If you go to places with a clear starry sky, you can see them. Lined up like a string of pearls, they ascend into orbit: the Starlink satellites. American tech companies have long since begun to extend their digital supremacy on Earth to low Earth orbits (LEO). This has become painfully clear since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at the latest.
As a result, the European Commission has pushed ahead with a mega-project at high speed that had previously received little attention: Iris2, another major space project after Galileo (navigation) and Copernicus (earth observation). The acronym Iris2 stands for Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnectivity and Security through Satellites and is intended to enable secure communication in Europe – independent of other companies or states.
Commissioner Thierry Breton brought the legislative process to a conclusion surprisingly quickly – and put a French stamp on the European megaproject. Germany had insisted in the Council that start-ups and SMEs should have a 30 percent share. However, the tender looked like only the big established players had a chance.
And they decided to compete with each other rather than against each other. Only one consortium led by Airbus submitted a bid. The volume: €12 billion (instead of the €6 billion estimated by the EU).
Now Germany has woken up. Not only is the project much more expensive than expected. Germany also has to bear a large part of these costs without German industry benefiting accordingly. In a belated move, Economics Minister Robert Habeck has sent a letter to Brussels saying that the project should be stopped and put out to a new tender. Too late, according to Breton: such an advanced tendering process cannot be stopped now, he wrote back.
Breton will meet Habeck in Berlin on Thursday. “We think it is very positive that Commissioner Breton is coming to Berlin in person to talk to Minister Habeck about the German criticism of Iris2,” says Matthias Wachter, BDI Department Head and Managing Director of the BDI New Space Initiative. The BDI would like to see German industry more involved in the project. This is not only important for acceptance in this country. “The German New Space ecosystem is leading in Europe,” says Wachter. “It should therefore be given appropriate consideration.” It could make an important contribution to strengthening this European megaproject with its innovative strength and expertise. It will be interesting to see whether Breton’s arguments are convincing.
Have a successful day,
Parliament President Roberta Metsola’s guest appearance at the European Council is usually just a kind of warm-up for the actual meeting of the heads of state and government. At the most recent Council in mid-April, however, Mark Rutte got straight to the point: the outgoing Dutch Prime Minister warned that the Parliament should not take too long to elect a new leader after the European elections. After all, the EU could not afford to be without leadership for an extended period in such unstable times.
This is how the British historian Peter Ludlow describes it in his briefing on the recent summit. Metsola replied to Rutte that the European Parliament must first sort itself out before it can elect a new President of the EU Commission. In the first week of the session in Strasbourg in mid-July, MEPs would first have to elect the new President of the Parliament.
In fact, it is by no means certain that the new Commission President will be elected before the summer break. Not even if the EPP with incumbent Ursula von der Leyen emerges as the clear winner of the election from June 6 to 9 and the heads of state and government propose her again after their informal summit on June 17. The power game between the parliamentary groups could stand in the way.
The Social Democrats and Liberals, the EPP’s previous partners in the Von der Leyen coalition, are urging the Christian Democrats to commit to a new alliance, possibly expanded to include the Greens. To this end, the parliamentary groups are to agree on the priorities for the election period, while the Socialists are even calling for a formal coalition agreement.
“The reins of action lie with Manfred Weber and Ursula von der Leyen,” says René Repasi, head of the German SPD parliamentary group. “If they clearly distance themselves from the right, we can find a quick solution after the European elections.”
Von der Leyen and EPP leader Manfred Weber, however, want to keep the option of cooperation with parts of the national-conservative ECR group, at least selectively. This would give the Christian Democrats more options in the new parliament to form majorities on individual legislative proposals.
The EPP points out that without the votes of constructive MEPs from the ECR in recent weeks, there would have been no majorities for the agricultural package, stability pact and asylum package. The new mandate will also rely on these forces, for example, when it comes to new trade agreements, third-country agreements on asylum and agricultural policy.
In addition, those close to von der Leyen are very aware that the hurdle for her election is high with an absolute majority of the 720 MEPs in the new European Parliament. Even if the large pro-European political groups EPP, S&D and Renew defend their clear majority in the EU-wide vote. In 2019, von der Leyen’s cushion was only nine votes because a number of EPP MEPs also refused to vote for the CDU politician.
This is why von der Leyen and Weber are also seeking votes from the ECR camp, which they see as pro-European and on the side of Ukraine. These include Giorgia Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia and the ODS party of Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala. Other ECR parties such as the Polish PiS, on the other hand, are not considered capable of satisfying them.
However, the other pro-European parties are mobilizing against this. A few days ago, the leaders of the S&D, Renew, Green and Left groups called on the EPP to renounce any cooperation with the ECR: “We will not cooperate or enter into a coalition with far-right parties at any level, and we call on the Commission President and all democratic parties to categorically reject any normalization, cooperation and alliances with far-right and radical parties,” reads the document, which was co-signed by Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.
The EPP was also invited to reject cooperation with radical parties. According to reports, it made it a condition that it would also reject cooperation with radical left-wing forces. However, the other parties were not prepared to do so.
It is clear that time is running out for coalition negotiations. It will likely take until June 26 before the S&D, Greens and Liberals are ready for talks. According to current plans, the newly formed groups want to appoint their leaders on this date. Manfred Weber (EPP) wants to be confirmed as EPP group leader a week earlier.
The EPP Group is also going on a retreat to Portugal on July 3 and 4. Even if the political groups only want to negotiate with the President-designate of the Commission on the most important projects in agricultural, trade and defense policy and on the internal market, at least two weeks are scheduled for this. Working groups have to be formed beforehand, and compromises have to be found and political support obtained.
On June 24, the Bureau of the current European Parliament meets once again. It sets the agenda for the first plenary week with the constituent session. It is ruled out that there will be an extraordinary second sitting week in July, specifically for the election of the Commission President.
The constituent meeting is scheduled to take place on Tuesday, July 16. The election of the new Bureau is to begin on the same day: The President of the European Parliament will be elected for two and a half years – if the EPP has its way, incumbent Roberta Metsola will continue in office. The 14 Vice-Presidents and the Quaestors will then be elected.
Depending on how long the elections take, the election of the Commission President could be scheduled for Wednesday evening. If the elections drag on into Thursday, this election could also take place on Friday. The officials in the European Parliament have already prepared for this: They have booked their hotels for an extra day until Friday as an exception.
If there is still not enough time, the election of the new Commission President will be postponed until September. Von der Leyen could be threatened by the long delay if the lack of a majority is interpreted as a weakness and alternative names are discussed. The leaders of the S&D, Renew and Greens are also aware of this – and could use the time factor as leverage to wrest concessions from her in terms of content.
At the beginning of the current legislative period, the EU Commission presented its second Circular Economy Action Plan in March 2020 – 35 measures for an economy that conserves the value of resources instead of consuming them. The Commission has now launched all of them. Whether circularity becomes a business model for companies now depends largely on the implementation and design of the details.
The transition to a circular economy is an important lever for the EU to achieve the Green Deal. The Commission estimates that corresponding measures – such as a longer lifespan for products – could contribute up to 25 percent to the EU’s climate targets. Careful use of resources should enable operating within planetary boundaries. Globally, an estimated 90 percent of the loss of biodiversity and water scarcity can be attributed to the extraction and processing of resources alone.
At the same time, the EU wants to become less dependent on imports from other countries by reducing its consumption of primary materials. But there is still a long way to go: in 2022, the EU covered 85 percent of its demand for fossil energy materials (mainly plastics) and 70 percent of its demand for metal ores through imports.
According to the European Environment Agency (EEA), however, it is unlikely that the EU will achieve the targets from the second action plan by 2030. One key goal is to double the so-called circular material use rate. This indicates the proportion of recycled raw materials in total consumption. It has been stagnating at around eleven percent for more than ten years. According to the EEA, it could be doubled by 2030 if the recycling rate of waste rises to 70 percent, the material input of the economy falls by 15 percent and the consumption of fossil fuels decreases by a third. For the transformation to actually take off, the expert panel believes that much more action is needed.
The action plan for the circular economy must be “continued with real ambition,” demands Katharina Reuter, Managing Director of the German Sustainable Economy Association. “It is [however] questionable whether the future-oriented path of the Green Deal will be continued if Parliament slips to the right,” says Rebecca Tauer, Head of the Circular Economy Program at WWF Germany. In the current legislative period, there was already strong resistance to individual projects from the Circular Economy Action Plan, such as the Packaging Ordinance – which led to a significant weakening.
The “inertial forces of the linear economy” also stand in the way of progress, says Reuter. One problem: linear business models are often more lucrative than circular ones – because the real costs of environmental damage are generally not reflected in pricing. This means, for example, that recycled PET plastic was occasionally more expensive than that from primary production. Creating functioning markets for secondary raw materials and recyclable products is therefore “a huge challenge for the new Commission,” says Claas Oehlmann, Managing Director of the BDI Circular Economy Initiative.
Stakeholders from business and civil society consider the implementation of the Ecodesign Regulation to be particularly important in the coming legislative period. The Commission still has to define the requirements for individual product groups through delegated acts, for example, for durability and reparability. Only then will it be decided “how ambitious the rules will be,” says Tauer from WWF. For BNW Managing Director Reuter, a “game changer” is the digital product passport, for which the conditions will be created over the next few years. It is to be introduced gradually from 2027. The detailed requirements will also be defined by delegated acts.
The Federal Environment Ministry believes that the revision of the Waste Framework Directive should be completed “swiftly and ambitiously.” In March, the EU Parliament defined its position for the negotiations with the Council. According to the WWF, the proposal lacks binding collection and recycling targets for textiles. In addition, the reduction targets for food are insufficient. The BNW calls for the extended producer responsibility for textiles to have a “smart” design “so that it actually results in changes to product design” – for example, so that textiles are easier to repair.
The adoption of the Green Claims Directive is on the agenda after the European elections. Companies will no longer be allowed to make advertising claims about the sustainability of products without external verification. The directive to empowering consumers for the green transition has already been adopted, which prohibits misleading environmental claims and unfair claims on carbon offsetting and specifies the liability of companies – for example, with regard to information on premature obsolescence.
In the coming legislative period, Parliament and the Council will also deal with the Commission’s proposals for improving the circularity of the automotive industry. A new regulation will replace the directives on end-of-life vehicles and on reusability, recyclability and recoverability. The focus will be on increasing the use of recycled materials and dealing with end-of-life vehicles that have not yet been collected.
Nicolai von Ondarza – Head of Research Division EU/Europe German Institute for International and Security Affairs
The head of the EU/Europe research group at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs is perhaps the best expert on German European policy and one of the leading voices in the debate on the further development of the European Union. He analyzes with astuteness and political intuition.
Johannes Lindner – Co-Director Jacques Delors Center
The head of the Jacques Delors Centre at the Berlin Hertie School runs a very agile think tank. He conducts research into economic and financial policy issues. From his time at the European Central Bank, he provides expertise and good contacts in the EU institutions and the German government.
Thu Nguyen – Vice-Director Jacques Delors Centre
The Deputy Director of the Jacques Delors Centre is a proven expert on institutional issues and the rule of law. The German government therefore appointed the European lawyer to the Franco-German expert group that presented reform proposals for the EU in the fall of 2023. She also addresses a wider audience as host of the “EU to go” podcast.
Jana Puglierin – Senior Policy Fellow ECFR
The head of the Berlin office of the European Council on Foreign Relations is one of the leading experts on foreign and security policy. In the wake of the attack on Ukraine, she is much in demand as a mediator: abroad, she explains the German turnaround, and in Germany how important Berlin’s actions are.
Janis A. Emmanouilidis – Research Director EPC
He has been Research Director of the European Policy Centre for more than ten years and is one of the most influential experts in Brussels. With a degree in business administration, he covers a wide range of topics from economic policy to the democratization of the EU.
Guntram Wolff – Senior Fellow Bruegel
Guntram Wolff has been shaping economic policy debates in the EU for more than ten years. Between 2013 and 2022, he headed the influential Brussels think tank Bruegel, to which he returned in 2024 as a Senior Fellow after one and a half years as CEO of the German Council on Foreign Relations. The honorary professor at the University of Erfurt is currently focusing on geo-economic issues in connection with the European response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Jeromin Zettelmeyer – Director Bruegel
Jeromin Zettelmeyer came to Brussels in 2022 from the Strategy Department of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington DC to take over the management of Bruegel. In addition to leading the think tank, he is currently working on issues relating to economic security and European competitiveness.
Shahin Vallée – Head of Geoeconomics DGAP
Shahin Vallée has been following European economic policy up close for more than a decade. The current Director of the Geo-Economics Program of the German Council on Foreign Relations was economic advisor to the then President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, from 2012 to 2014. He then became economic advisor to Emmanuel Macron when he headed the French Ministry of the Economy. He is currently working intensively on French and European budget policy.
Stormy-Annika Mildner – Director Aspen Institute Germany
The internationally recognized expert on transatlantic relations and trade issues has been Director of the Aspen Institute Germany since January 2021. With her scientific and economic expertise, she is actively involved in the discussion of major political issues of the future. Her core topics are digital transformation, the future role of Germany and Europe and relations with China.
Georg Zachmann – Energy expert Bruegel
With his team of experts at Bruegel, he repeatedly manages to provide impetus for the Commission’s energy policy. His team’s data collections are very popular with other experts and journalists alike – especially since the energy crisis.
If you go to places with a clear starry sky, you can see them. Lined up like a string of pearls, they ascend into orbit: the Starlink satellites. American tech companies have long since begun to extend their digital supremacy on Earth to low Earth orbits (LEO). This has become painfully clear since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at the latest.
As a result, the European Commission has pushed ahead with a mega-project at high speed that had previously received little attention: Iris2, another major space project after Galileo (navigation) and Copernicus (earth observation). The acronym Iris2 stands for Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnectivity and Security through Satellites and is intended to enable secure communication in Europe – independent of other companies or states.
Commissioner Thierry Breton brought the legislative process to a conclusion surprisingly quickly – and put a French stamp on the European megaproject. Germany had insisted in the Council that start-ups and SMEs should have a 30 percent share. However, the tender looked like only the big established players had a chance.
And they decided to compete with each other rather than against each other. Only one consortium led by Airbus submitted a bid. The volume: €12 billion (instead of the €6 billion estimated by the EU).
Now Germany has woken up. Not only is the project much more expensive than expected. Germany also has to bear a large part of these costs without German industry benefiting accordingly. In a belated move, Economics Minister Robert Habeck has sent a letter to Brussels saying that the project should be stopped and put out to a new tender. Too late, according to Breton: such an advanced tendering process cannot be stopped now, he wrote back.
Breton will meet Habeck in Berlin on Thursday. “We think it is very positive that Commissioner Breton is coming to Berlin in person to talk to Minister Habeck about the German criticism of Iris2,” says Matthias Wachter, BDI Department Head and Managing Director of the BDI New Space Initiative. The BDI would like to see German industry more involved in the project. This is not only important for acceptance in this country. “The German New Space ecosystem is leading in Europe,” says Wachter. “It should therefore be given appropriate consideration.” It could make an important contribution to strengthening this European megaproject with its innovative strength and expertise. It will be interesting to see whether Breton’s arguments are convincing.
Have a successful day,
Parliament President Roberta Metsola’s guest appearance at the European Council is usually just a kind of warm-up for the actual meeting of the heads of state and government. At the most recent Council in mid-April, however, Mark Rutte got straight to the point: the outgoing Dutch Prime Minister warned that the Parliament should not take too long to elect a new leader after the European elections. After all, the EU could not afford to be without leadership for an extended period in such unstable times.
This is how the British historian Peter Ludlow describes it in his briefing on the recent summit. Metsola replied to Rutte that the European Parliament must first sort itself out before it can elect a new President of the EU Commission. In the first week of the session in Strasbourg in mid-July, MEPs would first have to elect the new President of the Parliament.
In fact, it is by no means certain that the new Commission President will be elected before the summer break. Not even if the EPP with incumbent Ursula von der Leyen emerges as the clear winner of the election from June 6 to 9 and the heads of state and government propose her again after their informal summit on June 17. The power game between the parliamentary groups could stand in the way.
The Social Democrats and Liberals, the EPP’s previous partners in the Von der Leyen coalition, are urging the Christian Democrats to commit to a new alliance, possibly expanded to include the Greens. To this end, the parliamentary groups are to agree on the priorities for the election period, while the Socialists are even calling for a formal coalition agreement.
“The reins of action lie with Manfred Weber and Ursula von der Leyen,” says René Repasi, head of the German SPD parliamentary group. “If they clearly distance themselves from the right, we can find a quick solution after the European elections.”
Von der Leyen and EPP leader Manfred Weber, however, want to keep the option of cooperation with parts of the national-conservative ECR group, at least selectively. This would give the Christian Democrats more options in the new parliament to form majorities on individual legislative proposals.
The EPP points out that without the votes of constructive MEPs from the ECR in recent weeks, there would have been no majorities for the agricultural package, stability pact and asylum package. The new mandate will also rely on these forces, for example, when it comes to new trade agreements, third-country agreements on asylum and agricultural policy.
In addition, those close to von der Leyen are very aware that the hurdle for her election is high with an absolute majority of the 720 MEPs in the new European Parliament. Even if the large pro-European political groups EPP, S&D and Renew defend their clear majority in the EU-wide vote. In 2019, von der Leyen’s cushion was only nine votes because a number of EPP MEPs also refused to vote for the CDU politician.
This is why von der Leyen and Weber are also seeking votes from the ECR camp, which they see as pro-European and on the side of Ukraine. These include Giorgia Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia and the ODS party of Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala. Other ECR parties such as the Polish PiS, on the other hand, are not considered capable of satisfying them.
However, the other pro-European parties are mobilizing against this. A few days ago, the leaders of the S&D, Renew, Green and Left groups called on the EPP to renounce any cooperation with the ECR: “We will not cooperate or enter into a coalition with far-right parties at any level, and we call on the Commission President and all democratic parties to categorically reject any normalization, cooperation and alliances with far-right and radical parties,” reads the document, which was co-signed by Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.
The EPP was also invited to reject cooperation with radical parties. According to reports, it made it a condition that it would also reject cooperation with radical left-wing forces. However, the other parties were not prepared to do so.
It is clear that time is running out for coalition negotiations. It will likely take until June 26 before the S&D, Greens and Liberals are ready for talks. According to current plans, the newly formed groups want to appoint their leaders on this date. Manfred Weber (EPP) wants to be confirmed as EPP group leader a week earlier.
The EPP Group is also going on a retreat to Portugal on July 3 and 4. Even if the political groups only want to negotiate with the President-designate of the Commission on the most important projects in agricultural, trade and defense policy and on the internal market, at least two weeks are scheduled for this. Working groups have to be formed beforehand, and compromises have to be found and political support obtained.
On June 24, the Bureau of the current European Parliament meets once again. It sets the agenda for the first plenary week with the constituent session. It is ruled out that there will be an extraordinary second sitting week in July, specifically for the election of the Commission President.
The constituent meeting is scheduled to take place on Tuesday, July 16. The election of the new Bureau is to begin on the same day: The President of the European Parliament will be elected for two and a half years – if the EPP has its way, incumbent Roberta Metsola will continue in office. The 14 Vice-Presidents and the Quaestors will then be elected.
Depending on how long the elections take, the election of the Commission President could be scheduled for Wednesday evening. If the elections drag on into Thursday, this election could also take place on Friday. The officials in the European Parliament have already prepared for this: They have booked their hotels for an extra day until Friday as an exception.
If there is still not enough time, the election of the new Commission President will be postponed until September. Von der Leyen could be threatened by the long delay if the lack of a majority is interpreted as a weakness and alternative names are discussed. The leaders of the S&D, Renew and Greens are also aware of this – and could use the time factor as leverage to wrest concessions from her in terms of content.
At the beginning of the current legislative period, the EU Commission presented its second Circular Economy Action Plan in March 2020 – 35 measures for an economy that conserves the value of resources instead of consuming them. The Commission has now launched all of them. Whether circularity becomes a business model for companies now depends largely on the implementation and design of the details.
The transition to a circular economy is an important lever for the EU to achieve the Green Deal. The Commission estimates that corresponding measures – such as a longer lifespan for products – could contribute up to 25 percent to the EU’s climate targets. Careful use of resources should enable operating within planetary boundaries. Globally, an estimated 90 percent of the loss of biodiversity and water scarcity can be attributed to the extraction and processing of resources alone.
At the same time, the EU wants to become less dependent on imports from other countries by reducing its consumption of primary materials. But there is still a long way to go: in 2022, the EU covered 85 percent of its demand for fossil energy materials (mainly plastics) and 70 percent of its demand for metal ores through imports.
According to the European Environment Agency (EEA), however, it is unlikely that the EU will achieve the targets from the second action plan by 2030. One key goal is to double the so-called circular material use rate. This indicates the proportion of recycled raw materials in total consumption. It has been stagnating at around eleven percent for more than ten years. According to the EEA, it could be doubled by 2030 if the recycling rate of waste rises to 70 percent, the material input of the economy falls by 15 percent and the consumption of fossil fuels decreases by a third. For the transformation to actually take off, the expert panel believes that much more action is needed.
The action plan for the circular economy must be “continued with real ambition,” demands Katharina Reuter, Managing Director of the German Sustainable Economy Association. “It is [however] questionable whether the future-oriented path of the Green Deal will be continued if Parliament slips to the right,” says Rebecca Tauer, Head of the Circular Economy Program at WWF Germany. In the current legislative period, there was already strong resistance to individual projects from the Circular Economy Action Plan, such as the Packaging Ordinance – which led to a significant weakening.
The “inertial forces of the linear economy” also stand in the way of progress, says Reuter. One problem: linear business models are often more lucrative than circular ones – because the real costs of environmental damage are generally not reflected in pricing. This means, for example, that recycled PET plastic was occasionally more expensive than that from primary production. Creating functioning markets for secondary raw materials and recyclable products is therefore “a huge challenge for the new Commission,” says Claas Oehlmann, Managing Director of the BDI Circular Economy Initiative.
Stakeholders from business and civil society consider the implementation of the Ecodesign Regulation to be particularly important in the coming legislative period. The Commission still has to define the requirements for individual product groups through delegated acts, for example, for durability and reparability. Only then will it be decided “how ambitious the rules will be,” says Tauer from WWF. For BNW Managing Director Reuter, a “game changer” is the digital product passport, for which the conditions will be created over the next few years. It is to be introduced gradually from 2027. The detailed requirements will also be defined by delegated acts.
The Federal Environment Ministry believes that the revision of the Waste Framework Directive should be completed “swiftly and ambitiously.” In March, the EU Parliament defined its position for the negotiations with the Council. According to the WWF, the proposal lacks binding collection and recycling targets for textiles. In addition, the reduction targets for food are insufficient. The BNW calls for the extended producer responsibility for textiles to have a “smart” design “so that it actually results in changes to product design” – for example, so that textiles are easier to repair.
The adoption of the Green Claims Directive is on the agenda after the European elections. Companies will no longer be allowed to make advertising claims about the sustainability of products without external verification. The directive to empowering consumers for the green transition has already been adopted, which prohibits misleading environmental claims and unfair claims on carbon offsetting and specifies the liability of companies – for example, with regard to information on premature obsolescence.
In the coming legislative period, Parliament and the Council will also deal with the Commission’s proposals for improving the circularity of the automotive industry. A new regulation will replace the directives on end-of-life vehicles and on reusability, recyclability and recoverability. The focus will be on increasing the use of recycled materials and dealing with end-of-life vehicles that have not yet been collected.
Nicolai von Ondarza – Head of Research Division EU/Europe German Institute for International and Security Affairs
The head of the EU/Europe research group at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs is perhaps the best expert on German European policy and one of the leading voices in the debate on the further development of the European Union. He analyzes with astuteness and political intuition.
Johannes Lindner – Co-Director Jacques Delors Center
The head of the Jacques Delors Centre at the Berlin Hertie School runs a very agile think tank. He conducts research into economic and financial policy issues. From his time at the European Central Bank, he provides expertise and good contacts in the EU institutions and the German government.
Thu Nguyen – Vice-Director Jacques Delors Centre
The Deputy Director of the Jacques Delors Centre is a proven expert on institutional issues and the rule of law. The German government therefore appointed the European lawyer to the Franco-German expert group that presented reform proposals for the EU in the fall of 2023. She also addresses a wider audience as host of the “EU to go” podcast.
Jana Puglierin – Senior Policy Fellow ECFR
The head of the Berlin office of the European Council on Foreign Relations is one of the leading experts on foreign and security policy. In the wake of the attack on Ukraine, she is much in demand as a mediator: abroad, she explains the German turnaround, and in Germany how important Berlin’s actions are.
Janis A. Emmanouilidis – Research Director EPC
He has been Research Director of the European Policy Centre for more than ten years and is one of the most influential experts in Brussels. With a degree in business administration, he covers a wide range of topics from economic policy to the democratization of the EU.
Guntram Wolff – Senior Fellow Bruegel
Guntram Wolff has been shaping economic policy debates in the EU for more than ten years. Between 2013 and 2022, he headed the influential Brussels think tank Bruegel, to which he returned in 2024 as a Senior Fellow after one and a half years as CEO of the German Council on Foreign Relations. The honorary professor at the University of Erfurt is currently focusing on geo-economic issues in connection with the European response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Jeromin Zettelmeyer – Director Bruegel
Jeromin Zettelmeyer came to Brussels in 2022 from the Strategy Department of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington DC to take over the management of Bruegel. In addition to leading the think tank, he is currently working on issues relating to economic security and European competitiveness.
Shahin Vallée – Head of Geoeconomics DGAP
Shahin Vallée has been following European economic policy up close for more than a decade. The current Director of the Geo-Economics Program of the German Council on Foreign Relations was economic advisor to the then President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, from 2012 to 2014. He then became economic advisor to Emmanuel Macron when he headed the French Ministry of the Economy. He is currently working intensively on French and European budget policy.
Stormy-Annika Mildner – Director Aspen Institute Germany
The internationally recognized expert on transatlantic relations and trade issues has been Director of the Aspen Institute Germany since January 2021. With her scientific and economic expertise, she is actively involved in the discussion of major political issues of the future. Her core topics are digital transformation, the future role of Germany and Europe and relations with China.
Georg Zachmann – Energy expert Bruegel
With his team of experts at Bruegel, he repeatedly manages to provide impetus for the Commission’s energy policy. His team’s data collections are very popular with other experts and journalists alike – especially since the energy crisis.
