Pesticide dispute + Patent regulation + Green genetic engineering

Dear reader,

The EU Commission wants to ensure that by 2030 only half as many pesticides are used as before. But finding a compromise could hardly be more difficult: The ideas in the European Parliament range from a significant tightening to complete rejection. There are almost 3,000 amendments. And even the EPP Group still has to find its position, analyze Timo Landenberger and Lukas Scheid.

Whether 5G technology or mobile telephony in cars – Standard Essential Patents (SEPs) are everywhere. They are to be regulated as part of the patent package that the EU Commission will present next week. But it is precisely this regulation that could significantly weaken the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI). The main beneficiary would be a large American tech company, reports Markus Grabitz.

Germany’s Minister of Education and Research Bettina Stark-Watzinger would like to see more freedom for the use of genetic shears such as Crispr/Cas, or at least for research into them. But a proposal from the EU on green genetic engineering is now likely to be postponed indefinitely. Read more in our News.

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Alina Leimbach

Pesticide regulation: from rejection to tightening

By

Timo Landenberger

The rifts are deep in the dispute over the planned regulation on the more sustainable use of plant protection products. Even within the Environment Committee, which is the lead committee, the positions are far apart. Almost 3,000 amendments are an expression of this, and in principle, the discussion revolves around the question: Will the ambitious targets jeopardize food security in Europe and thus also the livelihood of numerous farms? After all, the Commission proposal provides for a 50 percent reduction in pesticide use by 2030.

Rapporteur Sarah Wiener (Greens) is convinced that the opposite is the case: only with a consistent reduction of chemical agents can ecological diversity be maintained in the long term, and that, in turn, is the basic prerequisite for sustainable food production. In her report, the MEP, therefore, calls for the Commission proposal to be tightened up, at least in part.

This includes increasing the reduction target for highly hazardous pesticides from 50 to 80 percent. These substances could be substituted and “should have been taken off the market already by 2015 according to the substitution principle, but that did not happen”, Wiener said. The politician also proposes stricter review mechanisms, including interim targets by 2026, to ensure “that member states are on the right track”.

Organic pesticides in protected areas

Wiener receives support from the shadow rapporteurs from the left spectrum. Maria Arena (S&D) also calls for the application of the “polluter pays” principle. According to this, pesticide manufacturers should pay for damage caused, for example, by the contamination of drinking water.

Both MEPs believe that plant protection products cannot be completely banned from protected areas and that agricultural production must continue to be possible here. The Commission had proposed a total ban for “sensitive areas” and reaped much criticism for this. The compromise proposal from Wiener and Arena now envisages allowing organic active ingredients in these areas.

In general, integrated pest management is to be strengthened and a clear hierarchy established, according to which chemical pesticides should only be used as a last resort. Arena also proposes that occupational illnesses related to pesticides be systematically recorded and that those affected be compensated. Another proposal calls for a ban on pesticide advertising. The latter is also one of the proposals put forward by Anja Hazekamp (Left Party), who, however, goes even further in crucial points.

For example, the shadow rapporteur is calling for an 80 percent reduction in pesticide use by 2030 and a complete phase-out by 2035. At the same time, she calls on the Commission to develop a framework for the approval of non-chemical alternatives in order to accelerate their market maturity. To protect the population, a buffer zone of 50 meters around private and publicly accessible properties, gardens, parks or even roads should also be established in rural areas, where any use of pesticides is prohibited.

Disagreement in the EPP – amend or reject?

The EPP’s demands are diametrically opposed to the proposals, although the group does not seem to agree on how far they should go. Shadow rapporteur Alexander Bernhuber is basically skeptical about the Commission proposal. But unlike a group of around 30 of his EPP colleagues, who reject the proposal outright, Bernhuber wants to turn the regulation into a directive, which would give member states more flexibility in achieving the targets. He has the support of the ultra-conservative ECR group around shadow rapporteur Alexandr Vondra.

According to Bernhuber, there should be no binding national targets in order to better reflect the different circumstances. Instead, the member states are to “contribute” to the EU-wide reduction target of 50 percent, which is not to be reached in 2030, but rather in 2035.

Overall, the Commission’s proposal runs the risk of pushing farms out of business and jeopardizing food security in Europe. Bernhuber therefore wants to postpone the legislative process by means of a moratorium until an impact assessment by the Commission is available. In doing so, he is following a demand made by the Agriculture Council at the end of last year.

Renew can decide on majorities

Jan Huitema (Renew) calls for the increase in reduction targets to be linked to conditions. Accordingly, the targets should only apply if, at the latest one year after the regulation enters into force, the total sales of biological plant protection products have increased significantly in order to provide farmers with sufficient alternatives. How exactly is to be determined by the Commission in an additional delegated act. Similarly, the reduction targets are only to come into effect if the legal framework on genetically modified plants announced by the Commission is adopted by 2027 at the latest.

Huitema’s Renew Group lies in the middle of the spectrum between the left-green bloc and the right-wing conservative bloc of EPP and ECR, which either reject the Commission’s proposal as a whole or at least want to weaken the requirements considerably. In the negotiations, it will therefore be decisive which side the liberals take.

Today, Wednesday, the first technical meeting of the technical staff of the rapporteurs will take place. The responsible MEPs themselves will meet for the first time on May 9 at the so-called Shadows Meeting. The vote in the Environment Committee is currently scheduled for Sept. 11 and the plenary is expected to vote in the first week of October. with Lukas Scheid

Standard Essential Patents: proposal coming next week

By

Markus Grabitz

The Commission is sticking to its plan to present its proposal for regulating Standard Essential Patents (SEPs) on April 26. The SEP proposal will be presented as planned next Wednesday by Vice Commission President Margrethe Vestager as part of the patent package, a Commission spokesperson told Table.Media upon request.

SEPs are patents that are essential for the use of a particular technology. SEPs include patents for mobile telephony, for example. Car manufacturers have to buy them for every car because the cars have to be Internet-enabled. SEP holders are required to surrender the patents on “fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms” (FRAND).

However, there have been repeated court disputes about the conditions. With the ESP proposal, the Commission wants to regulate market access. It wants to create a new evaluation body for SEPs and ensure that a mediation process takes place in the future before a lawsuit can be filed.

Lobby war over proposal

A bitter lobbying battle has broken out over the proposal, a draft of which has been circulating for several days. SEP expert and blogger Florian Müller, for example, is aware of a letter from the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) on the matter. ETSI is one of the three major standards organizations in Europe; the institute also develops standards on behalf of the EU Commission, and it also operates the existing SEP registry.

The letter in question comes from ETSI Director General Luis Jorge Romero and is addressed to Anthony Whelan. Whelan is the responsible cabinet member of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. In the letter, Romero asks the Commission to revise the draft once again before it is officially presented.

The Commission is currently planning to set up a second register for SEPs alongside the existing ETSI register. ETSI opposes this: “ETSI’s database has existed in its current form since 2011 and has been built up over the years with the participation of its members”. It includes not only SEPs for standards developed by ETSI, but also largely technical specifications, he said. The system is undeniably a competitive advantage for the EU, he said, and should not be questioned lightly.

Expert sees role of ETSI ‘acutely endangered’

Müller writes in his blog: “It is hardly possible to overstate the importance of the ETSI letter“. ETSI was a creation of the Commission, he said. While Europe’s world market share in wireless devices is vanishingly small, ETSI has been able to maintain its importance, he says. “However, with the draft SEP regulation and other Commission ideas, ETSI’s role is now acutely threatened”, Müller added.

Copies of the letter were also sent to the cabinets of Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton and the two Vice Presidents of the Commission, Vestager and Valdis Dombrovskis.

Apple would benefit the most

The Apple company reacted immediately to the letter from ETSI to the von der Leyen cabinet, Müller writes further in his blog. An Apple lobbyist sent an e-mail to the author, ETSI Director General Romero, and vehemently contradicted the arguments in the ETSI letter: ETSI takes “extreme positions” in it.

Müller classifies the Apple letter as follows: “No company in the world would benefit more from the EU initiative than Apple”. The world’s richest company only pays one to two percent of the sales price of an Apple iPhone in license fees.

Strack-Zimmermann runs for first place on FDP list

The FDP’s federal executive committee is expected to announce Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann as its top candidate for the 2024 European elections on Thursday. Party leader Christian Lindner will propose the chairwoman of the defense committee in the Bundestag, FDP circles said. However, the list will not be voted on until the national party conference in January.

Four of the five current FDP MEPs are vying for the other promising places on the list. Accordingly, Moritz Körner has good prospects for one of the front places, although the 33-year-old, like Strack-Zimmermann, comes from the state association of North Rhine-Westphalia. In 2019, Svenja Hahn (Hamburg), Andreas Glück (Baden-Württemberg) and Jan-Christoph Oetjen (Lower Saxony) also moved into the European Parliament. At that time, the Liberals had received 5.4 percent of the vote. They are currently slightly better off in the polls, with around seven percent.

The then top candidate Nicola Beer, on the other hand, is not running again: Federal Finance Minister Lindner has nominated the 53-year-old trained banker for one of the eight vice-president posts at the European Investment Bank (EIB). “Working at the EIB gives me the chance to operationally drive forward issues to strengthen Europe, which I have been advocating for a long time”, Beer told Table.Media.

Beer will also vacate her post as deputy federal chairwoman at the party convention on Friday. She is to be succeeded by Federal Minister of Education and Research Bettina Stark-Watzinger, who, like Beer, comes from the Hesse state association. tho/mgr/ds

ETS reform adopted, but without French Greens

The European Parliament on Tuesday adopted by a large majority the trilogue agreements on the core elements of the Fit for 55 package. MEPs voted on:

the reform of the European Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), including the introduction of a second ETS for fuels for heating and road transport;
the introduction of a climate social fund with a total budget of €86.7 billion, which is intended to cushion the additional costs of ETS 2 for low- and middle-income brackets;
the inclusion of shipping in the ETS and stricter rules for aviation;
the introduction of a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) to gradually replace industry’s free emission allowances and protect against carbon leakage.

‘Should’ becomes ‘shall’

A major change to emissions trading is the use of the money that member states collect from the sale of emissions allowances. Previously, member states were only called upon (“should”) to reinvest their revenues in climate protection measures, in the energy turnaround or in the social cushioning of higher costs through CO2 pricing. This was not a commitment.

The reform does now strengthen this call by changing the wording to “shall”. However, the legal difference between these two words is disputed. An unambiguous obligation would have been a “must”. Thus, it remains to be seen how this part of the reform will be implemented in the member states. The EU Parliament’s rapporteurs announced on Tuesday that they will closely monitor member states’ compliance with these rules.

French Greens reject, Socialists abstain

Despite the large majorities in favor of the dossiers to make the European Green Deal a reality, there were also surprising votes against it. The French Greens (Europe Écologie Les Verts, EELV) and S&D delegation from France voted differently than their respective groups. The EELV MEPs voted against the ETS text, while the S&D people abstained. The reason for this is the French experience with the protests of the yellow vests movement, according to people close to both delegations who had met in the run-up to the vote.

There is immense fear that the additional costs of CO2 pricing will lead to new unrest. The text is not up to the social challenges, Éric Andrieu (S&D, Parti Socialiste) said in an interview with the French-language press. “There are still too many ambiguities about the impact of including the transport and housing sectors in the CO2 market on the most vulnerable households”.

Price explosion feared from 2030 onwards

Marie Toussaint (Greens, EELV) points to the risk of a “price explosion” in the transport and housing sectors from 2030. It is true that there is a price stability mechanism in ETS 2 that applies until 2030 and is supposed to limit the CO2 price to a maximum of €45 per ton. “But what happens if this price can no longer be guaranteed?”, asks Toussaint, predicting that the price increase potential will primarily hit the most vulnerable groups. “€45 per ton of CO2 means a price increase at the pump of 10 cents per liter in France”, she says.

The architecture of the ETS is based on market principles, Toussaint said. This means that the market is unable to provide predictability in carbon prices for the transport and housing sectors. The French Greens argue instead for taxing the financial assets and profits of energy companies, which have “exploded” as a result of the rise in energy prices caused by the war in Ukraine. cst/luk

Green genetic engineering: Lemke and other opponents object

The Commission’s proposal to regulate new genetic breeding methods is likely to be postponed indefinitely. The reasons: The EU’s Regulatory Scrutiny Committee apparently has objections to the proposal. In addition, there are objections from member states, first and foremost Germany and Austria, first reported by the portal Agra Facts. The EU Commission will neither confirm nor deny this. Actually, the presentation of the plans was dated June 7.

Kai Purnhagen of the University of Bayreuth confirms the process. “The presentation of the proposals for a new regulation was postponed indefinitely”, says the EU food law expert. “Apparently there were difficulties with the timing between the committees. We also hear that the EU Commission is exploring compromises, for example on traceability”. Observers such as the Association for Food without Genetic Engineering believe that new regulation is unlikely before the European elections.

“From our point of view, we don’t need any new regulation“, said a spokesman for Minister for the Environment Steffi Lemke (Greens). “Genetically modified plants are not banned. They have to be checked for a possible risk before they are approved. That’s a good thing in terms of the precautionary principle”. Proponents of new regulation, including Minister of Education and Research Bettina Stark-Watzinger, want more research freedom for new genetic breeding methods such as the Crispr/Cas genetic scissors (read more in German in our Research.Table).

Unclear terms cause criticism

According to the BMUV, there are reservations about the Commission’s draft proposals to date even among the member countries in favor. Undefined terms in the manuscripts met with rejection, such as a “Breeders’ Gene Pool”. The Commission did not explain exactly what this was supposed to be.

Freedom of choice in purchasing could suffer under new regulation. So far, it is unclear how the new genetic engineering can be detected in food. In order to identify plants produced using the new methods in the laboratory, manufacturers would have to disclose their DNA sequencing.

Austria’s government, in light of the issue, had most recently called for a study before any new regulation is even tackled. “Austria is strongly committed to the production of organic food as well as non-genetically modified”, the letter to the Commission states. The government warns against legislative changes that would “threaten the coexistence” of food with and without genetic engineering and would have “consequences for consumers’ freedom of choice”. ab

Brussels wants better crisis management in the banking sector

The European Commission wants to strengthen crisis management in the banking sector. To this end, existing EU regulations are to be extended to smaller and medium-sized institutions. In addition, the Brussels authority wants to expand deposit insurance. EU Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis said in Strasbourg that the banking sector in Europe is now much more resilient after the financial crisis and can rely on efficient crisis management. However, the past has shown that smaller and medium-sized institutions are often not protected in the event of failure.

Instead of using the institutions’ own resources or private, industry-financed safety nets such as deposit guarantee schemes and resolution funds, taxpayers’ money would be used. The EU Commission wants to counteract this. The current push is intended to enable authorities to “guide failing banks into an orderly market exit, regardless of their size and business model“. To this end, they are to be given a wide range of instruments.

In particular, the Commission wants to simplify the use of industry-financed safety nets. In banking crises, for example, depositors are to be better shielded by transferring their accounts from a distressed bank to a healthy one. Dombrovskis stressed, however, “the first line of defense remains the internal loss-absorbing capacity of banks. Other safety nets may only be added as a complement”.

EU wants to extend deposit protection to more bank customers

With regard to the planned modification of depositor protection, EU Financial Services Commissioner Mairead McGuinness stressed that “the coverage level of €100,000 per depositor per bank set out in EU rules for deposit guarantee schemes remains untouched“. However, she said, the framework should be extended to public institutions such as hospitals, schools or municipalities. The same applies to customer funds deposited by investment companies, payment institutions or e-money institutions in certain types of customer funds, for example.

In individual cases, higher sums are also to be guaranteed, for example “if the account balance temporarily exceeds the threshold of €100,000 as a result of certain events such as an inheritance or the payment of an insurance premium”. Markus Ferber (CSU), a member of the European Parliament, warns that the requirements from Brussels could cause problems for the institutional guarantee systems of savings banks and cooperative banks in Germany, which have functioned well up to now.

Ferber warns of problems for institutional protection systems in Germany

“What the Commission is proposing is gnawing away at the raison d’être of institutional protection schemes. Much of what constitutes an institutional protection scheme will no longer be possible in the future“, said the EPP Group’s financial policy spokesman. Ferber is particularly critical of new intervention rights of the European Resolution Authority as well as the tightened “least cost test”, with which must be proven that intervention by a deposit guarantee scheme is always the most cost-effective measure. “In this context, we have a system in Germany that has proven its worth. This should not be called into question by an overreaction on the part of the Commission”, the MEP stressed. cr

EU reaches agreement on Chips Act

The European Parliament and the member states have resolved the remaining disputes over the Chips Act. The negotiators reached an agreement in the trilogue on Tuesday, particularly on the controversial question of funding. “By mastering the most advanced semiconductors, EU will become an industrial powerhouse in markets of the future,” Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton commented on the agreement.

The question of how the budget of €3.3 billion for the “Chips for Europe Initiative”, the first pillar of the Chips Act aimed at research and development, was to be financed remained open until the very end. Parliament wanted to fund it with “fresh money”, but was unable to get its way. Instead, the existing programs Digital Europe and Horizon Europe are to be used. In this way, “the Chips Act is actually at the expense of investments in the competitiveness of other sectors, for example for intelligent mobility and intelligent networks”, criticized Christian Ehler, industrial policy spokesperson of the EPP Group.

The second pillar of the Chips Act is intended to facilitate setting up new factories in the EU. Investors are to be able to expect accelerated approval procedures by member states, preferential access to test facilities and, above all, generous state aid. Following the trilateral agreement, equipment suppliers to chip manufacturers can now also receive the classification under state aid law as “first-of-a-kind” facilities.

Waiting for TSMC’s decision

In anticipation of the Chips Act, chip manufacturers have already announced several large investments in Europe, including Intel in Germany. The world’s largest contract manufacturer TSMC from Taiwan has been in intensive negotiations with the German government for some time about funding for a site in Dresden. The Taiwanese industry service Digitimes recently reported that TSMC now wants to build a factory for semiconductors primarily for customers in the automotive industry, together with partners such as Bosch. The company has not yet confirmed this.

The Chips Act is intended to help avoid supply bottlenecks in the future, as was the case during the Covid pandemic. This is to be ensured by a new crisis mechanism (the third pillar). The Commission is to map long-term supply chains and develop an early warning system. At the insistence of the Parliament, it was “possible to establish clear criteria for the definition of a crisis and the timing of intervention”, said the shadow rapporteur of the Greens, Henrike Hahn.

Experts doubt the usefulness of the new crisis mechanism. It would have been best to simply discard the emergency toolbox, as it is “neither feasible nor effective,” believes Julia Hess of the Stiftung Neue Verantwortung. “But at least it now comes with more checks and balances.” tho

Cyber package: EU steps up fight against cyber attacks

The EU Commission on Tuesday unveiled a new legislative package aimed at stepping up the EU’s fight against cyberattacks. With the package, the Union is showing how it can “build the infrastructures, competencies and capacities through solidarity” to jointly arm itself against cybersecurity threats, Commission Vice President Margrethe Vestager said in Strasbourg. Private companies are also to be used in the process.

The cyber package includes an EU cyber solidarity law and a cybersecurity skills academy. The total budget for all measures in the EU Cyber Solidarity Act is €1.1 billion, with the EU funding two-thirds of this through the Digital Europe program. Vestager also presented two proposals for a Council recommendation on improving the digital skills of people in the EU (Digital Skills and Education Package).

Cyber Solidarity Act provides for a cyber reserve

The Commission proposes the establishment of a European cyber protection shield. This will create a Europe-wide infrastructure of security operations centers (SOCs). These SOCs will detect and defend against cyber threats, using cutting-edge technology such as AI and advanced data analytics. In doing so, they will enable government agencies to respond more efficiently and effectively to major cyber incidents. These centers could be operational as early as 2024.

The Cyber Solidarity Act also provides for the creation of a cyber emergency mechanism. This is intended to improve preparedness and response to cyber incidents. It includes:

precautionary measures, including tests to identify potential vulnerabilities in facilities in particularly critical sectors such as healthcare, transport, energy;
an EU cybersecurity reserve. It consists of trusted cyber security companies that are pre-contracted and ready to respond quickly to cyber attacks;
financial support for mutual administrative assistance, so that one member state can support another member state.

A review mechanism for cybersecurity incidents is also planned so that the Union can learn from attacks.

Academy to build cybersecurity skills

The EU Academy is intended to bundle private and public initiatives that improve cybersecurity skills at European and national levels. It is also intended to help reduce the shortage of IT security specialists. The academy will initially be installed on the Digital Skills and Jobs platform.

The EU Cyber Solidarity Act and the Cybersecurity Skills Academy build on the EU Cybersecurity Strategy and the EU legal framework to strengthen the EU’s collective resilience to increasing cybersecurity threats. This legal framework includes the Directive on measures for a high common level of cybersecurity in the Union (NIS-2 Directive) and the cybersecurity legal act.

Will countries accept administrative assistance?

The European cyber shield acts less like a protective shield and more like a joint, active situation monitoring, said Sven Herpig, Director for Cybersecurity Policy and Resilience at the New Responsibility Foundation, in an initial reaction. The basis for this, he said, is the exchange of information between national authorities and security operations centers. Herpig doubts, however, that any real actionable intelligence will emerge there, “if Germany, for example, does not even have a cross-agency cybersecurity situation picture“.

In the case of the cyber emergency mechanism, the projects listed under “preparedness” and “financial support and mutual administrative assistance” seemed to make sense at first glance. “Here, the design is important”, Herpig opined, asking, “For example, should German authorities then conduct vulnerability tests on critical infrastructures in Greece?”.

The EU cybersecurity reserve, and thus pooling and sharing of personnel, also appears to make sense, he said. “The challenge, however, is that the shortage of specialists in the field is prevalent worldwide”, Herpig said. There simply aren’t a large number of IT security specialists waiting to be put to work, he said. vis

DFKI CEO: EU must coordinate with USA on AI Act

The AI Act rapporteurs, who have called for a global AI summit, are getting support from the scientific community. Speaking to Table.Media, the head of the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), Antonio Krüger, argued for global coordination on AI regulation. “Regulation should not just happen at the EU level. The EU would have to get at least the US on board for this – possibly even China”.

This time, he said, things will be different from the GDPR, where the EU presented a regulation that was adopted in part by the Americans. In the case of the AI regulation, the vote had better take place beforehand. “Because it may well be that the Americans find the regulations too inhibiting to innovation and will not go along this time”, Krüger warned. If the EU launched a joint initiative with the US, it would have a much greater impact, he said. “And I definitely see movement in the US – also caused by the great media response to large AI models like ChatGPT”.

AI Act: Innovations should be the focus

Parliament is in the process of final compromises. The last political meeting is expected to take place today, Wednesday. This is to be followed by the votes in the committees.

Krüger takes a positive view of the changes that Parliament has made to the AI Regulation. He says the description of AI systems is no longer as crude as in the original draft. “I think this is now quite a good compromise“. However, he criticizes, “the innovation aspect of AI would have to play a stronger role in the AI Regulation – what is possible with AI and how you want to make that possible”.

ChatGPT: misinformation is a real threat

Like the negotiators in Parliament, Krüger warns against the alarmist perspective on AI taken by the signatories of the Future of Life Institute’s open letter. He believes dystopian scenarios are overblown.

However, the issue of misinformation is already a realistic threat in the present. However, he said, one should not be so naïve as to expect that regulation will steer everything in a good direction. “AI requires a major education offensive“, Krüger said. “It must be clear to all Internet users that AI changes the Internet’s rules about truth and falsification. Regulation won’t help much. I am firmly convinced of that”. vis

China debate: MEPs criticize Macron’s statements

During the EU Parliament’s general debate on China policy yesterday in Strasbourg, MEPs criticized French President Emmanuel Macron’s statements on Taiwan and warned of a split within Europe.

“It is naive to say that Taiwan is not our concern“, said Manfred Weber (CSU), leader of the EPP group, for example, in reference to an interview by Macron on Taiwan. This statement came as a shock to him, Weber said. France’s president should consider who applauded him, he said.

There was also a hail of criticism from the French side. Yannick Jadot, a member of parliament for the French Green Party, accused Macron of causing division with his statements. One should not make the same mistakes as before with Russia, said Jadot in conversation with journalists in Strasbourg.

Criticism of possible CAI resuscitation

French Macron confidant and Renew deputy Stéphane Séjourné, on the other hand, defended Macron: “We don’t have to listen to lessons from a party that methodically built our dependency and sold our infrastructure”, he said in the direction of Weber. However, he said, it is now important to show that there is a consensus.

Séjourné also spoke out against a revival of the CAI investment agreement – as long as sanctions against EU parliamentarians were in force and the Uyghur Muslim minority was being persecuted. Media reports had recently suggested that work was going on behind the scenes in Brussels to resume talks on CAI, both from the Chinese and European sides. The agreement is on the agenda of several high-level meetings next month, the South China Morning Post recently reported.

According to Bloomberg, France’s president is working to involve China in a peace initiative on the Ukraine war. Macron has tasked his foreign policy adviser Emmanuel Bonne with working with Beijing’s top diplomat Wang Yi to create a framework for talks between Ukraine and Russia, the media service reported Tuesday, citing a person familiar with the proceedings. According to the report, the French strategy envisages opportunities for talks between Russia and Ukraine before summer.

Macron wants to involve China in strategy on Ukraine war

During the debate in the Parliament for the common China policy, the EU foreign affairs representative Josep Borrell called for better coordination of EU institutions and member states among and with each other. A cacophony must be avoided, Borrell stressed. Referring to the highly criticized external impact of the joint China visit by Macron and EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen, he spoke of coordination problems: “This could have been avoided”.

Von der Leyen also drummed again for a unified approach to China: a tactic of “divide et impera” (“divide and rule”) to divide the EU should not be allowed to work, von der Leyen said. “This is what we may be facing right now”. She repeated in the European Parliament her call for more economic independence from China. Even before her trip, she had spoken of “de-risking” in a keynote speech. ari

Change of diplomat: Steinlein becomes new ambassador in Paris

The Berlin diplomatic merry-go-round continues to spin. This time, it touches Frank-Walter Steinmeier’s two once closest comrades-in-arms. Within a few days, it has become known that the two diplomats Stephan Steinlein and Thomas Bagger will take up new jobs. Steinlein is going to Paris as ambassador, while Bagger will succeed Andreas Michaelis as permanent state secretary at the Federal Foreign Office.

For Steinlein, it is a historic return. He was the GDR’s first and last ambassador to France after the People’s Chamber election in spring 1990. 33 years later, he is returning to this place, reportedly to his great delight. From 1998 to 2022, he worked for Steinmeier, first in the Chancellery, then in the parliamentary group, then in the Foreign Office. From 2017 on, he served five years as head of office and state secretary at Bellevue Palace. Steinlein’s new post is not yet official: Paris has not yet confirmed it and the German president has not yet signed off on it. Both, however, will follow soon. The cabinet has already decided on the whole thing, and the French government has received the corresponding application letter.

For Thomas Bagger, it is both a climb and a hardship. The former chief of planning staff at the German Foreign Office and later foreign policy advisor to the German president went to Warsaw as ambassador last year – complete with family, settling in and language courses. Now comes, rather abruptly, the return. The effort is outweighed by the change to the most powerful post there is in the Foreign Office after the Foreign Minister: Bagger becomes a civil servant state secretary in the Foreign Office. steb

Katja Adler – liberal in the European committee

Katja Adler sits for the FDP in the Bundestag’s European Affairs Committee. (Photo: Julia Depatala)

For her children, Europe is “simply there”, says Katja Adler. “But a peaceful, borderless Europe cannot be taken for granted”. The FDP politician knows this from her own experience: born in 1974, she grew up in Frankfurt an der Oder, in GDR times. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, her horizons expanded, not only to West Germany, but to the whole of Europe. After graduating with a degree in administration, she worked first at the State Office for Food, and later at the Ministry of Education in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.

In 2002, Adler moved to Rhineland-Palatinate and worked in the state’s Ministry of Education, followed by a stint in the state’s Ministry of Family Affairs. Today, the 49-year-old sits for the FDP on the Bundestag’s European Affairs Committee and takes a stance on the European Union’s legislative projects. Expanding the internal market, speaking with one voice internationally, a European army – Adler wants a stronger Europe.

Staying at the community base

After the birth of her first child, she founded a daycare center in her hometown of Oberursel in the Hochtaunus district of Hesse. This is her entry into local politics: She realized that she wanted to make a political difference, Adler says. “And the best way to do that in Germany is through the party system”. She becomes an FDP member, moves into the city council in 2014, and two years later into the district council in Hochtaunus. And since 2021, she has been sitting in the Bundestag for the FDP. She continues to hold her municipal offices. “You can disappear very quickly into the Berlin bubble”, Adler says. “And that’s exactly what I want to avoid”.

Among other things, the European Committee takes a position on European legislative projects – Adler describes it as a “large cross-sectional committee”. It discusses many topics, but has no direct responsibility. Adler would like European topics that affect several policy areas to be dealt with by the European Committee as the lead committee.

Liberal network policy

One such issue could be the network usage fees proposed by EU Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton – a digital, transport or economic issue, depending on one’s point of view. The core of the proposal is that Internet platforms should pay a fee for using network infrastructure. Adler fears that the corporations will pass the fee on to consumers. In a position paper, she and her parliamentary group have spoken out against the plan. The reason: the fee could endanger the open and free Internet.

Freedom is an important concern for Adler. On Twitter, a picture of a small Statue of Liberty can be seen right next to her name – she regularly speaks out against bans or socialism on the platform. For Adler, that’s part of her job: “Politics is discussion, and today that also takes place to some extent in social media”. No one in politics can afford to keep a profile on any platform anymore, she says. Jana Hemmersmeier

Who plays first fiddle?

For whom does the Commission prepare the legislative proposals? The first addressees are surely the co-legislators and not the press. That’s why Parliament has long insisted that the Commissioners not be the first to appear before journalists after “college”. At least during the Strasbourg weeks, when the music plays at the Parliament’s headquarters in France, the sovereign should not be second fiddle.

Now Parliament President Roberta Metsola has won a stage victory on the issue. This week, MEPs were first served by the Commission. Margaritis Schinas, Commissioner for the European Way of Life, said he was “very honored” to be the first Commissioner to establish the new tradition, and presented “fresh out of the oven”, as he put it, elements of the cyber security package that had just been adopted. And the journaille had to wait. The honorable representatives of the people have priority.

A Pyrrhic victory

Will Parliament be happy with the solution in the long run? It’s getting very late for the media at the back. Vice Commission President Valdis Dombrovskis was not able to start his press conference on deposit guarantee reforms until 4:30 p.m. The time pressure on journalists thus increases massively. Just for comparison: In weeks when the Commission meets in the Berlaymont in Brussels, the press conferences sometimes start at noon. That gives significantly more time for rested contributions to appear in the media.

Already there are first thoughtful voices from the cabinets of the commissioners. The new pecking order in the Strasbourg weeks will have consequences. Commissioners would no longer take important proposals on the trip to France, but rather save them for the weeks when the Commission is meeting in Belgium. It is quite another question whether the Parliament will duly appreciate the Commission’s gesture. At the premiere of the new format, there was a yawning void, Katarina Barley (SPD) and the two presenting Commissioners were visibly shaken. mgr

EUROPE.TABLE EDITORS

Till
Hoppe

Charlotte
Wirth

Falk
Steiner

Timo
Landenberger

Corinna
Visser

Lukas
Knigge

Eric
Bonse

Sarah
Schaefer

Manuel
Berkel

Lisa-Martina
Klein

Markus
Grabitz

Stephan
Israel

Claire
Stam

Dear reader,

The EU Commission wants to ensure that by 2030 only half as many pesticides are used as before. But finding a compromise could hardly be more difficult: The ideas in the European Parliament range from a significant tightening to complete rejection. There are almost 3,000 amendments. And even the EPP Group still has to find its position, analyze Timo Landenberger and Lukas Scheid.

Whether 5G technology or mobile telephony in cars – Standard Essential Patents (SEPs) are everywhere. They are to be regulated as part of the patent package that the EU Commission will present next week. But it is precisely this regulation that could significantly weaken the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI). The main beneficiary would be a large American tech company, reports Markus Grabitz.

Germany’s Minister of Education and Research Bettina Stark-Watzinger would like to see more freedom for the use of genetic shears such as Crispr/Cas, or at least for research into them. But a proposal from the EU on green genetic engineering is now likely to be postponed indefinitely. Read more in our News.

Your
Alina Leimbach

Pesticide regulation: from rejection to tightening

By

Timo Landenberger

The rifts are deep in the dispute over the planned regulation on the more sustainable use of plant protection products. Even within the Environment Committee, which is the lead committee, the positions are far apart. Almost 3,000 amendments are an expression of this, and in principle, the discussion revolves around the question: Will the ambitious targets jeopardize food security in Europe and thus also the livelihood of numerous farms? After all, the Commission proposal provides for a 50 percent reduction in pesticide use by 2030.

Rapporteur Sarah Wiener (Greens) is convinced that the opposite is the case: only with a consistent reduction of chemical agents can ecological diversity be maintained in the long term, and that, in turn, is the basic prerequisite for sustainable food production. In her report, the MEP, therefore, calls for the Commission proposal to be tightened up, at least in part.

This includes increasing the reduction target for highly hazardous pesticides from 50 to 80 percent. These substances could be substituted and “should have been taken off the market already by 2015 according to the substitution principle, but that did not happen”, Wiener said. The politician also proposes stricter review mechanisms, including interim targets by 2026, to ensure “that member states are on the right track”.

Organic pesticides in protected areas

Wiener receives support from the shadow rapporteurs from the left spectrum. Maria Arena (S&D) also calls for the application of the “polluter pays” principle. According to this, pesticide manufacturers should pay for damage caused, for example, by the contamination of drinking water.

Both MEPs believe that plant protection products cannot be completely banned from protected areas and that agricultural production must continue to be possible here. The Commission had proposed a total ban for “sensitive areas” and reaped much criticism for this. The compromise proposal from Wiener and Arena now envisages allowing organic active ingredients in these areas.

In general, integrated pest management is to be strengthened and a clear hierarchy established, according to which chemical pesticides should only be used as a last resort. Arena also proposes that occupational illnesses related to pesticides be systematically recorded and that those affected be compensated. Another proposal calls for a ban on pesticide advertising. The latter is also one of the proposals put forward by Anja Hazekamp (Left Party), who, however, goes even further in crucial points.

For example, the shadow rapporteur is calling for an 80 percent reduction in pesticide use by 2030 and a complete phase-out by 2035. At the same time, she calls on the Commission to develop a framework for the approval of non-chemical alternatives in order to accelerate their market maturity. To protect the population, a buffer zone of 50 meters around private and publicly accessible properties, gardens, parks or even roads should also be established in rural areas, where any use of pesticides is prohibited.

Disagreement in the EPP – amend or reject?

The EPP’s demands are diametrically opposed to the proposals, although the group does not seem to agree on how far they should go. Shadow rapporteur Alexander Bernhuber is basically skeptical about the Commission proposal. But unlike a group of around 30 of his EPP colleagues, who reject the proposal outright, Bernhuber wants to turn the regulation into a directive, which would give member states more flexibility in achieving the targets. He has the support of the ultra-conservative ECR group around shadow rapporteur Alexandr Vondra.

According to Bernhuber, there should be no binding national targets in order to better reflect the different circumstances. Instead, the member states are to “contribute” to the EU-wide reduction target of 50 percent, which is not to be reached in 2030, but rather in 2035.

Overall, the Commission’s proposal runs the risk of pushing farms out of business and jeopardizing food security in Europe. Bernhuber therefore wants to postpone the legislative process by means of a moratorium until an impact assessment by the Commission is available. In doing so, he is following a demand made by the Agriculture Council at the end of last year.

Renew can decide on majorities

Jan Huitema (Renew) calls for the increase in reduction targets to be linked to conditions. Accordingly, the targets should only apply if, at the latest one year after the regulation enters into force, the total sales of biological plant protection products have increased significantly in order to provide farmers with sufficient alternatives. How exactly is to be determined by the Commission in an additional delegated act. Similarly, the reduction targets are only to come into effect if the legal framework on genetically modified plants announced by the Commission is adopted by 2027 at the latest.

Huitema’s Renew Group lies in the middle of the spectrum between the left-green bloc and the right-wing conservative bloc of EPP and ECR, which either reject the Commission’s proposal as a whole or at least want to weaken the requirements considerably. In the negotiations, it will therefore be decisive which side the liberals take.

Today, Wednesday, the first technical meeting of the technical staff of the rapporteurs will take place. The responsible MEPs themselves will meet for the first time on May 9 at the so-called Shadows Meeting. The vote in the Environment Committee is currently scheduled for Sept. 11 and the plenary is expected to vote in the first week of October. with Lukas Scheid

Standard Essential Patents: proposal coming next week

By

Markus Grabitz

The Commission is sticking to its plan to present its proposal for regulating Standard Essential Patents (SEPs) on April 26. The SEP proposal will be presented as planned next Wednesday by Vice Commission President Margrethe Vestager as part of the patent package, a Commission spokesperson told Table.Media upon request.

SEPs are patents that are essential for the use of a particular technology. SEPs include patents for mobile telephony, for example. Car manufacturers have to buy them for every car because the cars have to be Internet-enabled. SEP holders are required to surrender the patents on “fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms” (FRAND).

However, there have been repeated court disputes about the conditions. With the ESP proposal, the Commission wants to regulate market access. It wants to create a new evaluation body for SEPs and ensure that a mediation process takes place in the future before a lawsuit can be filed.

Lobby war over proposal

A bitter lobbying battle has broken out over the proposal, a draft of which has been circulating for several days. SEP expert and blogger Florian Müller, for example, is aware of a letter from the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) on the matter. ETSI is one of the three major standards organizations in Europe; the institute also develops standards on behalf of the EU Commission, and it also operates the existing SEP registry.

The letter in question comes from ETSI Director General Luis Jorge Romero and is addressed to Anthony Whelan. Whelan is the responsible cabinet member of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. In the letter, Romero asks the Commission to revise the draft once again before it is officially presented.

The Commission is currently planning to set up a second register for SEPs alongside the existing ETSI register. ETSI opposes this: “ETSI’s database has existed in its current form since 2011 and has been built up over the years with the participation of its members”. It includes not only SEPs for standards developed by ETSI, but also largely technical specifications, he said. The system is undeniably a competitive advantage for the EU, he said, and should not be questioned lightly.

Expert sees role of ETSI ‘acutely endangered’

Müller writes in his blog: “It is hardly possible to overstate the importance of the ETSI letter“. ETSI was a creation of the Commission, he said. While Europe’s world market share in wireless devices is vanishingly small, ETSI has been able to maintain its importance, he says. “However, with the draft SEP regulation and other Commission ideas, ETSI’s role is now acutely threatened”, Müller added.

Copies of the letter were also sent to the cabinets of Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton and the two Vice Presidents of the Commission, Vestager and Valdis Dombrovskis.

Apple would benefit the most

The Apple company reacted immediately to the letter from ETSI to the von der Leyen cabinet, Müller writes further in his blog. An Apple lobbyist sent an e-mail to the author, ETSI Director General Romero, and vehemently contradicted the arguments in the ETSI letter: ETSI takes “extreme positions” in it.

Müller classifies the Apple letter as follows: “No company in the world would benefit more from the EU initiative than Apple”. The world’s richest company only pays one to two percent of the sales price of an Apple iPhone in license fees.

Strack-Zimmermann runs for first place on FDP list

The FDP’s federal executive committee is expected to announce Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann as its top candidate for the 2024 European elections on Thursday. Party leader Christian Lindner will propose the chairwoman of the defense committee in the Bundestag, FDP circles said. However, the list will not be voted on until the national party conference in January.

Four of the five current FDP MEPs are vying for the other promising places on the list. Accordingly, Moritz Körner has good prospects for one of the front places, although the 33-year-old, like Strack-Zimmermann, comes from the state association of North Rhine-Westphalia. In 2019, Svenja Hahn (Hamburg), Andreas Glück (Baden-Württemberg) and Jan-Christoph Oetjen (Lower Saxony) also moved into the European Parliament. At that time, the Liberals had received 5.4 percent of the vote. They are currently slightly better off in the polls, with around seven percent.

The then top candidate Nicola Beer, on the other hand, is not running again: Federal Finance Minister Lindner has nominated the 53-year-old trained banker for one of the eight vice-president posts at the European Investment Bank (EIB). “Working at the EIB gives me the chance to operationally drive forward issues to strengthen Europe, which I have been advocating for a long time”, Beer told Table.Media.

Beer will also vacate her post as deputy federal chairwoman at the party convention on Friday. She is to be succeeded by Federal Minister of Education and Research Bettina Stark-Watzinger, who, like Beer, comes from the Hesse state association. tho/mgr/ds

ETS reform adopted, but without French Greens

The European Parliament on Tuesday adopted by a large majority the trilogue agreements on the core elements of the Fit for 55 package. MEPs voted on:

the reform of the European Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), including the introduction of a second ETS for fuels for heating and road transport;
the introduction of a climate social fund with a total budget of €86.7 billion, which is intended to cushion the additional costs of ETS 2 for low- and middle-income brackets;
the inclusion of shipping in the ETS and stricter rules for aviation;
the introduction of a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) to gradually replace industry’s free emission allowances and protect against carbon leakage.

‘Should’ becomes ‘shall’

A major change to emissions trading is the use of the money that member states collect from the sale of emissions allowances. Previously, member states were only called upon (“should”) to reinvest their revenues in climate protection measures, in the energy turnaround or in the social cushioning of higher costs through CO2 pricing. This was not a commitment.

The reform does now strengthen this call by changing the wording to “shall”. However, the legal difference between these two words is disputed. An unambiguous obligation would have been a “must”. Thus, it remains to be seen how this part of the reform will be implemented in the member states. The EU Parliament’s rapporteurs announced on Tuesday that they will closely monitor member states’ compliance with these rules.

French Greens reject, Socialists abstain

Despite the large majorities in favor of the dossiers to make the European Green Deal a reality, there were also surprising votes against it. The French Greens (Europe Écologie Les Verts, EELV) and S&D delegation from France voted differently than their respective groups. The EELV MEPs voted against the ETS text, while the S&D people abstained. The reason for this is the French experience with the protests of the yellow vests movement, according to people close to both delegations who had met in the run-up to the vote.

There is immense fear that the additional costs of CO2 pricing will lead to new unrest. The text is not up to the social challenges, Éric Andrieu (S&D, Parti Socialiste) said in an interview with the French-language press. “There are still too many ambiguities about the impact of including the transport and housing sectors in the CO2 market on the most vulnerable households”.

Price explosion feared from 2030 onwards

Marie Toussaint (Greens, EELV) points to the risk of a “price explosion” in the transport and housing sectors from 2030. It is true that there is a price stability mechanism in ETS 2 that applies until 2030 and is supposed to limit the CO2 price to a maximum of €45 per ton. “But what happens if this price can no longer be guaranteed?”, asks Toussaint, predicting that the price increase potential will primarily hit the most vulnerable groups. “€45 per ton of CO2 means a price increase at the pump of 10 cents per liter in France”, she says.

The architecture of the ETS is based on market principles, Toussaint said. This means that the market is unable to provide predictability in carbon prices for the transport and housing sectors. The French Greens argue instead for taxing the financial assets and profits of energy companies, which have “exploded” as a result of the rise in energy prices caused by the war in Ukraine. cst/luk

Green genetic engineering: Lemke and other opponents object

The Commission’s proposal to regulate new genetic breeding methods is likely to be postponed indefinitely. The reasons: The EU’s Regulatory Scrutiny Committee apparently has objections to the proposal. In addition, there are objections from member states, first and foremost Germany and Austria, first reported by the portal Agra Facts. The EU Commission will neither confirm nor deny this. Actually, the presentation of the plans was dated June 7.

Kai Purnhagen of the University of Bayreuth confirms the process. “The presentation of the proposals for a new regulation was postponed indefinitely”, says the EU food law expert. “Apparently there were difficulties with the timing between the committees. We also hear that the EU Commission is exploring compromises, for example on traceability”. Observers such as the Association for Food without Genetic Engineering believe that new regulation is unlikely before the European elections.

“From our point of view, we don’t need any new regulation“, said a spokesman for Minister for the Environment Steffi Lemke (Greens). “Genetically modified plants are not banned. They have to be checked for a possible risk before they are approved. That’s a good thing in terms of the precautionary principle”. Proponents of new regulation, including Minister of Education and Research Bettina Stark-Watzinger, want more research freedom for new genetic breeding methods such as the Crispr/Cas genetic scissors (read more in German in our Research.Table).

Unclear terms cause criticism

According to the BMUV, there are reservations about the Commission’s draft proposals to date even among the member countries in favor. Undefined terms in the manuscripts met with rejection, such as a “Breeders’ Gene Pool”. The Commission did not explain exactly what this was supposed to be.

Freedom of choice in purchasing could suffer under new regulation. So far, it is unclear how the new genetic engineering can be detected in food. In order to identify plants produced using the new methods in the laboratory, manufacturers would have to disclose their DNA sequencing.

Austria’s government, in light of the issue, had most recently called for a study before any new regulation is even tackled. “Austria is strongly committed to the production of organic food as well as non-genetically modified”, the letter to the Commission states. The government warns against legislative changes that would “threaten the coexistence” of food with and without genetic engineering and would have “consequences for consumers’ freedom of choice”. ab

Brussels wants better crisis management in the banking sector

The European Commission wants to strengthen crisis management in the banking sector. To this end, existing EU regulations are to be extended to smaller and medium-sized institutions. In addition, the Brussels authority wants to expand deposit insurance. EU Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis said in Strasbourg that the banking sector in Europe is now much more resilient after the financial crisis and can rely on efficient crisis management. However, the past has shown that smaller and medium-sized institutions are often not protected in the event of failure.

Instead of using the institutions’ own resources or private, industry-financed safety nets such as deposit guarantee schemes and resolution funds, taxpayers’ money would be used. The EU Commission wants to counteract this. The current push is intended to enable authorities to “guide failing banks into an orderly market exit, regardless of their size and business model“. To this end, they are to be given a wide range of instruments.

In particular, the Commission wants to simplify the use of industry-financed safety nets. In banking crises, for example, depositors are to be better shielded by transferring their accounts from a distressed bank to a healthy one. Dombrovskis stressed, however, “the first line of defense remains the internal loss-absorbing capacity of banks. Other safety nets may only be added as a complement”.

EU wants to extend deposit protection to more bank customers

With regard to the planned modification of depositor protection, EU Financial Services Commissioner Mairead McGuinness stressed that “the coverage level of €100,000 per depositor per bank set out in EU rules for deposit guarantee schemes remains untouched“. However, she said, the framework should be extended to public institutions such as hospitals, schools or municipalities. The same applies to customer funds deposited by investment companies, payment institutions or e-money institutions in certain types of customer funds, for example.

In individual cases, higher sums are also to be guaranteed, for example “if the account balance temporarily exceeds the threshold of €100,000 as a result of certain events such as an inheritance or the payment of an insurance premium”. Markus Ferber (CSU), a member of the European Parliament, warns that the requirements from Brussels could cause problems for the institutional guarantee systems of savings banks and cooperative banks in Germany, which have functioned well up to now.

Ferber warns of problems for institutional protection systems in Germany

“What the Commission is proposing is gnawing away at the raison d’être of institutional protection schemes. Much of what constitutes an institutional protection scheme will no longer be possible in the future“, said the EPP Group’s financial policy spokesman. Ferber is particularly critical of new intervention rights of the European Resolution Authority as well as the tightened “least cost test”, with which must be proven that intervention by a deposit guarantee scheme is always the most cost-effective measure. “In this context, we have a system in Germany that has proven its worth. This should not be called into question by an overreaction on the part of the Commission”, the MEP stressed. cr

EU reaches agreement on Chips Act

The European Parliament and the member states have resolved the remaining disputes over the Chips Act. The negotiators reached an agreement in the trilogue on Tuesday, particularly on the controversial question of funding. “By mastering the most advanced semiconductors, EU will become an industrial powerhouse in markets of the future,” Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton commented on the agreement.

The question of how the budget of €3.3 billion for the “Chips for Europe Initiative”, the first pillar of the Chips Act aimed at research and development, was to be financed remained open until the very end. Parliament wanted to fund it with “fresh money”, but was unable to get its way. Instead, the existing programs Digital Europe and Horizon Europe are to be used. In this way, “the Chips Act is actually at the expense of investments in the competitiveness of other sectors, for example for intelligent mobility and intelligent networks”, criticized Christian Ehler, industrial policy spokesperson of the EPP Group.

The second pillar of the Chips Act is intended to facilitate setting up new factories in the EU. Investors are to be able to expect accelerated approval procedures by member states, preferential access to test facilities and, above all, generous state aid. Following the trilateral agreement, equipment suppliers to chip manufacturers can now also receive the classification under state aid law as “first-of-a-kind” facilities.

Waiting for TSMC’s decision

In anticipation of the Chips Act, chip manufacturers have already announced several large investments in Europe, including Intel in Germany. The world’s largest contract manufacturer TSMC from Taiwan has been in intensive negotiations with the German government for some time about funding for a site in Dresden. The Taiwanese industry service Digitimes recently reported that TSMC now wants to build a factory for semiconductors primarily for customers in the automotive industry, together with partners such as Bosch. The company has not yet confirmed this.

The Chips Act is intended to help avoid supply bottlenecks in the future, as was the case during the Covid pandemic. This is to be ensured by a new crisis mechanism (the third pillar). The Commission is to map long-term supply chains and develop an early warning system. At the insistence of the Parliament, it was “possible to establish clear criteria for the definition of a crisis and the timing of intervention”, said the shadow rapporteur of the Greens, Henrike Hahn.

Experts doubt the usefulness of the new crisis mechanism. It would have been best to simply discard the emergency toolbox, as it is “neither feasible nor effective,” believes Julia Hess of the Stiftung Neue Verantwortung. “But at least it now comes with more checks and balances.” tho

Cyber package: EU steps up fight against cyber attacks

The EU Commission on Tuesday unveiled a new legislative package aimed at stepping up the EU’s fight against cyberattacks. With the package, the Union is showing how it can “build the infrastructures, competencies and capacities through solidarity” to jointly arm itself against cybersecurity threats, Commission Vice President Margrethe Vestager said in Strasbourg. Private companies are also to be used in the process.

The cyber package includes an EU cyber solidarity law and a cybersecurity skills academy. The total budget for all measures in the EU Cyber Solidarity Act is €1.1 billion, with the EU funding two-thirds of this through the Digital Europe program. Vestager also presented two proposals for a Council recommendation on improving the digital skills of people in the EU (Digital Skills and Education Package).

Cyber Solidarity Act provides for a cyber reserve

The Commission proposes the establishment of a European cyber protection shield. This will create a Europe-wide infrastructure of security operations centers (SOCs). These SOCs will detect and defend against cyber threats, using cutting-edge technology such as AI and advanced data analytics. In doing so, they will enable government agencies to respond more efficiently and effectively to major cyber incidents. These centers could be operational as early as 2024.

The Cyber Solidarity Act also provides for the creation of a cyber emergency mechanism. This is intended to improve preparedness and response to cyber incidents. It includes:

precautionary measures, including tests to identify potential vulnerabilities in facilities in particularly critical sectors such as healthcare, transport, energy;
an EU cybersecurity reserve. It consists of trusted cyber security companies that are pre-contracted and ready to respond quickly to cyber attacks;
financial support for mutual administrative assistance, so that one member state can support another member state.

A review mechanism for cybersecurity incidents is also planned so that the Union can learn from attacks.

Academy to build cybersecurity skills

The EU Academy is intended to bundle private and public initiatives that improve cybersecurity skills at European and national levels. It is also intended to help reduce the shortage of IT security specialists. The academy will initially be installed on the Digital Skills and Jobs platform.

The EU Cyber Solidarity Act and the Cybersecurity Skills Academy build on the EU Cybersecurity Strategy and the EU legal framework to strengthen the EU’s collective resilience to increasing cybersecurity threats. This legal framework includes the Directive on measures for a high common level of cybersecurity in the Union (NIS-2 Directive) and the cybersecurity legal act.

Will countries accept administrative assistance?

The European cyber shield acts less like a protective shield and more like a joint, active situation monitoring, said Sven Herpig, Director for Cybersecurity Policy and Resilience at the New Responsibility Foundation, in an initial reaction. The basis for this, he said, is the exchange of information between national authorities and security operations centers. Herpig doubts, however, that any real actionable intelligence will emerge there, “if Germany, for example, does not even have a cross-agency cybersecurity situation picture“.

In the case of the cyber emergency mechanism, the projects listed under “preparedness” and “financial support and mutual administrative assistance” seemed to make sense at first glance. “Here, the design is important”, Herpig opined, asking, “For example, should German authorities then conduct vulnerability tests on critical infrastructures in Greece?”.

The EU cybersecurity reserve, and thus pooling and sharing of personnel, also appears to make sense, he said. “The challenge, however, is that the shortage of specialists in the field is prevalent worldwide”, Herpig said. There simply aren’t a large number of IT security specialists waiting to be put to work, he said. vis

DFKI CEO: EU must coordinate with USA on AI Act

The AI Act rapporteurs, who have called for a global AI summit, are getting support from the scientific community. Speaking to Table.Media, the head of the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), Antonio Krüger, argued for global coordination on AI regulation. “Regulation should not just happen at the EU level. The EU would have to get at least the US on board for this – possibly even China”.

This time, he said, things will be different from the GDPR, where the EU presented a regulation that was adopted in part by the Americans. In the case of the AI regulation, the vote had better take place beforehand. “Because it may well be that the Americans find the regulations too inhibiting to innovation and will not go along this time”, Krüger warned. If the EU launched a joint initiative with the US, it would have a much greater impact, he said. “And I definitely see movement in the US – also caused by the great media response to large AI models like ChatGPT”.

AI Act: Innovations should be the focus

Parliament is in the process of final compromises. The last political meeting is expected to take place today, Wednesday. This is to be followed by the votes in the committees.

Krüger takes a positive view of the changes that Parliament has made to the AI Regulation. He says the description of AI systems is no longer as crude as in the original draft. “I think this is now quite a good compromise“. However, he criticizes, “the innovation aspect of AI would have to play a stronger role in the AI Regulation – what is possible with AI and how you want to make that possible”.

ChatGPT: misinformation is a real threat

Like the negotiators in Parliament, Krüger warns against the alarmist perspective on AI taken by the signatories of the Future of Life Institute’s open letter. He believes dystopian scenarios are overblown.

However, the issue of misinformation is already a realistic threat in the present. However, he said, one should not be so naïve as to expect that regulation will steer everything in a good direction. “AI requires a major education offensive“, Krüger said. “It must be clear to all Internet users that AI changes the Internet’s rules about truth and falsification. Regulation won’t help much. I am firmly convinced of that”. vis

China debate: MEPs criticize Macron’s statements

During the EU Parliament’s general debate on China policy yesterday in Strasbourg, MEPs criticized French President Emmanuel Macron’s statements on Taiwan and warned of a split within Europe.

“It is naive to say that Taiwan is not our concern“, said Manfred Weber (CSU), leader of the EPP group, for example, in reference to an interview by Macron on Taiwan. This statement came as a shock to him, Weber said. France’s president should consider who applauded him, he said.

There was also a hail of criticism from the French side. Yannick Jadot, a member of parliament for the French Green Party, accused Macron of causing division with his statements. One should not make the same mistakes as before with Russia, said Jadot in conversation with journalists in Strasbourg.

Criticism of possible CAI resuscitation

French Macron confidant and Renew deputy Stéphane Séjourné, on the other hand, defended Macron: “We don’t have to listen to lessons from a party that methodically built our dependency and sold our infrastructure”, he said in the direction of Weber. However, he said, it is now important to show that there is a consensus.

Séjourné also spoke out against a revival of the CAI investment agreement – as long as sanctions against EU parliamentarians were in force and the Uyghur Muslim minority was being persecuted. Media reports had recently suggested that work was going on behind the scenes in Brussels to resume talks on CAI, both from the Chinese and European sides. The agreement is on the agenda of several high-level meetings next month, the South China Morning Post recently reported.

According to Bloomberg, France’s president is working to involve China in a peace initiative on the Ukraine war. Macron has tasked his foreign policy adviser Emmanuel Bonne with working with Beijing’s top diplomat Wang Yi to create a framework for talks between Ukraine and Russia, the media service reported Tuesday, citing a person familiar with the proceedings. According to the report, the French strategy envisages opportunities for talks between Russia and Ukraine before summer.

Macron wants to involve China in strategy on Ukraine war

During the debate in the Parliament for the common China policy, the EU foreign affairs representative Josep Borrell called for better coordination of EU institutions and member states among and with each other. A cacophony must be avoided, Borrell stressed. Referring to the highly criticized external impact of the joint China visit by Macron and EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen, he spoke of coordination problems: “This could have been avoided”.

Von der Leyen also drummed again for a unified approach to China: a tactic of “divide et impera” (“divide and rule”) to divide the EU should not be allowed to work, von der Leyen said. “This is what we may be facing right now”. She repeated in the European Parliament her call for more economic independence from China. Even before her trip, she had spoken of “de-risking” in a keynote speech. ari

Change of diplomat: Steinlein becomes new ambassador in Paris

The Berlin diplomatic merry-go-round continues to spin. This time, it touches Frank-Walter Steinmeier’s two once closest comrades-in-arms. Within a few days, it has become known that the two diplomats Stephan Steinlein and Thomas Bagger will take up new jobs. Steinlein is going to Paris as ambassador, while Bagger will succeed Andreas Michaelis as permanent state secretary at the Federal Foreign Office.

For Steinlein, it is a historic return. He was the GDR’s first and last ambassador to France after the People’s Chamber election in spring 1990. 33 years later, he is returning to this place, reportedly to his great delight. From 1998 to 2022, he worked for Steinmeier, first in the Chancellery, then in the parliamentary group, then in the Foreign Office. From 2017 on, he served five years as head of office and state secretary at Bellevue Palace. Steinlein’s new post is not yet official: Paris has not yet confirmed it and the German president has not yet signed off on it. Both, however, will follow soon. The cabinet has already decided on the whole thing, and the French government has received the corresponding application letter.

For Thomas Bagger, it is both a climb and a hardship. The former chief of planning staff at the German Foreign Office and later foreign policy advisor to the German president went to Warsaw as ambassador last year – complete with family, settling in and language courses. Now comes, rather abruptly, the return. The effort is outweighed by the change to the most powerful post there is in the Foreign Office after the Foreign Minister: Bagger becomes a civil servant state secretary in the Foreign Office. steb

Katja Adler – liberal in the European committee

For her children, Europe is “simply there”, says Katja Adler. “But a peaceful, borderless Europe cannot be taken for granted”. The FDP politician knows this from her own experience: born in 1974, she grew up in Frankfurt an der Oder, in GDR times. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, her horizons expanded, not only to West Germany, but to the whole of Europe. After graduating with a degree in administration, she worked first at the State Office for Food, and later at the Ministry of Education in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.

In 2002, Adler moved to Rhineland-Palatinate and worked in the state’s Ministry of Education, followed by a stint in the state’s Ministry of Family Affairs. Today, the 49-year-old sits for the FDP on the Bundestag’s European Affairs Committee and takes a stance on the European Union’s legislative projects. Expanding the internal market, speaking with one voice internationally, a European army – Adler wants a stronger Europe.

Staying at the community base

After the birth of her first child, she founded a daycare center in her hometown of Oberursel in the Hochtaunus district of Hesse. This is her entry into local politics: She realized that she wanted to make a political difference, Adler says. “And the best way to do that in Germany is through the party system”. She becomes an FDP member, moves into the city council in 2014, and two years later into the district council in Hochtaunus. And since 2021, she has been sitting in the Bundestag for the FDP. She continues to hold her municipal offices. “You can disappear very quickly into the Berlin bubble”, Adler says. “And that’s exactly what I want to avoid”.

Among other things, the European Committee takes a position on European legislative projects – Adler describes it as a “large cross-sectional committee”. It discusses many topics, but has no direct responsibility. Adler would like European topics that affect several policy areas to be dealt with by the European Committee as the lead committee.

Liberal network policy

One such issue could be the network usage fees proposed by EU Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton – a digital, transport or economic issue, depending on one’s point of view. The core of the proposal is that Internet platforms should pay a fee for using network infrastructure. Adler fears that the corporations will pass the fee on to consumers. In a position paper, she and her parliamentary group have spoken out against the plan. The reason: the fee could endanger the open and free Internet.

Freedom is an important concern for Adler. On Twitter, a picture of a small Statue of Liberty can be seen right next to her name – she regularly speaks out against bans or socialism on the platform. For Adler, that’s part of her job: “Politics is discussion, and today that also takes place to some extent in social media”. No one in politics can afford to keep a profile on any platform anymore, she says. Jana Hemmersmeier

Who plays first fiddle?

For whom does the Commission prepare the legislative proposals? The first addressees are surely the co-legislators and not the press. That’s why Parliament has long insisted that the Commissioners not be the first to appear before journalists after “college”. At least during the Strasbourg weeks, when the music plays at the Parliament’s headquarters in France, the sovereign should not be second fiddle.

Now Parliament President Roberta Metsola has won a stage victory on the issue. This week, MEPs were first served by the Commission. Margaritis Schinas, Commissioner for the European Way of Life, said he was “very honored” to be the first Commissioner to establish the new tradition, and presented “fresh out of the oven”, as he put it, elements of the cyber security package that had just been adopted. And the journaille had to wait. The honorable representatives of the people have priority.

A Pyrrhic victory

Will Parliament be happy with the solution in the long run? It’s getting very late for the media at the back. Vice Commission President Valdis Dombrovskis was not able to start his press conference on deposit guarantee reforms until 4:30 p.m. The time pressure on journalists thus increases massively. Just for comparison: In weeks when the Commission meets in the Berlaymont in Brussels, the press conferences sometimes start at noon. That gives significantly more time for rested contributions to appear in the media.

Already there are first thoughtful voices from the cabinets of the commissioners. The new pecking order in the Strasbourg weeks will have consequences. Commissioners would no longer take important proposals on the trip to France, but rather save them for the weeks when the Commission is meeting in Belgium. It is quite another question whether the Parliament will duly appreciate the Commission’s gesture. At the premiere of the new format, there was a yawning void, Katarina Barley (SPD) and the two presenting Commissioners were visibly shaken. mgr

EUROPE.TABLE EDITORS

Till
Hoppe

Charlotte
Wirth

Falk
Steiner

Timo
Landenberger

Corinna
Visser

Lukas
Knigge

Eric
Bonse

Sarah
Schaefer

Manuel
Berkel

Lisa-Martina
Klein

Markus
Grabitz

Stephan
Israel

Claire
Stam

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Unclear terms cause criticism

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Cyber Solidarity Act provides for a cyber reserve

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DFKI CEO: EU must coordinate with USA on AI Act

AI Act: Innovations should be the focus

ChatGPT: misinformation is a real threat

China debate: MEPs criticize Macron’s statements

Criticism of possible CAI resuscitation

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Heads

Katja Adler – liberal in the European committee

Staying at the community base

Liberal network policy

Apéro

Who plays first fiddle?

A Pyrrhic victory

Europe.Table Editorial Office

EUROPE.TABLE EDITORS

Feature

Pesticide regulation: from rejection to tightening

Organic pesticides in protected areas

Disagreement in the EPP – amend or reject?

Renew can decide on majorities

Standard Essential Patents: proposal coming next week

Lobby war over proposal

Expert sees role of ETSI ‘acutely endangered’

Apple would benefit the most

News

Strack-Zimmermann runs for first place on FDP list

ETS reform adopted, but without French Greens

‘Should’ becomes ‘shall’

French Greens reject, Socialists abstain

Price explosion feared from 2030 onwards

Green genetic engineering: Lemke and other opponents object

Unclear terms cause criticism

Brussels wants better crisis management in the banking sector

EU wants to extend deposit protection to more bank customers

Ferber warns of problems for institutional protection systems in Germany

EU reaches agreement on Chips Act

Waiting for TSMC’s decision

Cyber package: EU steps up fight against cyber attacks

Cyber Solidarity Act provides for a cyber reserve

Academy to build cybersecurity skills

Will countries accept administrative assistance?

DFKI CEO: EU must coordinate with USA on AI Act

AI Act: Innovations should be the focus

ChatGPT: misinformation is a real threat

China debate: MEPs criticize Macron’s statements

Criticism of possible CAI resuscitation

Macron wants to involve China in strategy on Ukraine war

Change of diplomat: Steinlein becomes new ambassador in Paris

Heads

Katja Adler – liberal in the European committee

Staying at the community base

Liberal network policy