It was clear words that the heads of government Olaf Scholz, Emmanuel Macron, Mario Draghi, and Klaus Iohannis had in their luggage on their trip to Kyiv yesterday: They will support Ukraine’s immediate candidacy status to join the EU. Among the German population, however, the picture is different, as a survey by the opinion research institute Civey shows. Till Hoppe has the details.
Russia is not only waging a war with weapons against Ukraine but also with false information and propaganda. In order to better counter fake news online, but also offline, the EU Commission has revised the “Code of Practice on Disinformation” already introduced in 2018. The Code of Practice contains significantly more obligations for signatories but still remains voluntary, writes Torsten Kleinz.
France votes on Sunday, it is the second round of parliamentary elections. Nothing is certain, not even the post of Clément Beaune, Secretary of State for European Affairs of France. His main task at the moment is to bring the French Presidency of the Council of the European Union to a successful conclusion. In her column, Claire Stam also looks at the other candidates and their chances.
Speaking of the French Council Presidency: The rotating presidency is due to take place in two weeks, and Susi Dennison takes stock of the situation. In her opinion, Emmanuel Macron has promised a lot, especially on climate protection, but has not achieved everything.
It was a message that the Ukrainian president could hardly have expected to be so clear: “The four of us support immediate candidate status,” said French President Emmanuel Macron after the talks with Volodymyr Zelenskiy, for which he had traveled to Kyiv together with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, and Romanian President Klaus Iohannis. Zelenskiy reacted accordingly pleased: The EU candidate status could be “a historic decision for Europe“.
The Ukrainian president has been urging the EU states for some time to make his country an accession candidate at the upcoming EU summit next Thursday. The fact that Macron, of all people, would support his request so clearly had not previously been apparent. The French president was considered a critic of EU enlargement and had annoyed the government in Kyiv with ideas for alternative constructions. With the announcement now made, it is “really a historic journey for Europe,” says Nicolai von Ondarza, research group leader at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP).
However, the clear vote of the four heads of state and government does not yet mean that all member states will go along. The necessary unanimity has not yet been reached; the Netherlands, Denmark and Portugal, among others, have expressed reservations. Scholz knows this and was more reserved than Macron: “Germany is in favor of a positive decision in favor of Ukraine,” he said. That also applies to the Republic of Moldova. But this would require a unanimous decision at the summit.
Macron’s statements would amount to making Ukraine an accession candidate immediately, rather than attaching conditions to this first. Kyiv would only have to fulfill these before the next step in the process, the start of formal accession negotiations. According to Macron, the details are to be regulated by a “roadmap”. Unlike Bosnia-Herzegovina, for example, Zelenskiy would not have to be content with the status of a “potential accession candidate.
Scholz also supports immediate candidate status. However, he insists on strict conditions in the further procedure. “There are clear criteria for joining the European Union that must be met by all candidates,” he said. In recent weeks, the chancellor had repeatedly stressed that there should be “no discounts.” This principle must apply from the outset, it was said yesterday in Berlin.
The German government, therefore, attaches great importance to the statements of the EU Commission, which Ursula von der Leyen will present today at noon. In its statements, the Brussels-based authority analyzes the state of democracy and the rule of law as well as economic factors in Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia. It will also make recommendations on whether and under what conditions the three countries should be given the prospect of accession. According to media reports, the Commission is likely to recommend candidate status for Ukraine and Moldova, with conditions to follow. Accordingly, Georgia would first have to fulfill the conditions before becoming a candidate.
Berlin is hoping for clear conditions, including for Ukraine. There are also still considerable reservations among the German population, as a new survey by the opinion research institute Civey commissioned by Table.Media shows. According to the survey, there is currently no majority in favor of making Ukraine and Moldova accession candidates right now. Only Green supporters are in favor of this with a large majority.
In the case of Georgia, the political reservations are even greater. Iohannis, in particular, made the case in Kyiv for the country’s membership prospects. “Guaranteeing Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia EU candidate status next week at the European Council is essential to building a strong and lasting shield around our values,” the Romanian president said.
Scholz, on the other hand, again urged the EU to keep its promises to the Western Balkan states. This concerns the pending decision on the start of accession talks with Albania and northern Macedonia, which has so far been blocked by Bulgaria. “It is a question of European credibility that we finally fulfill our promise to the Western Balkan states, which have been on this path for years, now and concretely,” the SPD politician said. Draghi also called for a change in thinking. “We all know that this is a historic development for Europe that requires profound reflection,” he said.
However, this also applies to the European Union itself. “The EU must prepare itself for this development and modernize its structures and procedures,” warned Scholz. This, too, is to be discussed at next week’s summit, and the proposals of the Future Conference offer some suggestions for this, such as the abolition of the unanimity principle in foreign policy. The European Parliament had recently spoken out in favor of convening a convention to discuss reforms and possible changes to the EU treaties.
SWP expert Ondarza believes that concerns are justified that the EU is not ready for another enlargement without far-reaching reforms. “With 30 member states or more, the Community would hardly be able to act with today’s decision-making structures,” he warns.
The fright in Europe over Donald Trump’s election victory in 2016 had led the EU Commission to introduce a “Code of Practice on Disinformation” for online platforms in 2018. In view of the information war with Russia, the Commission has relaunched the Code of Practice together with the industry – with more participants and new voluntary commitments.
“Let’s not be naive – this war of information did not start in February 2022,” said EU Commissioner Věra Jourová at the launch of the new edition. Her colleague Thierry Breton did not assign sole blame for the Brexit to Russia, but pointed out how close the referendum in the UK had been and how great the influence of propaganda media had been.
The original Code of Conduct had recently received poor marks from the EU Parliament (Europe.Table reported). In particular, the lack of data for measuring success was criticized from many sides. This created false incentives. As Jourová explained, many platforms had mainly dealt with fake news in English. However, smaller countries, which are even more susceptible to misinformation campaigns, would have received too little attention.
In the future, therefore, the companies will have to be more accountable. Instead of merely providing aggregated data, the platforms will have to explain in much greater detail how their measures are working. Researchers and independent auditors are also to be given direct access to core data. Facebook in particular had come under criticism for significantly restricting access to data via its subsidiary Crowdtangle. The analytics company had repeatedly shown how massively fake stories spread via Facebook while traditional media had comparatively low reach.
The Commission emphasizes that the new agreement has not only gained more signatories, but also includes significantly more commitments. In addition to the major online platforms and fact-checking organizations, the EU Commission has, for example, solicited cooperation from the advertising industry. Associations such as the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB Europe) and the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) are to help prevent fake news sites from refinancing themselves by selling advertising space.
However, this also shows that the Code of Practice is only preliminary work: concrete specifications for the advertising industry are missing. In practice, it is clear that it is not only the platforms Facebook and Google that have major problems effectively preventing unauthorized or unwanted advertising bookings. A recent report by ProPublica shows how advertising for weapons is traded and played out on Google advertising marketplaces despite a ban. The advertising industry has now been ordered by the Commission to come up with new measures that will work much better than before. How progress is to be documented in the deeply opaque advertising industry remains open for the time being.
The EU Commission is walking a fine line here: on the one hand, Jourová emphasized that participation in the Code of Conduct is purely voluntary and that the EU has no plans to install a “Ministry of Truth”. On the other hand, Breton emphasized that the Digital Services Act is intended to cover, so that in the event of violations, painful fines of up to 6 percent of a company’s global turnover or even the blocking of offers are up for discussion. At the same time, both emphasize that EU citizens must have transparent appeal options if their posts are moderated as a result of the measures against disinformation.
The specific requirements that have to be met therefore still have to be determined in practice. The EU Commission has therefore set up a permanent task force comprising the European Regulators Group for Audiovisual Media Services (ERGA) and the European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO). For the time being the companies have six months to implement the requirements of the new code internally and are then to report on successes and failures at least twice a year.
Since disinformation is not a purely online problem, the EU Commission is also trying to include classic media in its strategy: The Media Freedom Act is currently in the works, which is intended to ensure the independence of classic media. The enforcement of the new anti-disinformation rules will hardly be conflict-free. For example, Telegram is still missing from the list of cooperation partners. And the platforms will be in a bind if they are to combat disinformation spread by democratically elected politicians. “Once upon a time, it was disqualifying for elected politicians to spread outright lies. Maybe we should go back to that,” Jourová said.
We are in the final weeks of the French Presidency of the EU and the analytical community is turning its attention to assessing Paris’ performance on different files. When it comes to climate, it will be hard for the Elysée to avoid the dramatic images from the European Parliament fallout in the vote on the Fit for 55 package on 8 June 2022 defining its performance. And though a compromise deal, to be voted on 22 June was subsequently reached, the fact remains that divisions have been papered over rather than resolved, and consequently, climate ambition has been watered down during the last six months.
To some extent the French Presidency was handed a poisoned chalice on climate since it was charged with brokering agreement to the Fit for 55 legislative package – the tools to implement the European Green Deal (EGD).
Finding a compromise on this set of proposals between member states, which shared the costs of the EGD reasonably, between industry, households and the public purse, when member states are so divided on what the right balance is, was always going to be a Herculean task. But given the scale of the challenge, a larger, influential member state presidency had more chance of achieving it than a small one.
And France, as the home of the Paris climate accords – and with Macron’s 2022 election promises to make France a climate power, leading by example through investment in renewable technologies, focussing on energy efficiency in residential renovations and food production, and ending single-use plastics and reducing air pollution – was well fitted to take it up.
There were no tailwinds offered to Paris’ responsibility to drive forward implementation of the EGD from the broader geopolitical context either. Russia’s war in Ukraine and the reality that Europe urgently needs to diversify its energy dependencies has meant that European leaders’ first focus is on a geographical energy transition – building and deepening ties for alternative suppliers, and rapidly investing in diplomatic relationships with the new players that will be needed to secure the critical resources and tech needed for renewable sources. With soaring energy prices, industries, individual consumers and national governments are even more resistant than prior to February 24th to bearing the inevitable interim costs of decarbonizing Europe’s economies now.
Still, given efforts over the past weeks to build a consensus across party groups and national interests in the European Parliament, the explosive breakdown last week was not a good look at the end of a Presidency that had promised more than it had achieved on climate. With all sides fearful that their interests were not catered for in the hard won compromise the anger and disappointment among the EU’s political representatives and the climate community was palpable.
What could have made the difference to this picture is visionary leadership from the French presidency: building a clear narrative on the necessity of genuine energy security being rooted over the longer term in clean sources. Since the outbreak of Russia’s war, the EU’s determination on decarbonization has faltered; its political leaders have been unsure whether they can or should still try to advance both geographical and substantive energy diversification at the same time. The argument about the greater costs of climate inaction, and kneejerk investment decisions locking us into carbon-based energy for too many years to come has been absent from too many governmental interventions on the energy crisis.
A second cornerstone of EU climate leadership that has been lacking in recent months is a more explicit acknowledgement from national capitals and Brussels that in this crisis moment, as with the covid crisis two summers ago, there is a need to “do whatever it takes” including further borrowing, in order to finance the investments needed to rapidly scale up the clean energy as foreseen in the RePowerEU plan.
France has greater potential than it has shown on this leadership gap too. As a champion of European sovereignty of all types, it has a credible voice on the need to invest in the capacities necessary to build European power – including climate power. And France has often in the past played the role of a bridging power – between Germany and the frugal states on the one hand, and the EU’s southern and eastern budget beneficiary states on the other. Without the clarity of vision on either of these points, it is perhaps less surprising that the European Parliament representatives did not feel that the framework was in place for a just and ambitious energy transition to be taken forward – contributing the breakdown that we saw on 8 June.
But though the battle for a just EGD implementation in a fearsome geopolitical environment is not yet won, neither is it lost. The next decade will be critical to keep climate neutrality by 2050 in sight, and consensus within the EU will have to be re-brokered around every step in that rocky path. Unwavering leadership to keep minds focussed on the end goal will remain vital throughout the coming years. As France hands the mantle onto the Czech presidency, it should commit to partnering and supporting upcoming presidencies to drive climate action forward.
Climate energy sovereignty has become – arguably – the most pressing, but overlooked, part of the sovereignty agenda. In Macron’s second five-year term he should focus on fixing this.
Susi Dennison is the director of ECFR’s European Power Programme.
Grillade à la française: Several ministers in Emmanuel Macron’s new government find themselves on the campaign grill as voters are once again called to the polls to decide the second round of parliamentary elections in France next Sunday. Blindsided by the rise of the Nupes, these ministers risk their posts if they fail to win their deputyship. And among these shaky candidates is the French president’s Monsieur Europe, Clément Beaune.
“There is no doubt: if a minister loses, he or she must leave the government,” a connoisseur of the Paris Elysée corridors stresses to Europe Table. This is the iron law of French political life, which can be explained on the basis of political legitimacy: a minister can implement reforms, especially if they are unpopular, by invoking the political legitimacy conferred by his or her mandate as a member of the National Assembly.
In fact, the first round of the parliamentary elections on Sunday, June 12, leaves room for a close duel between the majority parties and the leftists united in the Nupes, which propagates the freedom of entrepreneurship on the one hand and “harmony with nature” on the other.
On the evening of the first round of the parliamentary elections, the Left (La France Insoumise, Europe Ecologie Les Verts and the Socialist Party), united under the Nupes banner, engaged in a neck-and-neck race with Ensemble! (LREM, Horizons, Modem), which received 25.8 percent and 25.7 percent of the vote, respectively, according to the Interior Ministry website, while abstention reached a new record of 52.48 percent (up from 51.30 percent in 2017).
In concrete terms, a defeat means that not only the ministers have to go, but also the people who were appointed to these ministries. “Everything starts again from zero,” reports our connoisseur of French political life. And in Brussels, they are watching the fate of Clément Beaune with special attention.
The Deputy Minister for Europe – his official title – came second in the 5th constituency of Paris, with 35.81 percent of the votes cast, behind the France insoumise candidate, Caroline Mecary, who received 40.43 percent of the votes cast. A brief reminder of who Clément Beaune is and why we are particularly interested in him here: The 41-year-old became Emmanuel Macron’s European and G20 advisor when he was elected president in 2017. He held this position until July 2020, when he was appointed Secretary of State for European Affairs at the Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs.
As deputy minister, his main task at present is to make a success of the French EU Council presidency, which ends at the end of June. In particular, in the area of sustainable development, agreement must be reached among the 27 member states on all the texts of the “Fit for 55” package, which aims to reduce the EU’s net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55 percent by 2030. And by advancing the dossiers of legislative proposals on sustainability reporting, imported deforestation and due diligence.
“It’s hot and it’s complicated,” we are told from Paris, while there are barely two weeks left to juggle this hot potato. It must be emphasized here that these matters are currently managed by the Ministry of Agnès Pannier-Runacher, who has been appointed Minister for the Energy Transition. The latter has taken over from Barbara Pompili ‘s diplomatic advisor, the former Minister for Ecological Change, Philippe Deprédurand. “This is a sign of continuity, he knows these dossiers too well to do without his expertise, especially as we approach the end of the French presidency,” stresses our expert, adding, “whether he will now stay for the long term is another question.”
Another minister with European links is also in the spotlight: Amélie de Montchalin, Minister for Ecological Transition and Territorial Cohesion, is running in the 6th constituency of the Essonne department, located south of Paris. She came in second (31.46 percent) behind Socialist Jérôme Guedj (38.31 percent of the vote).
“No idea who will replace her if she loses the election. It is possible that the Elysée Palace wants to keep the seat warm for Pascal Canfin,” our informant reports. Will the territorial cohesion administration be able to eclipse the spicy negotiations around the Fit-for-55 package for Pascal Canfin? It is doubtful, and that is the prevailing opinion in Brussels. So who then?” Given LREM’s poor performance, the Horizon faction led by former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe (right) and the Modem faction led by Francois Bayrou (center-right) may coordinate to have one or the other of their own nominated for the post.”
Now it is Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne who Emmanuel Macron wants to be the umbrella for all energy and climate dossiers. While her fate also depends on the voters next Sunday, her chances of being elected are high. This prompts us to shine a spotlight on Antoine Pellion, whom she has appointed Secretary-General for Ecological Planning. As head of the departments of ecology, transport, energy, housing, and agriculture, he also performs the duties of an advisor. The 38-year-old engineer is thus assured of retaining his post. An important detail for readers in Germany: according to the medium Contexte, this close confidant of Bernard Doroszczuk, the head of the Nuclear Safety Authority, clearly professes his pronuclear stance. And is charged with planning the construction of new EPRs desired by the French president.
It was clear words that the heads of government Olaf Scholz, Emmanuel Macron, Mario Draghi, and Klaus Iohannis had in their luggage on their trip to Kyiv yesterday: They will support Ukraine’s immediate candidacy status to join the EU. Among the German population, however, the picture is different, as a survey by the opinion research institute Civey shows. Till Hoppe has the details.
Russia is not only waging a war with weapons against Ukraine but also with false information and propaganda. In order to better counter fake news online, but also offline, the EU Commission has revised the “Code of Practice on Disinformation” already introduced in 2018. The Code of Practice contains significantly more obligations for signatories but still remains voluntary, writes Torsten Kleinz.
France votes on Sunday, it is the second round of parliamentary elections. Nothing is certain, not even the post of Clément Beaune, Secretary of State for European Affairs of France. His main task at the moment is to bring the French Presidency of the Council of the European Union to a successful conclusion. In her column, Claire Stam also looks at the other candidates and their chances.
Speaking of the French Council Presidency: The rotating presidency is due to take place in two weeks, and Susi Dennison takes stock of the situation. In her opinion, Emmanuel Macron has promised a lot, especially on climate protection, but has not achieved everything.
It was a message that the Ukrainian president could hardly have expected to be so clear: “The four of us support immediate candidate status,” said French President Emmanuel Macron after the talks with Volodymyr Zelenskiy, for which he had traveled to Kyiv together with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, and Romanian President Klaus Iohannis. Zelenskiy reacted accordingly pleased: The EU candidate status could be “a historic decision for Europe“.
The Ukrainian president has been urging the EU states for some time to make his country an accession candidate at the upcoming EU summit next Thursday. The fact that Macron, of all people, would support his request so clearly had not previously been apparent. The French president was considered a critic of EU enlargement and had annoyed the government in Kyiv with ideas for alternative constructions. With the announcement now made, it is “really a historic journey for Europe,” says Nicolai von Ondarza, research group leader at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP).
However, the clear vote of the four heads of state and government does not yet mean that all member states will go along. The necessary unanimity has not yet been reached; the Netherlands, Denmark and Portugal, among others, have expressed reservations. Scholz knows this and was more reserved than Macron: “Germany is in favor of a positive decision in favor of Ukraine,” he said. That also applies to the Republic of Moldova. But this would require a unanimous decision at the summit.
Macron’s statements would amount to making Ukraine an accession candidate immediately, rather than attaching conditions to this first. Kyiv would only have to fulfill these before the next step in the process, the start of formal accession negotiations. According to Macron, the details are to be regulated by a “roadmap”. Unlike Bosnia-Herzegovina, for example, Zelenskiy would not have to be content with the status of a “potential accession candidate.
Scholz also supports immediate candidate status. However, he insists on strict conditions in the further procedure. “There are clear criteria for joining the European Union that must be met by all candidates,” he said. In recent weeks, the chancellor had repeatedly stressed that there should be “no discounts.” This principle must apply from the outset, it was said yesterday in Berlin.
The German government, therefore, attaches great importance to the statements of the EU Commission, which Ursula von der Leyen will present today at noon. In its statements, the Brussels-based authority analyzes the state of democracy and the rule of law as well as economic factors in Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia. It will also make recommendations on whether and under what conditions the three countries should be given the prospect of accession. According to media reports, the Commission is likely to recommend candidate status for Ukraine and Moldova, with conditions to follow. Accordingly, Georgia would first have to fulfill the conditions before becoming a candidate.
Berlin is hoping for clear conditions, including for Ukraine. There are also still considerable reservations among the German population, as a new survey by the opinion research institute Civey commissioned by Table.Media shows. According to the survey, there is currently no majority in favor of making Ukraine and Moldova accession candidates right now. Only Green supporters are in favor of this with a large majority.
In the case of Georgia, the political reservations are even greater. Iohannis, in particular, made the case in Kyiv for the country’s membership prospects. “Guaranteeing Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia EU candidate status next week at the European Council is essential to building a strong and lasting shield around our values,” the Romanian president said.
Scholz, on the other hand, again urged the EU to keep its promises to the Western Balkan states. This concerns the pending decision on the start of accession talks with Albania and northern Macedonia, which has so far been blocked by Bulgaria. “It is a question of European credibility that we finally fulfill our promise to the Western Balkan states, which have been on this path for years, now and concretely,” the SPD politician said. Draghi also called for a change in thinking. “We all know that this is a historic development for Europe that requires profound reflection,” he said.
However, this also applies to the European Union itself. “The EU must prepare itself for this development and modernize its structures and procedures,” warned Scholz. This, too, is to be discussed at next week’s summit, and the proposals of the Future Conference offer some suggestions for this, such as the abolition of the unanimity principle in foreign policy. The European Parliament had recently spoken out in favor of convening a convention to discuss reforms and possible changes to the EU treaties.
SWP expert Ondarza believes that concerns are justified that the EU is not ready for another enlargement without far-reaching reforms. “With 30 member states or more, the Community would hardly be able to act with today’s decision-making structures,” he warns.
The fright in Europe over Donald Trump’s election victory in 2016 had led the EU Commission to introduce a “Code of Practice on Disinformation” for online platforms in 2018. In view of the information war with Russia, the Commission has relaunched the Code of Practice together with the industry – with more participants and new voluntary commitments.
“Let’s not be naive – this war of information did not start in February 2022,” said EU Commissioner Věra Jourová at the launch of the new edition. Her colleague Thierry Breton did not assign sole blame for the Brexit to Russia, but pointed out how close the referendum in the UK had been and how great the influence of propaganda media had been.
The original Code of Conduct had recently received poor marks from the EU Parliament (Europe.Table reported). In particular, the lack of data for measuring success was criticized from many sides. This created false incentives. As Jourová explained, many platforms had mainly dealt with fake news in English. However, smaller countries, which are even more susceptible to misinformation campaigns, would have received too little attention.
In the future, therefore, the companies will have to be more accountable. Instead of merely providing aggregated data, the platforms will have to explain in much greater detail how their measures are working. Researchers and independent auditors are also to be given direct access to core data. Facebook in particular had come under criticism for significantly restricting access to data via its subsidiary Crowdtangle. The analytics company had repeatedly shown how massively fake stories spread via Facebook while traditional media had comparatively low reach.
The Commission emphasizes that the new agreement has not only gained more signatories, but also includes significantly more commitments. In addition to the major online platforms and fact-checking organizations, the EU Commission has, for example, solicited cooperation from the advertising industry. Associations such as the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB Europe) and the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) are to help prevent fake news sites from refinancing themselves by selling advertising space.
However, this also shows that the Code of Practice is only preliminary work: concrete specifications for the advertising industry are missing. In practice, it is clear that it is not only the platforms Facebook and Google that have major problems effectively preventing unauthorized or unwanted advertising bookings. A recent report by ProPublica shows how advertising for weapons is traded and played out on Google advertising marketplaces despite a ban. The advertising industry has now been ordered by the Commission to come up with new measures that will work much better than before. How progress is to be documented in the deeply opaque advertising industry remains open for the time being.
The EU Commission is walking a fine line here: on the one hand, Jourová emphasized that participation in the Code of Conduct is purely voluntary and that the EU has no plans to install a “Ministry of Truth”. On the other hand, Breton emphasized that the Digital Services Act is intended to cover, so that in the event of violations, painful fines of up to 6 percent of a company’s global turnover or even the blocking of offers are up for discussion. At the same time, both emphasize that EU citizens must have transparent appeal options if their posts are moderated as a result of the measures against disinformation.
The specific requirements that have to be met therefore still have to be determined in practice. The EU Commission has therefore set up a permanent task force comprising the European Regulators Group for Audiovisual Media Services (ERGA) and the European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO). For the time being the companies have six months to implement the requirements of the new code internally and are then to report on successes and failures at least twice a year.
Since disinformation is not a purely online problem, the EU Commission is also trying to include classic media in its strategy: The Media Freedom Act is currently in the works, which is intended to ensure the independence of classic media. The enforcement of the new anti-disinformation rules will hardly be conflict-free. For example, Telegram is still missing from the list of cooperation partners. And the platforms will be in a bind if they are to combat disinformation spread by democratically elected politicians. “Once upon a time, it was disqualifying for elected politicians to spread outright lies. Maybe we should go back to that,” Jourová said.
We are in the final weeks of the French Presidency of the EU and the analytical community is turning its attention to assessing Paris’ performance on different files. When it comes to climate, it will be hard for the Elysée to avoid the dramatic images from the European Parliament fallout in the vote on the Fit for 55 package on 8 June 2022 defining its performance. And though a compromise deal, to be voted on 22 June was subsequently reached, the fact remains that divisions have been papered over rather than resolved, and consequently, climate ambition has been watered down during the last six months.
To some extent the French Presidency was handed a poisoned chalice on climate since it was charged with brokering agreement to the Fit for 55 legislative package – the tools to implement the European Green Deal (EGD).
Finding a compromise on this set of proposals between member states, which shared the costs of the EGD reasonably, between industry, households and the public purse, when member states are so divided on what the right balance is, was always going to be a Herculean task. But given the scale of the challenge, a larger, influential member state presidency had more chance of achieving it than a small one.
And France, as the home of the Paris climate accords – and with Macron’s 2022 election promises to make France a climate power, leading by example through investment in renewable technologies, focussing on energy efficiency in residential renovations and food production, and ending single-use plastics and reducing air pollution – was well fitted to take it up.
There were no tailwinds offered to Paris’ responsibility to drive forward implementation of the EGD from the broader geopolitical context either. Russia’s war in Ukraine and the reality that Europe urgently needs to diversify its energy dependencies has meant that European leaders’ first focus is on a geographical energy transition – building and deepening ties for alternative suppliers, and rapidly investing in diplomatic relationships with the new players that will be needed to secure the critical resources and tech needed for renewable sources. With soaring energy prices, industries, individual consumers and national governments are even more resistant than prior to February 24th to bearing the inevitable interim costs of decarbonizing Europe’s economies now.
Still, given efforts over the past weeks to build a consensus across party groups and national interests in the European Parliament, the explosive breakdown last week was not a good look at the end of a Presidency that had promised more than it had achieved on climate. With all sides fearful that their interests were not catered for in the hard won compromise the anger and disappointment among the EU’s political representatives and the climate community was palpable.
What could have made the difference to this picture is visionary leadership from the French presidency: building a clear narrative on the necessity of genuine energy security being rooted over the longer term in clean sources. Since the outbreak of Russia’s war, the EU’s determination on decarbonization has faltered; its political leaders have been unsure whether they can or should still try to advance both geographical and substantive energy diversification at the same time. The argument about the greater costs of climate inaction, and kneejerk investment decisions locking us into carbon-based energy for too many years to come has been absent from too many governmental interventions on the energy crisis.
A second cornerstone of EU climate leadership that has been lacking in recent months is a more explicit acknowledgement from national capitals and Brussels that in this crisis moment, as with the covid crisis two summers ago, there is a need to “do whatever it takes” including further borrowing, in order to finance the investments needed to rapidly scale up the clean energy as foreseen in the RePowerEU plan.
France has greater potential than it has shown on this leadership gap too. As a champion of European sovereignty of all types, it has a credible voice on the need to invest in the capacities necessary to build European power – including climate power. And France has often in the past played the role of a bridging power – between Germany and the frugal states on the one hand, and the EU’s southern and eastern budget beneficiary states on the other. Without the clarity of vision on either of these points, it is perhaps less surprising that the European Parliament representatives did not feel that the framework was in place for a just and ambitious energy transition to be taken forward – contributing the breakdown that we saw on 8 June.
But though the battle for a just EGD implementation in a fearsome geopolitical environment is not yet won, neither is it lost. The next decade will be critical to keep climate neutrality by 2050 in sight, and consensus within the EU will have to be re-brokered around every step in that rocky path. Unwavering leadership to keep minds focussed on the end goal will remain vital throughout the coming years. As France hands the mantle onto the Czech presidency, it should commit to partnering and supporting upcoming presidencies to drive climate action forward.
Climate energy sovereignty has become – arguably – the most pressing, but overlooked, part of the sovereignty agenda. In Macron’s second five-year term he should focus on fixing this.
Susi Dennison is the director of ECFR’s European Power Programme.
Grillade à la française: Several ministers in Emmanuel Macron’s new government find themselves on the campaign grill as voters are once again called to the polls to decide the second round of parliamentary elections in France next Sunday. Blindsided by the rise of the Nupes, these ministers risk their posts if they fail to win their deputyship. And among these shaky candidates is the French president’s Monsieur Europe, Clément Beaune.
“There is no doubt: if a minister loses, he or she must leave the government,” a connoisseur of the Paris Elysée corridors stresses to Europe Table. This is the iron law of French political life, which can be explained on the basis of political legitimacy: a minister can implement reforms, especially if they are unpopular, by invoking the political legitimacy conferred by his or her mandate as a member of the National Assembly.
In fact, the first round of the parliamentary elections on Sunday, June 12, leaves room for a close duel between the majority parties and the leftists united in the Nupes, which propagates the freedom of entrepreneurship on the one hand and “harmony with nature” on the other.
On the evening of the first round of the parliamentary elections, the Left (La France Insoumise, Europe Ecologie Les Verts and the Socialist Party), united under the Nupes banner, engaged in a neck-and-neck race with Ensemble! (LREM, Horizons, Modem), which received 25.8 percent and 25.7 percent of the vote, respectively, according to the Interior Ministry website, while abstention reached a new record of 52.48 percent (up from 51.30 percent in 2017).
In concrete terms, a defeat means that not only the ministers have to go, but also the people who were appointed to these ministries. “Everything starts again from zero,” reports our connoisseur of French political life. And in Brussels, they are watching the fate of Clément Beaune with special attention.
The Deputy Minister for Europe – his official title – came second in the 5th constituency of Paris, with 35.81 percent of the votes cast, behind the France insoumise candidate, Caroline Mecary, who received 40.43 percent of the votes cast. A brief reminder of who Clément Beaune is and why we are particularly interested in him here: The 41-year-old became Emmanuel Macron’s European and G20 advisor when he was elected president in 2017. He held this position until July 2020, when he was appointed Secretary of State for European Affairs at the Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs.
As deputy minister, his main task at present is to make a success of the French EU Council presidency, which ends at the end of June. In particular, in the area of sustainable development, agreement must be reached among the 27 member states on all the texts of the “Fit for 55” package, which aims to reduce the EU’s net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55 percent by 2030. And by advancing the dossiers of legislative proposals on sustainability reporting, imported deforestation and due diligence.
“It’s hot and it’s complicated,” we are told from Paris, while there are barely two weeks left to juggle this hot potato. It must be emphasized here that these matters are currently managed by the Ministry of Agnès Pannier-Runacher, who has been appointed Minister for the Energy Transition. The latter has taken over from Barbara Pompili ‘s diplomatic advisor, the former Minister for Ecological Change, Philippe Deprédurand. “This is a sign of continuity, he knows these dossiers too well to do without his expertise, especially as we approach the end of the French presidency,” stresses our expert, adding, “whether he will now stay for the long term is another question.”
Another minister with European links is also in the spotlight: Amélie de Montchalin, Minister for Ecological Transition and Territorial Cohesion, is running in the 6th constituency of the Essonne department, located south of Paris. She came in second (31.46 percent) behind Socialist Jérôme Guedj (38.31 percent of the vote).
“No idea who will replace her if she loses the election. It is possible that the Elysée Palace wants to keep the seat warm for Pascal Canfin,” our informant reports. Will the territorial cohesion administration be able to eclipse the spicy negotiations around the Fit-for-55 package for Pascal Canfin? It is doubtful, and that is the prevailing opinion in Brussels. So who then?” Given LREM’s poor performance, the Horizon faction led by former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe (right) and the Modem faction led by Francois Bayrou (center-right) may coordinate to have one or the other of their own nominated for the post.”
Now it is Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne who Emmanuel Macron wants to be the umbrella for all energy and climate dossiers. While her fate also depends on the voters next Sunday, her chances of being elected are high. This prompts us to shine a spotlight on Antoine Pellion, whom she has appointed Secretary-General for Ecological Planning. As head of the departments of ecology, transport, energy, housing, and agriculture, he also performs the duties of an advisor. The 38-year-old engineer is thus assured of retaining his post. An important detail for readers in Germany: according to the medium Contexte, this close confidant of Bernard Doroszczuk, the head of the Nuclear Safety Authority, clearly professes his pronuclear stance. And is charged with planning the construction of new EPRs desired by the French president.
