These days, many politicians are traveling to the Middle East to help find a solution to the Gaza war and also to finally secure the release of the hostages. For example, EU Foreign Affairs Commissioner Josep Borrell was in Qatar on Sunday and Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in Jordan. There are signs that something is moving on the hostages issue.
This Monday, von der Leyen is on another mission. Like the heads of state and governments of numerous African countries, she is expected to attend the Africa Summit in Berlin. The main topics of the Compact with Africa conference are strengthening private investment on the continent and cooperation on sustainable energy supply. Compact with Africa is based on an initiative launched by Germany during its G20 presidency in 2017.
In addition to von der Leyen, EU Council President Charles Michel, French President Emmanuel Macron and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte are also traveling to Berlin for the summit. It is reported that Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz also intends to use the conference for bilateral talks with individual heads of state and government.
Sustainability is also the subject of several votes in the European Parliament this week during the session in Strasbourg, as my colleagues Leonie Düngefeld, Markus Grabitz and Lukas Scheid report.
Have a good start to the week,
The Parliament 2024 working group will hold its final meeting on Wednesday. Parliament President Roberta Metsola launched the working group in the spring. It has met 17 times so far. The working group aims to agree on reforms in five areas.
According to the plan, the heads of the parliamentary groups (Conference of Presidents) should decide on the reforms in a meeting before the December plenary week. The informal working group on Parliament’s Rules of Procedure would then be given the task of compiling the results into a report with the support of the parliamentary administration. The members of this working group include Vice-President Rainer Wieland (CDU), Gaby Bischoff (SPD) and Hartmut Scholz (Linke). The report is to be discussed by the Constitutional Committee (AFCO) and adopted by the plenary by the last week of the session before the elections at the end of April.
The reform proposals in detail:
Legislative work in the European Parliament’s 20 standing specialist committees is to become faster. For this reason, fewer advisory committees are to be involved in future. A new form of opinion is to be developed for participating, non-lead committees. A committee should only be involved if it has significant competencies for a dossier. The rapporteur of a participating, non-lead committee should take part in meetings of the shadow rapporteurs and preparatory meetings of trilogues. The lead committee should be obliged to coordinate amendments of the committees involved. Participating, non-lead committees should be allowed to put rejected motions back to the vote in plenary.
The legislative process is also discussing changing the procedure for joint committees. In future, a maximum of three committees are to be involved without one committee taking the lead. Until now, there have been co-chairs. This is to be abolished in favor of a chair that rotates from meeting to meeting. A rapporteur is to be appointed by each committee.
The plan to set up an ad hoc committee has met with resistance from the parliamentary groups. The ad hoc committee is to be formed if more than three committees are involved in complicated dossiers of cross-sectional legislation. Committee chairmen and AFCO members fear that the ad hoc committee would become the standard. The General Secretariat’s proposal for a new committee structure is also considered to have no chance of success. Leading representatives of Parliament criticize behind closed doors that the administration has exceeded its competencies. It will not be pursued any further.
Trilogues are unofficial conciliation procedures between the co-legislators Parliament and Council with the participation of the Commission. The last time the regular conciliation procedure was used was twelve years ago. Trilogues are now standard. Attempts to revive the formal conciliation procedure are unlikely to be successful. There are to be guidelines for trilogues created by the Conference of Committee Chairs. There should be rules for “technical meetings” (ITMs) such as:
Parliament should set upper limits on the number of members of the negotiating groups in trilogues. Rules should be established as to when members of the negotiating groups may take the floor in trilogues. At least in the final phase of trilogues, the Council should send the minister responsible and the Commissioner responsible should also be present. The responsible committee chairperson should monitor the negotiations in the final phase. Up to now, trilogue deals have been forged in “time-outs” between four or six eyes. There are to be rules for time-outs to prevent this. Deals with the Council outside of trilogue negotiations are to be ruled out.
The Parliament’s supervisory and scrutiny role is to be strengthened. There are to be “special scrutiny hearings.” This should allow the Parliament to react more quickly to events of political importance. The parliamentary group leaders are to decide when the special scrutiny hearings are to be held. There are to be special rooms for this, including for the disclosure of confidential information.
The Commission is requested to provide information on the impact on the EU budget when preparing its work program. The Commission should present legislative proposals in plenary immediately after their adoption in the College. This applies on condition that the impact assessment is already available.
Parliament is demanding a greater say in the composition of the Commissioners’ portfolios. The elected Commission President should agree on the structure of his Commission with the Parliament. The rules for the hearings of candidates for the Commission are to be changed.
The Budget Committee (BUDG) is to be given new powers to monitor the EU budget and the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF). To this end, a new independent rule is to be created alongside the existing general rules for cooperation between legislative committees. Parliament’s control and discharge functions are to be qualitatively strengthened. If Parliament refuses to grant discharge or postpones it, the resulting consequences are to be formulated more specifically.
The plenary session is to become more attractive. To this end, last-minute changes to the agenda are to be reduced. The same applies to the number of resolutions that are voted on Thursday. New agenda items should not be added before 9 a.m. and after 10 p.m. Debates should no longer take place after 10 p.m. Key debates are to be scheduled more frequently in plenary. Meanwhile, competing meetings, for example, of the parliamentary groups, the heads of the parliamentary groups, the heads of the committees and the Bureau, as well as trilogues, should be limited. Further proposals:
The Parliament’s external relations are to be reformed. In its relations with non-EU countries, the Parliament should abandon the parliamentary-body-based approach in favor of a country-based approach. The number of delegations and their cooperation with the committees should be reviewed.
The party leadership of the Left can chalk up the party conference as a success for itself and its course. The European election program was adopted by a large majority. Most of the amendments had already been cleared by the Executive Committee in advance, and the delegates voted on the rest, mostly in favor of the draft. The demand for a statutory minimum wage in Germany was raised from €14 to €15 at the request of the delegates and an automatic inflation adjustment was included in the program.
The delegates re-elected party chairman Martin Schirdewan as the lead candidate for the European elections with almost 87% of the vote. He sees his party united. He also notes that the name Sahra Wagenknecht was hardly mentioned. She left the Left Party with some of her supporters in September and is preparing to found her own party. “There is a fighting spirit for renewal but also strengthening this party. We want to achieve good results,” Schirdewan told Table.Media.
The party executive’s proposals for the list of candidates were also accepted by the delegates. In second place is climate and refugee activist Carola Rackete, who is running for the Left Party as a non-party member. She received almost 78 percent of the vote. The trade unionist Özlem Demirel is running in third place and the activist and doctor Gerhard Trabert, who is also independent, was able to achieve a better result in fourth place with 96%. Journalist Ines Schwerdtner from Saxony-Anhalt secured fifth place. In the 2019 European elections, the Left achieved 5.5% of the vote and five seats.
Setting itself apart from a Wagenknecht party, which may also run in the European elections, will not be difficult for the Left with its program. It is clearly against isolationism and in favor of climate protection. These are issues on which Wagenknecht is more conservative.
It will be much more of a challenge for the leaders to rally the entire Left Party behind its program. Although the conflicts between the various party currents did not break out openly at the party conference, some regional associations – particularly in eastern Germany – still shy away from the renewal. They fear the Left Party could become a mixture of the Greens and the SPD. This conflict is represented by the lead candidate Carola Rackete, who appeals primarily to an urban left-wing milieu but meets with skepticism in rural Saxony or Saxony-Anhalt, where many long-established members live.
When asked how she intends to deal with the gap in the party’s popularity, Rackete told Table.Media: “If you work together practically and get to know each other, the prejudices are quickly dispelled.” After the party conference in Saxony, she has been on the road in Lusatia in recent weeks. The main issue there is to ensure that the EU funds for structural change actually arrive. “It is being transferred to the federal government and 15 percent of it is going to Lusatia right now. This is where local politics meets European politics.”
The election manifesto is always about how climate protection can be shaped in a socially just way. The Left wants to disempower large corporations. Rackete cites the ban on so-called “share deals,” which the Left wants to prohibit, as an example. “Only farmers are allowed to buy land, but by investing in farms via share deals, corporations are also given the right to do so,” says Rackete. “They are currently driving up rental prices in some regions. In eastern Germany, prices have doubled in the last 15 years.”
Schirdewan also emphasizes that the issue of social justice as a core issue of the Left runs through the entire program. But at the same time, the big questions of the climate crisis need to be answered. Industry needs to be transformed into a climate-neutral economy. The Left is calling for a major investment program to achieve this. “That’s not too much,” says Schirdewan. “These are exactly the answers we need to provide in this social situation.” All the leading candidates identified the right-wing parties as their main opponents in the election campaign.
The European Green Deal is a package of political initiatives with which the EU aims to achieve its goal of becoming climate-neutral by 2050. Several legislative proposals from this package will be put to a vote this week in the plenary session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg:
The Net Zero Industry Act (NZIA) is the European response to the US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). The proposed legislation aims to industrialize decarbonization technologies in Europe. 40 percent of zero-emission technologies are to be produced here and capture a global market share of 25 percent of these technologies.
On Tuesday, the EU Parliament will vote on its position so that trilogue negotiations with the member states can begin this month. The issue is particularly urgent because the NZIA is intended to prevent a wave of European companies from moving to the USA due to the tax breaks offered by the IRA.
No surprises are expected in the vote in Parliament, as the three large political groups – EPP, S&D and Renew – have negotiated a deal in the Industry Committee that should receive a comfortable majority in plenary. In the trilogue, however, some points of the NZIA could be discussed more controversially.
Wednesday’s vote on the Regulation on the Sustainable Use of Pesticides (SUR) – also known as the Pesticides Regulation – is far from a foregone conclusion. On the one hand, it is disputed by what percentage the member states must reduce the use of chemical plant protection products and over what period. On the other hand, there is the question of whether there will be a total ban on pesticides in protected areas. The EPP is trying to forge coalitions with parts of the Renew and Social Democrats to change the position of the Environment Committee (ENVI) on the two contentious issues.
ENVI is in favor of a ban on chemical pesticides in all Natura 2000 and FFH-protected areas as well as in parks, playgrounds and other areas where children, the elderly and sick people spend time. Only biological plant protection products and products that may also be used in organic farming would be permitted. However, the member states would be able to make exceptions in special cases.
This position could have drastic consequences for farmers, particularly in Germany, as numerous protected areas are used for intensive farming and pesticides have been used there up to now. The EPP thus wants to exempt Natura 2000 and FFH bird sanctuaries from the ban on chemical pesticides.
ENVI also wants to halve the use of chemical pesticides by 2030. Opposition is also forming. The plenary is likely to vote on reducing the use of plant protection products by at least 35% by 2035, i.e. five years later, rather than by 50%, based on the period from 2011 to 2013. Member states should have the option of increasing the individual target.
Also on Wednesday, Parliament will vote on the Packaging Ordinance, one of the legislative procedures with obscure lobbying campaigns and over-dramatizing media reports. The German beer crates, the French Camembert wooden boxes and the small sugar sachets served with hot drinks in cafés – there are fears of all kinds of bans due to the small-scale provisions of the regulation. Lobbying probably reached its peak last week when signs were put up on the doors of MEPs’ offices in Brussels warning of the demise of coffee-to-go cups.
The regulation aims to ban or minimize unnecessary packaging, prevent single-use packaging and promote reusable systems. All packaging should be recyclable from 2030. Before the final vote, the parliamentarians still have to vote on around one hundred amendments. This means there are still many unanswered questions, for example, regarding single-use products in the catering sector or exemptions for certain products.
On Tuesday, Parliament will vote on its position on carbon fleet limits for heavy duty vehicles. There will be attempts to reverse the tightening of the Environment Committee (ENVI) compared to the Commission proposal and to achieve an opening for synthetic fuels and the inclusion of carbon-neutral fuels in the legal text. The outcome of the vote is expected to be close.
On Tuesday, the plenary will also vote on the directive on the right to repair. In its report, the Internal Market Committee (IMCO) calls for sellers to be obliged to offer a free repair within the statutory warranty period. Unless it is more expensive than a replacement, it is de facto impossible or it is impractical for the consumer. In addition, incentives should be created for consumers to choose repair over replacement within the warranty period, such as the extension of the statutory warranty by one year for repaired products. Member States should promote repair through financial incentives such as vouchers and national repair funds.
Also on the agenda for the November plenary session is Tuesday’s vote on the COP28 resolution, which reflects the EU Parliament’s expectations of the UN Climate Change Conference in Dubai. The certification framework for carbon removals will also be voted on Tuesday. This concerns which forms of carbon removals are considered permanent and whether companies can call themselves climate-neutral if their neutral carbon balance is based on carbon offsets.
Germany, France and Italy have agreed on a joint position on the treatment of foundation models and general AI systems (GPAI) in the AI Act. The most important point: the three countries oppose statutory regulation of foundation models. Instead of introducing untested norms, they propose “mandatory self-regulation through codes of conduct” for the interim period. This emerges from a non-paper by the three countries, which is available to Table.Media.
The EU Commission, Parliament and Council are currently negotiating the AI Act in trilogue. It is intended to be the world’s first legal regulation of artificial intelligence, so there are no role models here yet. As Germany, France and Italy rejected the Commission’s proposed regulation of Foundation Models and GPAI, negotiations were recently broken off. The Parliament, which wants to include foundation models and GPAI in the AI Act, wanted to support the Commission’s two-tier approach.
Instead of tough regulation, the trio now proposes that the codes of conduct could follow the principles defined at G7 level in the Hiroshima Process. According to the non-paper, this would ensure the necessary transparency and flow of information in the value chain as well as the security of the foundation models against abuse.
Overall, the countries are calling for special attention to be paid to definitions and distinctions. “We should continue to follow a thorough discussion on this topic.” Accordingly, they are convinced that the regulation of general-purpose AI systems is more in line with the risk-based approach of the AI Act. The risks here lie more in the application of AI systems than in the technology itself.
However, under the three countries’ proposal, developers of foundation models would be obliged to define model cards. Model cards are a kind of instruction leaflet that should provide information about the performance characteristics of the respective AI model in a structured form. Examples of such performance characteristics are the number of parameters, intended use and potential limitations, results of studies on biases, red-teaming for security assessments.
The countries are also proposing an AI governance body. This could help to develop guidelines and check the application of model cards.
Initially, there should be no sanctions for violations. After an observation period, a system of sanctions could then be set up “following a proper analysis and impact assessment of the identified failures and how to best address them.” vis
It was only a few weeks ago, at the beginning of October, that the European Commission awarded Christian Tietje one of the prestigious Jean Monnet Chairs. For Tietje, a legal scholar, the chair is an opportunity to devote some time to an area that has been on his mind for some time: the EU’s “value oriented neighborhood and trade policy.”
This is the official title of the project, which the EU is supporting over a period of three years with a total of €50,000 to advance the European unification process. The EU has been pursuing the idea of a value-based trade policy for a long time, says Tietje. “But the area has hardly been researched.”
The Professor of Public Law, European Law and International Business Law at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) is concerned on the one hand with the canon of values the EU represents, such as human rights and environmental protection. On the other hand, he deals with how trading partners view these aspects and how these values can be taken into account alongside economic interests.
For this reason, Tietje would like to discuss the idea of a value-oriented European foreign trade policy with partners from non-EU countries and write publications on the subject. He and his team would also like to take the idea to the public, for example, in schools. He wants to convey one thing above all: that such topics – and international business law in general – are anything but dull.
“There is no area of law that is more exciting and complex,” enthuses the native of Lower Saxony. Nowhere else in law would so many different players such as states, companies or non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and various legal norms such as commercial law, consumer law or international law come together.
The fact that Tietje won the Jean Monnet Chair is not really a surprise. He has spent his entire professional life dealing with EU foreign trade policy and European and international law. This also makes him a sought-after expert witness and arbitrator in international proceedings. However, due to his busy schedule, he only accepts assignments that revolve around exciting legal issues. The professor then delves deeper into these in his seminars and lectures.
Tietje, who was born in Walsrode in 1967, went to school in Verden an der Aller. When he enrolled at Christian-Albrechts-University in Kiel in 1987, he originally wanted to go into politics. However, Tietje quickly abandoned this plan. It is difficult to say exactly when the tipping point came. However, he must have always had a latent interest in international issues. After all, why else would someone study ethnology alongside law?
A Master’s degree that Tietje completed after his exams at the University of Michigan Law School in the USA did the rest. There he was able to study under the leading international business law expert of the time, John H. Jackson. His interest was finally aroused. When a chair for international business law became available at MLU after his habilitation in 2001, he did not hesitate for long and applied.
He is sometimes asked what it is like to live as a “Wessi” in the East. “Very good,” is his laconic reply. Tietje would certainly have had the opportunity to continue his career elsewhere. He had offers from various universities. He turned them all down. After all, Halle is also a good place to do research on international economic topics. Sabine Philipp
These days, many politicians are traveling to the Middle East to help find a solution to the Gaza war and also to finally secure the release of the hostages. For example, EU Foreign Affairs Commissioner Josep Borrell was in Qatar on Sunday and Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in Jordan. There are signs that something is moving on the hostages issue.
This Monday, von der Leyen is on another mission. Like the heads of state and governments of numerous African countries, she is expected to attend the Africa Summit in Berlin. The main topics of the Compact with Africa conference are strengthening private investment on the continent and cooperation on sustainable energy supply. Compact with Africa is based on an initiative launched by Germany during its G20 presidency in 2017.
In addition to von der Leyen, EU Council President Charles Michel, French President Emmanuel Macron and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte are also traveling to Berlin for the summit. It is reported that Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz also intends to use the conference for bilateral talks with individual heads of state and government.
Sustainability is also the subject of several votes in the European Parliament this week during the session in Strasbourg, as my colleagues Leonie Düngefeld, Markus Grabitz and Lukas Scheid report.
Have a good start to the week,
The Parliament 2024 working group will hold its final meeting on Wednesday. Parliament President Roberta Metsola launched the working group in the spring. It has met 17 times so far. The working group aims to agree on reforms in five areas.
According to the plan, the heads of the parliamentary groups (Conference of Presidents) should decide on the reforms in a meeting before the December plenary week. The informal working group on Parliament’s Rules of Procedure would then be given the task of compiling the results into a report with the support of the parliamentary administration. The members of this working group include Vice-President Rainer Wieland (CDU), Gaby Bischoff (SPD) and Hartmut Scholz (Linke). The report is to be discussed by the Constitutional Committee (AFCO) and adopted by the plenary by the last week of the session before the elections at the end of April.
The reform proposals in detail:
Legislative work in the European Parliament’s 20 standing specialist committees is to become faster. For this reason, fewer advisory committees are to be involved in future. A new form of opinion is to be developed for participating, non-lead committees. A committee should only be involved if it has significant competencies for a dossier. The rapporteur of a participating, non-lead committee should take part in meetings of the shadow rapporteurs and preparatory meetings of trilogues. The lead committee should be obliged to coordinate amendments of the committees involved. Participating, non-lead committees should be allowed to put rejected motions back to the vote in plenary.
The legislative process is also discussing changing the procedure for joint committees. In future, a maximum of three committees are to be involved without one committee taking the lead. Until now, there have been co-chairs. This is to be abolished in favor of a chair that rotates from meeting to meeting. A rapporteur is to be appointed by each committee.
The plan to set up an ad hoc committee has met with resistance from the parliamentary groups. The ad hoc committee is to be formed if more than three committees are involved in complicated dossiers of cross-sectional legislation. Committee chairmen and AFCO members fear that the ad hoc committee would become the standard. The General Secretariat’s proposal for a new committee structure is also considered to have no chance of success. Leading representatives of Parliament criticize behind closed doors that the administration has exceeded its competencies. It will not be pursued any further.
Trilogues are unofficial conciliation procedures between the co-legislators Parliament and Council with the participation of the Commission. The last time the regular conciliation procedure was used was twelve years ago. Trilogues are now standard. Attempts to revive the formal conciliation procedure are unlikely to be successful. There are to be guidelines for trilogues created by the Conference of Committee Chairs. There should be rules for “technical meetings” (ITMs) such as:
Parliament should set upper limits on the number of members of the negotiating groups in trilogues. Rules should be established as to when members of the negotiating groups may take the floor in trilogues. At least in the final phase of trilogues, the Council should send the minister responsible and the Commissioner responsible should also be present. The responsible committee chairperson should monitor the negotiations in the final phase. Up to now, trilogue deals have been forged in “time-outs” between four or six eyes. There are to be rules for time-outs to prevent this. Deals with the Council outside of trilogue negotiations are to be ruled out.
The Parliament’s supervisory and scrutiny role is to be strengthened. There are to be “special scrutiny hearings.” This should allow the Parliament to react more quickly to events of political importance. The parliamentary group leaders are to decide when the special scrutiny hearings are to be held. There are to be special rooms for this, including for the disclosure of confidential information.
The Commission is requested to provide information on the impact on the EU budget when preparing its work program. The Commission should present legislative proposals in plenary immediately after their adoption in the College. This applies on condition that the impact assessment is already available.
Parliament is demanding a greater say in the composition of the Commissioners’ portfolios. The elected Commission President should agree on the structure of his Commission with the Parliament. The rules for the hearings of candidates for the Commission are to be changed.
The Budget Committee (BUDG) is to be given new powers to monitor the EU budget and the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF). To this end, a new independent rule is to be created alongside the existing general rules for cooperation between legislative committees. Parliament’s control and discharge functions are to be qualitatively strengthened. If Parliament refuses to grant discharge or postpones it, the resulting consequences are to be formulated more specifically.
The plenary session is to become more attractive. To this end, last-minute changes to the agenda are to be reduced. The same applies to the number of resolutions that are voted on Thursday. New agenda items should not be added before 9 a.m. and after 10 p.m. Debates should no longer take place after 10 p.m. Key debates are to be scheduled more frequently in plenary. Meanwhile, competing meetings, for example, of the parliamentary groups, the heads of the parliamentary groups, the heads of the committees and the Bureau, as well as trilogues, should be limited. Further proposals:
The Parliament’s external relations are to be reformed. In its relations with non-EU countries, the Parliament should abandon the parliamentary-body-based approach in favor of a country-based approach. The number of delegations and their cooperation with the committees should be reviewed.
The party leadership of the Left can chalk up the party conference as a success for itself and its course. The European election program was adopted by a large majority. Most of the amendments had already been cleared by the Executive Committee in advance, and the delegates voted on the rest, mostly in favor of the draft. The demand for a statutory minimum wage in Germany was raised from €14 to €15 at the request of the delegates and an automatic inflation adjustment was included in the program.
The delegates re-elected party chairman Martin Schirdewan as the lead candidate for the European elections with almost 87% of the vote. He sees his party united. He also notes that the name Sahra Wagenknecht was hardly mentioned. She left the Left Party with some of her supporters in September and is preparing to found her own party. “There is a fighting spirit for renewal but also strengthening this party. We want to achieve good results,” Schirdewan told Table.Media.
The party executive’s proposals for the list of candidates were also accepted by the delegates. In second place is climate and refugee activist Carola Rackete, who is running for the Left Party as a non-party member. She received almost 78 percent of the vote. The trade unionist Özlem Demirel is running in third place and the activist and doctor Gerhard Trabert, who is also independent, was able to achieve a better result in fourth place with 96%. Journalist Ines Schwerdtner from Saxony-Anhalt secured fifth place. In the 2019 European elections, the Left achieved 5.5% of the vote and five seats.
Setting itself apart from a Wagenknecht party, which may also run in the European elections, will not be difficult for the Left with its program. It is clearly against isolationism and in favor of climate protection. These are issues on which Wagenknecht is more conservative.
It will be much more of a challenge for the leaders to rally the entire Left Party behind its program. Although the conflicts between the various party currents did not break out openly at the party conference, some regional associations – particularly in eastern Germany – still shy away from the renewal. They fear the Left Party could become a mixture of the Greens and the SPD. This conflict is represented by the lead candidate Carola Rackete, who appeals primarily to an urban left-wing milieu but meets with skepticism in rural Saxony or Saxony-Anhalt, where many long-established members live.
When asked how she intends to deal with the gap in the party’s popularity, Rackete told Table.Media: “If you work together practically and get to know each other, the prejudices are quickly dispelled.” After the party conference in Saxony, she has been on the road in Lusatia in recent weeks. The main issue there is to ensure that the EU funds for structural change actually arrive. “It is being transferred to the federal government and 15 percent of it is going to Lusatia right now. This is where local politics meets European politics.”
The election manifesto is always about how climate protection can be shaped in a socially just way. The Left wants to disempower large corporations. Rackete cites the ban on so-called “share deals,” which the Left wants to prohibit, as an example. “Only farmers are allowed to buy land, but by investing in farms via share deals, corporations are also given the right to do so,” says Rackete. “They are currently driving up rental prices in some regions. In eastern Germany, prices have doubled in the last 15 years.”
Schirdewan also emphasizes that the issue of social justice as a core issue of the Left runs through the entire program. But at the same time, the big questions of the climate crisis need to be answered. Industry needs to be transformed into a climate-neutral economy. The Left is calling for a major investment program to achieve this. “That’s not too much,” says Schirdewan. “These are exactly the answers we need to provide in this social situation.” All the leading candidates identified the right-wing parties as their main opponents in the election campaign.
The European Green Deal is a package of political initiatives with which the EU aims to achieve its goal of becoming climate-neutral by 2050. Several legislative proposals from this package will be put to a vote this week in the plenary session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg:
The Net Zero Industry Act (NZIA) is the European response to the US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). The proposed legislation aims to industrialize decarbonization technologies in Europe. 40 percent of zero-emission technologies are to be produced here and capture a global market share of 25 percent of these technologies.
On Tuesday, the EU Parliament will vote on its position so that trilogue negotiations with the member states can begin this month. The issue is particularly urgent because the NZIA is intended to prevent a wave of European companies from moving to the USA due to the tax breaks offered by the IRA.
No surprises are expected in the vote in Parliament, as the three large political groups – EPP, S&D and Renew – have negotiated a deal in the Industry Committee that should receive a comfortable majority in plenary. In the trilogue, however, some points of the NZIA could be discussed more controversially.
Wednesday’s vote on the Regulation on the Sustainable Use of Pesticides (SUR) – also known as the Pesticides Regulation – is far from a foregone conclusion. On the one hand, it is disputed by what percentage the member states must reduce the use of chemical plant protection products and over what period. On the other hand, there is the question of whether there will be a total ban on pesticides in protected areas. The EPP is trying to forge coalitions with parts of the Renew and Social Democrats to change the position of the Environment Committee (ENVI) on the two contentious issues.
ENVI is in favor of a ban on chemical pesticides in all Natura 2000 and FFH-protected areas as well as in parks, playgrounds and other areas where children, the elderly and sick people spend time. Only biological plant protection products and products that may also be used in organic farming would be permitted. However, the member states would be able to make exceptions in special cases.
This position could have drastic consequences for farmers, particularly in Germany, as numerous protected areas are used for intensive farming and pesticides have been used there up to now. The EPP thus wants to exempt Natura 2000 and FFH bird sanctuaries from the ban on chemical pesticides.
ENVI also wants to halve the use of chemical pesticides by 2030. Opposition is also forming. The plenary is likely to vote on reducing the use of plant protection products by at least 35% by 2035, i.e. five years later, rather than by 50%, based on the period from 2011 to 2013. Member states should have the option of increasing the individual target.
Also on Wednesday, Parliament will vote on the Packaging Ordinance, one of the legislative procedures with obscure lobbying campaigns and over-dramatizing media reports. The German beer crates, the French Camembert wooden boxes and the small sugar sachets served with hot drinks in cafés – there are fears of all kinds of bans due to the small-scale provisions of the regulation. Lobbying probably reached its peak last week when signs were put up on the doors of MEPs’ offices in Brussels warning of the demise of coffee-to-go cups.
The regulation aims to ban or minimize unnecessary packaging, prevent single-use packaging and promote reusable systems. All packaging should be recyclable from 2030. Before the final vote, the parliamentarians still have to vote on around one hundred amendments. This means there are still many unanswered questions, for example, regarding single-use products in the catering sector or exemptions for certain products.
On Tuesday, Parliament will vote on its position on carbon fleet limits for heavy duty vehicles. There will be attempts to reverse the tightening of the Environment Committee (ENVI) compared to the Commission proposal and to achieve an opening for synthetic fuels and the inclusion of carbon-neutral fuels in the legal text. The outcome of the vote is expected to be close.
On Tuesday, the plenary will also vote on the directive on the right to repair. In its report, the Internal Market Committee (IMCO) calls for sellers to be obliged to offer a free repair within the statutory warranty period. Unless it is more expensive than a replacement, it is de facto impossible or it is impractical for the consumer. In addition, incentives should be created for consumers to choose repair over replacement within the warranty period, such as the extension of the statutory warranty by one year for repaired products. Member States should promote repair through financial incentives such as vouchers and national repair funds.
Also on the agenda for the November plenary session is Tuesday’s vote on the COP28 resolution, which reflects the EU Parliament’s expectations of the UN Climate Change Conference in Dubai. The certification framework for carbon removals will also be voted on Tuesday. This concerns which forms of carbon removals are considered permanent and whether companies can call themselves climate-neutral if their neutral carbon balance is based on carbon offsets.
Germany, France and Italy have agreed on a joint position on the treatment of foundation models and general AI systems (GPAI) in the AI Act. The most important point: the three countries oppose statutory regulation of foundation models. Instead of introducing untested norms, they propose “mandatory self-regulation through codes of conduct” for the interim period. This emerges from a non-paper by the three countries, which is available to Table.Media.
The EU Commission, Parliament and Council are currently negotiating the AI Act in trilogue. It is intended to be the world’s first legal regulation of artificial intelligence, so there are no role models here yet. As Germany, France and Italy rejected the Commission’s proposed regulation of Foundation Models and GPAI, negotiations were recently broken off. The Parliament, which wants to include foundation models and GPAI in the AI Act, wanted to support the Commission’s two-tier approach.
Instead of tough regulation, the trio now proposes that the codes of conduct could follow the principles defined at G7 level in the Hiroshima Process. According to the non-paper, this would ensure the necessary transparency and flow of information in the value chain as well as the security of the foundation models against abuse.
Overall, the countries are calling for special attention to be paid to definitions and distinctions. “We should continue to follow a thorough discussion on this topic.” Accordingly, they are convinced that the regulation of general-purpose AI systems is more in line with the risk-based approach of the AI Act. The risks here lie more in the application of AI systems than in the technology itself.
However, under the three countries’ proposal, developers of foundation models would be obliged to define model cards. Model cards are a kind of instruction leaflet that should provide information about the performance characteristics of the respective AI model in a structured form. Examples of such performance characteristics are the number of parameters, intended use and potential limitations, results of studies on biases, red-teaming for security assessments.
The countries are also proposing an AI governance body. This could help to develop guidelines and check the application of model cards.
Initially, there should be no sanctions for violations. After an observation period, a system of sanctions could then be set up “following a proper analysis and impact assessment of the identified failures and how to best address them.” vis
It was only a few weeks ago, at the beginning of October, that the European Commission awarded Christian Tietje one of the prestigious Jean Monnet Chairs. For Tietje, a legal scholar, the chair is an opportunity to devote some time to an area that has been on his mind for some time: the EU’s “value oriented neighborhood and trade policy.”
This is the official title of the project, which the EU is supporting over a period of three years with a total of €50,000 to advance the European unification process. The EU has been pursuing the idea of a value-based trade policy for a long time, says Tietje. “But the area has hardly been researched.”
The Professor of Public Law, European Law and International Business Law at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) is concerned on the one hand with the canon of values the EU represents, such as human rights and environmental protection. On the other hand, he deals with how trading partners view these aspects and how these values can be taken into account alongside economic interests.
For this reason, Tietje would like to discuss the idea of a value-oriented European foreign trade policy with partners from non-EU countries and write publications on the subject. He and his team would also like to take the idea to the public, for example, in schools. He wants to convey one thing above all: that such topics – and international business law in general – are anything but dull.
“There is no area of law that is more exciting and complex,” enthuses the native of Lower Saxony. Nowhere else in law would so many different players such as states, companies or non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and various legal norms such as commercial law, consumer law or international law come together.
The fact that Tietje won the Jean Monnet Chair is not really a surprise. He has spent his entire professional life dealing with EU foreign trade policy and European and international law. This also makes him a sought-after expert witness and arbitrator in international proceedings. However, due to his busy schedule, he only accepts assignments that revolve around exciting legal issues. The professor then delves deeper into these in his seminars and lectures.
Tietje, who was born in Walsrode in 1967, went to school in Verden an der Aller. When he enrolled at Christian-Albrechts-University in Kiel in 1987, he originally wanted to go into politics. However, Tietje quickly abandoned this plan. It is difficult to say exactly when the tipping point came. However, he must have always had a latent interest in international issues. After all, why else would someone study ethnology alongside law?
A Master’s degree that Tietje completed after his exams at the University of Michigan Law School in the USA did the rest. There he was able to study under the leading international business law expert of the time, John H. Jackson. His interest was finally aroused. When a chair for international business law became available at MLU after his habilitation in 2001, he did not hesitate for long and applied.
He is sometimes asked what it is like to live as a “Wessi” in the East. “Very good,” is his laconic reply. Tietje would certainly have had the opportunity to continue his career elsewhere. He had offers from various universities. He turned them all down. After all, Halle is also a good place to do research on international economic topics. Sabine Philipp
