hopefully soon”, it is said.
Conspicuously absent from the list, which runs through the end of November and was tracked down by our colleagues at “Contexte,” are the two most politically sensitive initiatives:
With REACH, it is conceivable that the proposal will come after all, possibly in December. In the case of SFS, this is unlikely: “The Commission President seems reluctant to touch anything before the elections that could arouse the anger of potential EPP voters from the agricultural industry”, says Brussels.
In the end, the Competitiveness Council needed little more than an hour for the general direction on the Euro 7 pollutant standard. Germany voted against the proposal of the Spanish Council Presidency. The German government had called for more ambitious limits and stricter test conditions for commercial vehicles and also wanted to push through a provision for e-fuels in the Euro 7 legislation. But Germany was unable to prevail with these demands.
As the Czech transport minister noted, the Council went a long way and significantly toned down the Commission’s proposal in many places. Italy, France, the Czech Republic and four other member states had joined forces in May to prevent ambitious limit values and demanding test conditions.
This group, which threatened to block Euro 7, was generally opposed to stricter limits on exhaust and also wanted to push through later deadlines for entry into force. The Swedish and then the Spanish Council presidencies then moved ever closer to this group in their compromise proposals.
Essentially, the General Approach has now decided what the group of eight member states had called for in May. These are the key points of the pollutant standard:
In Parliament, the Environment Committee (ENVI) will vote on Oct. 12 on the report by Alexandr Vondra (ECR). This report also provides for a tightening of the limit values and test conditions compared with the Commission’s proposal. However, it remains to be seen whether they will get a majority for this. According to the timetable, the plenum will decide on Nov. 9. After that, the trilogues can begin.
With Euro 7, the EU has for the first time proposed a pollutant standard that regulates cars, vans, trucks and buses. The response from manufacturers to the Commission’s proposal was mixed: Car manufacturers lobbied for a more ambitious reform so that standards would continue to be set in the EU. China and the USA are also working on stricter pollutant standards.
Manufacturers of commercial vehicles said that the proposed limit values would in part only be achievable at great financial expense, and in part not at all, technically speaking. Manufacturers of passenger cars and commercial vehicles, however, demanded legal certainty as soon as possible.
Benjamin Krieger of CLEPA, the European suppliers’ umbrella organization, said: “The required technology is available and economically viable.” A return to Euro 6, as called for by the Council, is not necessary to keep mobility affordable and “will neither help implement stricter air quality standards nor stimulate innovation in the EU”.
Despite the insistence from Berlin, no regulation of e-fuels has been included in the legislative text. Industry Commissioner Thierry Breton addressed the demands from Berlin on e-fuels once again before the vote. “The regulation of e-fuels in the Euro 7 pollutant standard was not on the agenda.” However, he said, the Commission was committed to presenting all the necessary legislation.
The Commission’s legislative proposal on the definition of e-fuels has now been submitted to the member states. He hoped that the regulation would soon be “wrapped up”.
The Commission recently submitted to the member states the legislative proposal for passenger cars that may still run exclusively on e-fuels even after the internal combustion engine is phased out in 2035. This legislative proposal stipulates that the e-fuels used must emit exactly 100 percent less greenhouse gases than fossil fuels. This proposal is to be discussed for the first time in the responsible Technical Committee Motor Vehicles (TCMV) on Oct. 4.
At the TCMV meeting in November or December, the member states are to vote on this in the comitology procedure. The Federal Ministry of Transport is in charge here. Minister Volker Wissing (FDP) is against the 100 percent quota. He has spoken out in favor of a 70 percent quota. Voting on the legislative proposal is still underway in the federal government.
The list of results after the meeting between EU trade chief Valdis Dombrovskis and China’s Vice Premier He Lifeng is long. There even was no public outcry over the EU investigation into China’s alleged EV subsidies. However, the true atmosphere of the first face-to-face EU-China trade dialogue was difficult to read from the faces of Dombrovskis and He.
Both calmly presented their points to the press in the Chinese capital on Thursday. Dombrovskis stressed in advance how important it was for him to have personal exchanges on the ground. In addition to He, he had met Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao, Minister of Finance Liu Kun as well as Pan Gongsheng, the new governor of the People’s Bank of China.
At the 10th trade dialogue, the EU and China agreed, among other things, on several joint working groups and a possible commodity early warning system. The most important points and statements at a glance:
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced the upcoming investigation in her State of the European Union address. Before Dombrovski’s visit to Beijing, it was considered to be the biggest point of conflict with Beijing.
The EU trade commissioner did not address the investigation directly during his visit – but he showed a clear stance in several speeches, including one at Tsinghua University, the alma mater of China’s leader Xi Jinping, on Monday morning: “We recognize that the world needs China. But China also needs the world. The lack of reciprocity and level playing field from China, coupled with wider geopolitical shifts, has forced the EU to become more assertive,” Dombrovskis said. He delivered his 20-minute speech to students and faculty. “We have heard China’s concerns about the EU’s economic security plans.”
Before the meeting, Dombrovskis had also visited the representation of the EU Chamber of Commerce in Beijing. Last week, the chamber presented a sobering position paper and hoped Dombrovskis would speak out. “We discussed improving the business environment for EU companies,” the EU trade commissioner wrote on X, formerly Twitter, after the meeting. He said resolving the concerns was in the interest of both the EU and China.
Dombrovski’s visit is not the only one from Brussels: EU Environment Commissioner Virginijus Sinkevičius is also currently in China. On Monday, he met his Chinese counterpart Huang Runqiu and the Minister responsible for Water Resources, Li Guoying. The “cornerstone of our global cooperation” has been laid at the 9th Ministerial Dialogue on Environmental Policy, Sinkevičius wrote on X. The dialogue was essential for exchanges on biodiversity, waste management and pollution control. Last weekend, Sinkevičius spoke at the Blue Partnership Forum for the Ocean in Shenzhen, where he stressed China’s and the EU’s shared responsibility for the oceans.
EU leaders will continue to travel to the Chinese capital in the coming weeks. Energy Commissioner Kadri Simson is expected next week, EU top diplomat Josep Borrell is then scheduled to visit next month.
The day after the bloody escalation in northern Kosovo, Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić received the Russian ambassador in Belgrade. He had informed Vladimir Putin’s envoy that “ethnic cleansing” was being carried out “in Kosovo”, Vučić wrote on Instagram to the handshake picture. Not a word on the social media platform about the attack by heavily armed paramilitaries on the Kosovo police, presumably directed from Belgrade.
It is the parallel world of Aleksandar Vučić. Serbia’s president is blatantly lying, comments Reinhard Bütikofer, a member of the European Parliament, on X. There is no ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, he says, and Vučić’s narrative justifies Serbian extremism. And Bütikofer is not the only one who thinks it unlikely that the paramilitaries acted without support from Belgrade, as Vučić claims.
But the Serbian president’s priority the day after the confrontation between Kosovo police and heavily armed paramilitaries is above all an indication of how miserably the EU’s and the U.S.’s strategy failed, which in short consisted of increasing the pressure on Kosovo as the supposedly weaker party while sparing Belgrade.
The US and its special envoy Gabriel Escobar support this course. This is also because Serbia’s arms industry is to supply Ukraine with urgently needed ammunition. However, the scope of these deliveries is unclear.
So it is also about geopolitics. The EU’s foreign affairs representative Josep Borrell and his special envoy Miroslav Lajčák have been conducting the so-called dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina for three years without success. An agreement with a list of mutual concessions leading to normalization has been on the table since the spring.
Recently, however, the mediators unilaterally insisted that Kosovo first meet Belgrade’s demand for autonomy for the Serb minority. Pristina sees this, not without reason, as a first step toward the secession of northern Kosovo, all the more so because there is no guarantee that Serbia’s president will also deliver and take steps toward at least de facto recognition of the young state.
The mistrust in Pristina is well-founded because Vučić has repeatedly declared publicly that he is not prepared to make any concessions to Kosovo. After the deadly confrontation in northern Kosovo, even Josep Borrell felt compelled to speak more clearly for the first time. He spoke of a “cowardly terrorist attack on Kosovo’s police officers”, but without clearly naming the perpetrators.
Kosovo police may have caught the 30 or so paramilitaries bringing weapons to a nearby Serbian Orthodox monastery, local observers suspect. Similar allegations have circulated for some time. In any case, Kosovo police seized large quantities of heavy weapons after the confrontation, in which at least four paramilitaries were killed.
The most serious incident in a long time is also embarrassing for the NATO force Kfor, which is officially responsible for security between Kosovo and Serbia. Kfor is observing the situation in northern Kosovo, is present and ready to intervene, it is said. The incident bears the signature of Aleksandar Vulin, Serbia’s intelligence chief with particularly close ties to Moscow, observers say. The former interior minister, who is on the US sanctions list, may have deliberately provoked an escalation on behalf of Moscow.
The EU must clearly show solidarity with Kosovo, demands Reinhard Bütikofer, Member of the European Parliament. Josep Borrell’s statement was not enough, he said, and the EU must now speak plainly. Other MEPs have long criticized the approach of the mediator duo Borrell-Lajčák as unbalanced and counterproductive.
The EU most recently imposed unilateral punitive measures on Kosovo after Prime Minister Kurti had elected mayors in northern Kosovo escorted by police to their town halls in May, in violation of agreements, resulting in riots and many injuries.
Individual EU diplomats have also recently urged a more balanced approach, but without withdrawing confidence from Borrell and his special envoy Lajčák. The terrorist attack on the Kosovo police had the potential to trigger a rethink, one EU diplomat now said. It cannot be ruled out that the leniency toward Belgrade will soon be over and that the EU states will force Borrell to make a course correction.
European environmental and climate policy has accompanied Linda Kalcher since her studies. After completing her bachelor’s degree in Romance languages and literature in Bonn and Florence, she studied European Culture and Economy at the Ruhr University in Bochum. There, the Leverkusen native was also the spokesperson for the master’s program, a point of contact for 80 students from all over the world. “A precursor to later working in parliament“, she says today, in her mid-thirties.
Kalcher has now lived in Brussels for twelve years and speaks six European languages. For the first six years, she worked in the office of long-time SPD environmental politician Jo Leinen, and then at the European Climate Foundation (ECF). Last year, she also served as Senior Advisor to the Secretary-General of the United Nations.
Asked what the EU can learn from the UN’s climate policy, Kalcher calls on Europeans to show more solidarity with the Global South. The fact that investments in the transformation there are being neglected and that the payment of $100 billion promised in 2009 is still outstanding benefits China in particular in geopolitical terms. And it damages the credibility of Europe and the industrialized countries.
In order to alert decision-makers to grievances such as these and to provide closer advice on what is happening in the political arena, she founded the think tank Strategic Perspectives in October 2022. While the ECF works primarily on project funding and financing, Kalcher is now re-engaging more closely with Members of Parliament on climate policy.
According to Kalcher, the think tank’s work also fills a niche: although some think tanks already work at the level of national and European environmental policy and others at the European and international level – hardly any think tanks take a look at all three political levels.
In mid-May, Kalcher and her colleague Neil Makaroff published the first Strategic Perspectives report. In collaboration with Cambridge Econometrics, they model the effects of the Green Deal and RePowerEU and provide recommendations for successful implementation. They have also collected examples of socially responsible climate policies from across Europe, such as the heat levy in the Czech Republic and the German “€49 ticket”, which allows nationwide use of public transport.
Kalcher is optimistic about the future, saying: “We’ve found that the climate targets are still achievable by 2030, while also creating 500,000 new jobs.”
What surprised her about the results, however, was that the share of natural gas in energy supply was falling only quite slowly. “One reason for this is the massive expansion of LNG terminals in Italy, Germany and France.” If measures like these are met with incomprehension within Europe, Kalcher believes it is important to keep all perspectives in mind and explain them to the governments of various countries – including those outside Europe.
The fact that this is not always easy is currently evident: “There is no debate about heat pumps like there is in Germany in countries like France, the Czech Republic or Poland.” There, sales figures – also thanks to government subsidies – have gone up significantly since 2022 in response to the war in Ukraine. Why heat pumps are so controversial in Germany is therefore one of the questions currently occupying Kalcher’s mind when it comes to European energy policy. Carlos Hanke Barajas
