The European Union has been at loggerheads over two issues for the past decade: asylum policy and debt rules. On Wednesday, it succeeded in overcoming these two old conflicts and finding new solutions, just as Chancellor Olaf Scholz had called for in his speech on Europe in Prague 2022. Yesterday is therefore a historic day for the Community.
However, the political compromises must first pass the reality test. The asylum package now agreed in principle by the Council and the European Parliament represents a shift towards isolation and deterrence. The German government had opposed this, particularly in the person of the Greens, but was largely alone among the member states. Many governments are hoping that stricter laws will reduce the number of migrants and stop the rise of the radical right in their countries. However, the new rules will not take effect until long after the European elections in June, as Eric Bonse knows.
Berlin had more success in shaping the new fiscal rules in its favor. The political agreement between the finance ministers provides guidelines for debt reduction, which Olaf Scholz and Christian Lindner had insisted on. At the same time, it gives governments leeway to invest in climate protection or defense. Read more in Christof Roche’s Analysis.
After lengthy and difficult negotiations, the EU finance ministers have agreed on a common position for the reform of European debt rules in a special meeting. Nadia Calviño, President-in-Office of the EU Council, said at the end of the discussions that the agreement on the debt rules was “important and positive news. It will give the financial markets security and strengthen confidence in the European economies.”
Calviño emphasized that a balance had been found with the new rules “that ensures the stability of the budgets without restricting the member states’ scope for reforms and investments”.
The political agreement reached by all states during a video conference is to be translated into an official mandate for negotiations with the European Parliament, which is a co-decision-maker for parts of the reform, at a meeting of EU ambassadors this Thursday. The negotiations for the trilogue are then to start under the Belgian Presidency in January. Time is of the essence here, as the House of Representatives will dissolve in April due to the upcoming European elections in June 2024.
The reform of the Stability and Growth Pact had become necessary as the current rules were considered outdated and too rigid. According to the existing rules, member states whose debt ratio is above 60 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) must reduce their debt by five percent each year until the benchmark of 60 percent of GDP is reached. This was not considered realistic by the states, including Germany.
However, the new rules do not affect the current reference values of 60% of GDP for the debt level and 3% for the deficit. The aim of the new rules is to achieve a stability-oriented, sustainable budgetary policy, without depriving countries of the necessary room for maneuvering for investments and reforms. To this end, the European Commission will draw up an individual multi-year budget plan with each country based on its debt sustainability analysis (DSA), which generally covers four years. This can be extended to seven years in order to enable strategic reforms and investments, particularly with regard to the environment, digital, and defense.
This approach was initially met with fierce resistance in Berlin. The German government was concerned that the Commission could gain too much power through the individual approach and undermine the general monitoring by the Council. Minister Christian Lindner therefore advocated safety lines in order to preserve the stability component of the new pact.
Under the new rules, countries with a debt ratio of over 90 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) are obliged to reduce their debt by one percent of GDP each year. For countries with a debt ratio below 90 percent, the target is 0.5 percent. In addition, a structural deficit of 1.5 percent of GDP is specified in the preventive arm for countries with an increased debt level. This is intended to ensure that the deficit has a clear safety margin of three percent of GDP, thus preventing it from exceeding three percent in the event of normal economic fluctuations.
In order to reduce new debt to the target level of 1.5 percent, an adjustment rate of 0.4 percent of GDP per year is specified for the countries’ structural primary deficit if they run a budget program over four years. If a country extends this to seven years, the adjustment rate is 0.25 percent of GDP. In addition, transitional arrangements have been agreed upon for the period up to 2027 to cushion the impact of the increase in the interest burden and protect investment capacity.
The Commission also sets up a so-called control account for each Member State in order to track the cumulative upward and downward deviations of net expenditure from the net expenditure path defined by the Council.
At Germany’s initiative, clear threshold values for the control account were anchored in the legal texts in order to improve the enforcement of the regulations. If the thresholds are exceeded, there is a threat of deficit proceedings by the Brussels authority. However, nothing has changed in the corrective arm with regard to the initiation of excessive deficit procedures. If new debt exceeds three percent of GDP, a correction of at least 0.5 percent of GDP per year in structural terms is envisaged.
Their relief was palpable: After two days of marathon negotiations, the negotiators from the European Parliament, the member states, and the EU Commission agreed on a fundamental reform of the common asylum policy. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen spoke of a “historic agreement”.
The reform of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) is intended to end years of often bitter disputes over the common asylum and migration policy in time for the European elections in June 2024 and convince voters that the EU is also capable of acting in this controversial policy area.
After the Covid crisis and the war in Ukraine, Europe has passed its third major test, said Commission Vice-President Margaritis Schinas. Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said that the agreement was “urgently needed and long overdue”. However, she conceded that Germany had to make compromises to achieve this.
This applies above all to the so-called border procedures. In the future, asylum applications are to be examined at the EU’s external borders in order to prevent refugees with little chance of being accepted from continuing their journey. Closed camps are to be created for border procedures, which will also accommodate families with children.
The German government originally wanted to exempt accompanied children from these border procedures for humanitarian reasons but was unable to get its way at the trilogue in Brussels. Countries with particularly high “migration pressure” such as Italy or Greece had insisted on the tough rules and rejected exceptions.
Migrants are now to be detained near the border and (if rejected) deported directly from there. Asylum procedures and deportation should generally take twelve weeks each. It will also be possible to deport asylum seekers to “safe third countries” such as Tunisia or Albania.
At the urging of the Eastern European states, a crisis regulation was also adopted that allowed the rules to be tightened further. It is to take effect if migrants do not come voluntarily but are “instrumentalized”. The EU had initially accused Turkey in particular of this, and more recently also Russia and Belarus.
The so-called solidarity mechanism is also new. This is used to redistribute migrants from particularly burdened arrival countries such as Italy, Greece, or Malta. “For the first time, the EU member states are now obliged to show solidarity,” said Baerbock. “This means we are finally entering a European distribution system.”
However, unwilling states can buy their way out of accepting migrants by paying €20,000 per person per year as “compensation”. In addition, other benefits, such as assistance with migration projects in third countries, are also to be taken into account. It therefore remains questionable whether the reform will actually bring more solidarity.
The Greens and the Left fear that the EU states will ultimately prefer to invest in new isolationist projects. “The reform will not bring the desired result”, warns Green MEP Terry Reintke. “Today is a historic genuflection to the right-wing populists in the EU”, said Cornelia Ernst from the Left.
“Europe is taking back sovereignty over asylum and migration“, says Lena Düpont (CDU). New Eurodac rules would enable proper registration and identification and prevent irregular migration and unauthorized movements between countries, according to the migration policy spokesperson for the CDU/CSU group.
Birgit Sippel from the SPD also defends the new screening regulation. The screening procedure introduces a new monitoring mechanism for fundamental rights that will check compliance with EU law. The exact form of the other EU laws – five regulations in total – is still pending.
This makes a final assessment difficult. What is clear is that the compromise was knitted with a hot needle. The Spanish Presidency wanted to achieve an agreement before Christmas with all its might. Germany and Belgium, which will take over the Council presidency in January and will vote in June, also exerted pressure.
It is now certain that the legislative package will be passed before the European elections. The European Parliament and Council still have to give their final approval, but this is considered a formality. However, the CEAS reform is unlikely to take practical effect before 2026 – the regulations will only come into force 24 months after formal adoption.
The effect on voters is therefore likely to be limited. The binding effect on the EU states also leaves much to be desired. Hungary has already announced that it will not abide by the new rules. “We will not allow anyone to enter the country against our will,” said Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó in Budapest.
It remains to be seen whether the new, pro-European government in Poland will follow suit. Hungary and Poland voted against the reform in the Council. It is also unclear whether national border controls will now be dropped, as the EU Commission hopes. Faeser only extended the controls to Poland, the Czech Republic, and Switzerland last week.
Other questions concern the planned new asylum camps at the external borders and repatriation to third countries. The EU wants to prevent overcrowded camps such as Moria on the Greek island of Lesbos – but is not saying how. This can only succeed if there are not too many boat refugees and if repatriation is massively expanded.
However, there is a lack of agreements with third countries. The agreement concluded with Tunisia in the summer is being traded as a model in Brussels. However, it has not yet had any practical effect – and it has not yet found a successor. The “external dimension” is and remains the Achilles heel of European migration policy.
Right at the start of the new year, the Council, Commission, and Parliament will begin trilogue negotiations on the EU Packaging Regulation. Due to the controversial positions on the law, it is uncertain how long the negotiations will last. The negotiators are aiming to reach an agreement before the end of the legislative period.
The Parliament adopted its position in November, which significantly weakened the Commission’s draft in many areas. The Environment Council, however, which adopted its general approach at the beginning of the week, largely upholds the ambitions of the Commission’s draft.
“The biggest sticking point in the trilogue negotiations will certainly be the question of what measures can be taken to reduce the mountains of waste“, Delara Burkhardt (S&D) told Table.Media. As shadow rapporteur, the Social Democrat helped negotiate the Parliament’s position. “This concerns, in particular, the bans on unnecessary single-use packaging, for example when consuming food and drinks in restaurants, reusable quotas for drinks and transport packaging and requirements against oversized packaging that contains more air than product.”
Fortunately, the EU environment ministers had kept the environmental ambitions of the Commission’s proposal largely intact, said Burkhardt. “Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the European Parliament.” A right-wing majority in the European Parliament had given in to almost every lobbying wish. “Numerous deletions and exemptions make me doubt whether the Parliament’s position can achieve the desired waste reduction at all.” Burkhardt therefore hopes that the final law will be closer to the Council’s position in the areas of packaging minimization and reusable packaging.
Specifically, it concerns Article 22, in which the Commission proposes a ban on certain single-use packaging formats. These include plastic packaging for drinks six-packs, fresh fruit and vegetables weighing less than 1.5 kilograms, and disposable containers for takeaway food in restaurants.
In its position, Parliament deletes several of these bans and adds other bans in their place. These include, for example, bans on single-use shrink-wrap packaging for suitcases and unnecessary secondary packaging such as the cardboard box that encases a tube of toothpaste. It adds an exemption clause for companies that collect 85 percent of single-use packaging waste for recycling and can prove that single-use packaging is more environmentally friendly by means of a life cycle analysis. The Commission is also not to be given the option of adding new bans via delegated acts.
In its approach, the Council adopts the Commission’s proposals with a few amendments: The ban on single-use fruit and vegetables, for example, should only apply to plastic packaging; the Commission should be able to add new bans, but only via the ordinary legislative procedure.
The second is Article 26 of the Commission’s draft, which provides for reusable quotas for some packaging formats. Parliament is removing the quotas for the take-away sector and adding far-reaching exemptions for the other sectors. These make the article almost meaningless.
The Council adopts the Commission’s proposals and adds, for example, an exception for wine and the possibility for companies to join forces to achieve the reusable beverage quotas.
Very detailed negotiations are therefore awaiting the three EU institutions. It will be very difficult to reach an agreement on the two articles.
Negotiations on the chemical substances that may be contained in packaging materials will also not be easy. Parliament is calling for a ban on harmful perpetuation chemicals (PFAS) and bisphenol A in packaging that comes into contact with food and therefore also indirectly with people. The Council is initially calling for an investigation by the Commission with a view to possibly banning these chemicals in the future.
The trilogue negotiations are due to begin in January. According to information from Table.Media, the first political meeting is planned for Jan. 10 but has not yet been officially confirmed.
With the exception of the “right side of the European Parliament”, all three institutions are in agreement that they want to conclude the negotiations quickly and vote before the European elections in June, reports Delara Burkhardt. “In this way, we can quickly create planning security for companies that will have to meet the first targets of the regulation in just a few years.”
Poland’s new head of state already knows the job: Donald Tusk was Prime Minister of Poland for seven years (2007-2014). He then moved to Brussels as President of the Council of Europe. Without him, his Civic Platform lost the elections. Tusk returned to Poland at the end of 2019 and began forging an anti-PiS coalition.
During his second term as head of the Council of Europe, Tusk was occasionally accused of lacking leadership in the West. In Polish politics, however, he is known as a doer who rules the party with a firm hand and forms a functioning mechanism out of many political egos. “There are no friends in politics”, he once said. But he also has charisma and knows how to win people over.
Over the years, Tusk has grown with his tasks. The boy from a modest background began fighting against communism as a student in Gdansk. He was close to the trade union movement “Solidarność” and its legendary leader Lech Wałęsa. When he took over the reins of government for the first time in 2007, he was vilified by his opponents in the Sejm as a “brat in shorts”. However, the supposed lightweight successfully led the country through the global financial crisis – Poland’s economy grew by 20 percent under Tusk.
The old and new prime minister is a convinced economic liberal. This attitude also caused social tensions in the past. He now wants to correct this: After his inauguration, he promised to maintain an open dialog with the population, better communication, and more empathy. His coalition partners, above all the left, are likely to put the brakes on some overly liberal ideas – and ensure more balance. Tusk will come to terms with them.
The signs were anything but good that Tusk would succeed in making a comeback to the head of state. The ruling PiS party had all the resources of the state at its disposal. All state institutions, including the anti-corruption authority, the central bank, the price regulation authority, and state-owned energy companies were involved in the election campaign to support the PiS – mostly in violation of the law. State television TVP, formally obliged to be objective, broadcast government propaganda and slandered the opposition.
Tusk succeeded in mobilizing the apolitical groups of the population. In June and October, his citizens’ coalition organized two rallies in Warsaw, each attended by well over 500,000 people – the largest demonstrations since the fall of communism. Tusk presented himself as a fighter for democracy, civil liberties, and the rule of law – and as an opponent of the absolute abortion ban. This went down well with young and female voters in larger cities. Voter turnout there was often over 80 percent, 20 percent higher than ever before. Overall, 74.4 percent of eligible voters cast their vote.
PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński, on the other hand, chose the wrong strategy during the election campaign: He took polarization to the extreme. He used vulgar methods to defame his opponent. He stoked fears against Tusk, whom he insulted as a “traitor”, “Berlin’s henchman” and “evil”, as well as against Germany and the EU, who were targeting Polish sovereignty. With this aggressive hate campaign, Kaczyński reached his hard-line electorate but scared off moderate conservative voters.
Tusk, on the other hand – despite all his criticism of the PiS government – spoke of repairing the state, social reconciliation, and a return to dialog with the EU. He did not allow himself to be provoked. What’s more, he agreed on a coalition with the left, the farmers’ party PSL, and the Polska 2050 movement early on. He found the right balance in order to sharpen his own profile and not scare off his partners.
There is no doubt about his pro-European stance. He will mend relations with Brussels but will demand a lot from his partners. Tusk is aware of Poland’s importance as a frontline state to Ukraine and as the fifth-largest economy in the EU. However, he also needs support from Brussels in his attempt to clean out the PiS Augean stable.
Its success is in Europe’s vital interest. Above all, Poland could serve as an example to the Hungarian opposition of how to overcome the rule of autocrats. Andrzej Rybak
The European Union has been at loggerheads over two issues for the past decade: asylum policy and debt rules. On Wednesday, it succeeded in overcoming these two old conflicts and finding new solutions, just as Chancellor Olaf Scholz had called for in his speech on Europe in Prague 2022. Yesterday is therefore a historic day for the Community.
However, the political compromises must first pass the reality test. The asylum package now agreed in principle by the Council and the European Parliament represents a shift towards isolation and deterrence. The German government had opposed this, particularly in the person of the Greens, but was largely alone among the member states. Many governments are hoping that stricter laws will reduce the number of migrants and stop the rise of the radical right in their countries. However, the new rules will not take effect until long after the European elections in June, as Eric Bonse knows.
Berlin had more success in shaping the new fiscal rules in its favor. The political agreement between the finance ministers provides guidelines for debt reduction, which Olaf Scholz and Christian Lindner had insisted on. At the same time, it gives governments leeway to invest in climate protection or defense. Read more in Christof Roche’s Analysis.
After lengthy and difficult negotiations, the EU finance ministers have agreed on a common position for the reform of European debt rules in a special meeting. Nadia Calviño, President-in-Office of the EU Council, said at the end of the discussions that the agreement on the debt rules was “important and positive news. It will give the financial markets security and strengthen confidence in the European economies.”
Calviño emphasized that a balance had been found with the new rules “that ensures the stability of the budgets without restricting the member states’ scope for reforms and investments”.
The political agreement reached by all states during a video conference is to be translated into an official mandate for negotiations with the European Parliament, which is a co-decision-maker for parts of the reform, at a meeting of EU ambassadors this Thursday. The negotiations for the trilogue are then to start under the Belgian Presidency in January. Time is of the essence here, as the House of Representatives will dissolve in April due to the upcoming European elections in June 2024.
The reform of the Stability and Growth Pact had become necessary as the current rules were considered outdated and too rigid. According to the existing rules, member states whose debt ratio is above 60 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) must reduce their debt by five percent each year until the benchmark of 60 percent of GDP is reached. This was not considered realistic by the states, including Germany.
However, the new rules do not affect the current reference values of 60% of GDP for the debt level and 3% for the deficit. The aim of the new rules is to achieve a stability-oriented, sustainable budgetary policy, without depriving countries of the necessary room for maneuvering for investments and reforms. To this end, the European Commission will draw up an individual multi-year budget plan with each country based on its debt sustainability analysis (DSA), which generally covers four years. This can be extended to seven years in order to enable strategic reforms and investments, particularly with regard to the environment, digital, and defense.
This approach was initially met with fierce resistance in Berlin. The German government was concerned that the Commission could gain too much power through the individual approach and undermine the general monitoring by the Council. Minister Christian Lindner therefore advocated safety lines in order to preserve the stability component of the new pact.
Under the new rules, countries with a debt ratio of over 90 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) are obliged to reduce their debt by one percent of GDP each year. For countries with a debt ratio below 90 percent, the target is 0.5 percent. In addition, a structural deficit of 1.5 percent of GDP is specified in the preventive arm for countries with an increased debt level. This is intended to ensure that the deficit has a clear safety margin of three percent of GDP, thus preventing it from exceeding three percent in the event of normal economic fluctuations.
In order to reduce new debt to the target level of 1.5 percent, an adjustment rate of 0.4 percent of GDP per year is specified for the countries’ structural primary deficit if they run a budget program over four years. If a country extends this to seven years, the adjustment rate is 0.25 percent of GDP. In addition, transitional arrangements have been agreed upon for the period up to 2027 to cushion the impact of the increase in the interest burden and protect investment capacity.
The Commission also sets up a so-called control account for each Member State in order to track the cumulative upward and downward deviations of net expenditure from the net expenditure path defined by the Council.
At Germany’s initiative, clear threshold values for the control account were anchored in the legal texts in order to improve the enforcement of the regulations. If the thresholds are exceeded, there is a threat of deficit proceedings by the Brussels authority. However, nothing has changed in the corrective arm with regard to the initiation of excessive deficit procedures. If new debt exceeds three percent of GDP, a correction of at least 0.5 percent of GDP per year in structural terms is envisaged.
Their relief was palpable: After two days of marathon negotiations, the negotiators from the European Parliament, the member states, and the EU Commission agreed on a fundamental reform of the common asylum policy. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen spoke of a “historic agreement”.
The reform of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) is intended to end years of often bitter disputes over the common asylum and migration policy in time for the European elections in June 2024 and convince voters that the EU is also capable of acting in this controversial policy area.
After the Covid crisis and the war in Ukraine, Europe has passed its third major test, said Commission Vice-President Margaritis Schinas. Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said that the agreement was “urgently needed and long overdue”. However, she conceded that Germany had to make compromises to achieve this.
This applies above all to the so-called border procedures. In the future, asylum applications are to be examined at the EU’s external borders in order to prevent refugees with little chance of being accepted from continuing their journey. Closed camps are to be created for border procedures, which will also accommodate families with children.
The German government originally wanted to exempt accompanied children from these border procedures for humanitarian reasons but was unable to get its way at the trilogue in Brussels. Countries with particularly high “migration pressure” such as Italy or Greece had insisted on the tough rules and rejected exceptions.
Migrants are now to be detained near the border and (if rejected) deported directly from there. Asylum procedures and deportation should generally take twelve weeks each. It will also be possible to deport asylum seekers to “safe third countries” such as Tunisia or Albania.
At the urging of the Eastern European states, a crisis regulation was also adopted that allowed the rules to be tightened further. It is to take effect if migrants do not come voluntarily but are “instrumentalized”. The EU had initially accused Turkey in particular of this, and more recently also Russia and Belarus.
The so-called solidarity mechanism is also new. This is used to redistribute migrants from particularly burdened arrival countries such as Italy, Greece, or Malta. “For the first time, the EU member states are now obliged to show solidarity,” said Baerbock. “This means we are finally entering a European distribution system.”
However, unwilling states can buy their way out of accepting migrants by paying €20,000 per person per year as “compensation”. In addition, other benefits, such as assistance with migration projects in third countries, are also to be taken into account. It therefore remains questionable whether the reform will actually bring more solidarity.
The Greens and the Left fear that the EU states will ultimately prefer to invest in new isolationist projects. “The reform will not bring the desired result”, warns Green MEP Terry Reintke. “Today is a historic genuflection to the right-wing populists in the EU”, said Cornelia Ernst from the Left.
“Europe is taking back sovereignty over asylum and migration“, says Lena Düpont (CDU). New Eurodac rules would enable proper registration and identification and prevent irregular migration and unauthorized movements between countries, according to the migration policy spokesperson for the CDU/CSU group.
Birgit Sippel from the SPD also defends the new screening regulation. The screening procedure introduces a new monitoring mechanism for fundamental rights that will check compliance with EU law. The exact form of the other EU laws – five regulations in total – is still pending.
This makes a final assessment difficult. What is clear is that the compromise was knitted with a hot needle. The Spanish Presidency wanted to achieve an agreement before Christmas with all its might. Germany and Belgium, which will take over the Council presidency in January and will vote in June, also exerted pressure.
It is now certain that the legislative package will be passed before the European elections. The European Parliament and Council still have to give their final approval, but this is considered a formality. However, the CEAS reform is unlikely to take practical effect before 2026 – the regulations will only come into force 24 months after formal adoption.
The effect on voters is therefore likely to be limited. The binding effect on the EU states also leaves much to be desired. Hungary has already announced that it will not abide by the new rules. “We will not allow anyone to enter the country against our will,” said Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó in Budapest.
It remains to be seen whether the new, pro-European government in Poland will follow suit. Hungary and Poland voted against the reform in the Council. It is also unclear whether national border controls will now be dropped, as the EU Commission hopes. Faeser only extended the controls to Poland, the Czech Republic, and Switzerland last week.
Other questions concern the planned new asylum camps at the external borders and repatriation to third countries. The EU wants to prevent overcrowded camps such as Moria on the Greek island of Lesbos – but is not saying how. This can only succeed if there are not too many boat refugees and if repatriation is massively expanded.
However, there is a lack of agreements with third countries. The agreement concluded with Tunisia in the summer is being traded as a model in Brussels. However, it has not yet had any practical effect – and it has not yet found a successor. The “external dimension” is and remains the Achilles heel of European migration policy.
Right at the start of the new year, the Council, Commission, and Parliament will begin trilogue negotiations on the EU Packaging Regulation. Due to the controversial positions on the law, it is uncertain how long the negotiations will last. The negotiators are aiming to reach an agreement before the end of the legislative period.
The Parliament adopted its position in November, which significantly weakened the Commission’s draft in many areas. The Environment Council, however, which adopted its general approach at the beginning of the week, largely upholds the ambitions of the Commission’s draft.
“The biggest sticking point in the trilogue negotiations will certainly be the question of what measures can be taken to reduce the mountains of waste“, Delara Burkhardt (S&D) told Table.Media. As shadow rapporteur, the Social Democrat helped negotiate the Parliament’s position. “This concerns, in particular, the bans on unnecessary single-use packaging, for example when consuming food and drinks in restaurants, reusable quotas for drinks and transport packaging and requirements against oversized packaging that contains more air than product.”
Fortunately, the EU environment ministers had kept the environmental ambitions of the Commission’s proposal largely intact, said Burkhardt. “Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the European Parliament.” A right-wing majority in the European Parliament had given in to almost every lobbying wish. “Numerous deletions and exemptions make me doubt whether the Parliament’s position can achieve the desired waste reduction at all.” Burkhardt therefore hopes that the final law will be closer to the Council’s position in the areas of packaging minimization and reusable packaging.
Specifically, it concerns Article 22, in which the Commission proposes a ban on certain single-use packaging formats. These include plastic packaging for drinks six-packs, fresh fruit and vegetables weighing less than 1.5 kilograms, and disposable containers for takeaway food in restaurants.
In its position, Parliament deletes several of these bans and adds other bans in their place. These include, for example, bans on single-use shrink-wrap packaging for suitcases and unnecessary secondary packaging such as the cardboard box that encases a tube of toothpaste. It adds an exemption clause for companies that collect 85 percent of single-use packaging waste for recycling and can prove that single-use packaging is more environmentally friendly by means of a life cycle analysis. The Commission is also not to be given the option of adding new bans via delegated acts.
In its approach, the Council adopts the Commission’s proposals with a few amendments: The ban on single-use fruit and vegetables, for example, should only apply to plastic packaging; the Commission should be able to add new bans, but only via the ordinary legislative procedure.
The second is Article 26 of the Commission’s draft, which provides for reusable quotas for some packaging formats. Parliament is removing the quotas for the take-away sector and adding far-reaching exemptions for the other sectors. These make the article almost meaningless.
The Council adopts the Commission’s proposals and adds, for example, an exception for wine and the possibility for companies to join forces to achieve the reusable beverage quotas.
Very detailed negotiations are therefore awaiting the three EU institutions. It will be very difficult to reach an agreement on the two articles.
Negotiations on the chemical substances that may be contained in packaging materials will also not be easy. Parliament is calling for a ban on harmful perpetuation chemicals (PFAS) and bisphenol A in packaging that comes into contact with food and therefore also indirectly with people. The Council is initially calling for an investigation by the Commission with a view to possibly banning these chemicals in the future.
The trilogue negotiations are due to begin in January. According to information from Table.Media, the first political meeting is planned for Jan. 10 but has not yet been officially confirmed.
With the exception of the “right side of the European Parliament”, all three institutions are in agreement that they want to conclude the negotiations quickly and vote before the European elections in June, reports Delara Burkhardt. “In this way, we can quickly create planning security for companies that will have to meet the first targets of the regulation in just a few years.”
Poland’s new head of state already knows the job: Donald Tusk was Prime Minister of Poland for seven years (2007-2014). He then moved to Brussels as President of the Council of Europe. Without him, his Civic Platform lost the elections. Tusk returned to Poland at the end of 2019 and began forging an anti-PiS coalition.
During his second term as head of the Council of Europe, Tusk was occasionally accused of lacking leadership in the West. In Polish politics, however, he is known as a doer who rules the party with a firm hand and forms a functioning mechanism out of many political egos. “There are no friends in politics”, he once said. But he also has charisma and knows how to win people over.
Over the years, Tusk has grown with his tasks. The boy from a modest background began fighting against communism as a student in Gdansk. He was close to the trade union movement “Solidarność” and its legendary leader Lech Wałęsa. When he took over the reins of government for the first time in 2007, he was vilified by his opponents in the Sejm as a “brat in shorts”. However, the supposed lightweight successfully led the country through the global financial crisis – Poland’s economy grew by 20 percent under Tusk.
The old and new prime minister is a convinced economic liberal. This attitude also caused social tensions in the past. He now wants to correct this: After his inauguration, he promised to maintain an open dialog with the population, better communication, and more empathy. His coalition partners, above all the left, are likely to put the brakes on some overly liberal ideas – and ensure more balance. Tusk will come to terms with them.
The signs were anything but good that Tusk would succeed in making a comeback to the head of state. The ruling PiS party had all the resources of the state at its disposal. All state institutions, including the anti-corruption authority, the central bank, the price regulation authority, and state-owned energy companies were involved in the election campaign to support the PiS – mostly in violation of the law. State television TVP, formally obliged to be objective, broadcast government propaganda and slandered the opposition.
Tusk succeeded in mobilizing the apolitical groups of the population. In June and October, his citizens’ coalition organized two rallies in Warsaw, each attended by well over 500,000 people – the largest demonstrations since the fall of communism. Tusk presented himself as a fighter for democracy, civil liberties, and the rule of law – and as an opponent of the absolute abortion ban. This went down well with young and female voters in larger cities. Voter turnout there was often over 80 percent, 20 percent higher than ever before. Overall, 74.4 percent of eligible voters cast their vote.
PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński, on the other hand, chose the wrong strategy during the election campaign: He took polarization to the extreme. He used vulgar methods to defame his opponent. He stoked fears against Tusk, whom he insulted as a “traitor”, “Berlin’s henchman” and “evil”, as well as against Germany and the EU, who were targeting Polish sovereignty. With this aggressive hate campaign, Kaczyński reached his hard-line electorate but scared off moderate conservative voters.
Tusk, on the other hand – despite all his criticism of the PiS government – spoke of repairing the state, social reconciliation, and a return to dialog with the EU. He did not allow himself to be provoked. What’s more, he agreed on a coalition with the left, the farmers’ party PSL, and the Polska 2050 movement early on. He found the right balance in order to sharpen his own profile and not scare off his partners.
There is no doubt about his pro-European stance. He will mend relations with Brussels but will demand a lot from his partners. Tusk is aware of Poland’s importance as a frontline state to Ukraine and as the fifth-largest economy in the EU. However, he also needs support from Brussels in his attempt to clean out the PiS Augean stable.
Its success is in Europe’s vital interest. Above all, Poland could serve as an example to the Hungarian opposition of how to overcome the rule of autocrats. Andrzej Rybak
