How much longer do the European partners have to let Hungary show them up? The EU’s foreign and defense ministers are meeting in Brussels today or tomorrow, where, in addition to the situation in the Middle East, the focus is once again likely to be on Hungary’s blockade of support for Ukraine.
With the so-called windfall profits on the frozen Russian central bank funds, an elegant way had finally been found, so it was thought: €2.7 billion in fresh money would be available this year alone to purchase ammunition and armaments for Ukraine for the first time without detours. However, following the political agreement, Budapest is now blocking the legal implementation – the prerequisite for the first purchases at the beginning of July.
When it comes to Hungary, he now has to resort to tranquilizers in order not to lose his nerve, one EU diplomat said sarcastically. Budapest was using every opportunity to weaken Ukraine’s ability to defend itself against an aggressor. Hungary’s behavior is “hair-raising.”
The list of blockades is getting longer and longer. Hungary has been preventing the release of an eighth tranche from the joint pot for almost a year. The European partners have also rejoiced too soon over the agreement to increase the peace facility by €5 billion. The money is stuck. In the meantime, the ninth and tenth tranches have also been blocked. Poland is said to be very annoyed because the country is now waiting for reimbursements of €400 million from the pot.
Hungary’s foreign and defense ministers must therefore be prepared for plain words at the meeting in Brussels. However, it is questionable whether this will make an impression in Budapest.
Mr Schmit, how difficult is it to campaign against your boss?
Ursula von der Leyen is not my boss in the election campaign, she is simply a different candidate. And we stand for different political directions. Otherwise, she and I have a very correct personal relationship and have known each other for a long time, when I was Minister of Labor in Luxembourg and she was Minister of Labor in Germany.
The European election campaign has been barely noticeable so far, at least in Germany. During the TV debate on Thursday, you only attacked Mrs von der Leyen for not distinguishing herself sharply enough from the far right.
Definitively, but not only for that: I have also criticized her, for example, for the migration agreement with Tunisia, which I consider to be incompatible with European values.
Where do you draw the red line for the Social Democrats when it comes to continuing cooperation with the EPP after the election? When Mrs von der Leyen speaks openly with Giorgia Meloni about working together?
If there is an agreement between the two, with Meloni’s conditions, then that will be a problem for us Social Democrats. Von der Leyen wants us to believe in good right-wing extremists and bad ones.
Meloni is a right-wing extremist for you?
She is politically extreme right-wing. But for Mrs von der Leyen, she is probably a conservative. I feel that she is looking to get close to Mrs Meloni, but is not actually listening to her.
In your opinion, is Meloni not as “clearly pro-European” as von der Leyen thinks?
That almost makes me laugh, bitterly. Meloni is clever, of course, she doesn’t bang her fist on the table in the European Council – although she announced this before her election. But her vision is certainly not a strong, integrated Europe. She wants to strengthen the nation. She is a nationalist. In any case, German Christian Democrats like Helmut Kohl used to represent completely different ideas.
Has Meloni perhaps learned a lesson from the experiences of Viktor Orbán or the Polish PiS government not to openly confront Brussels?
She knows that she cannot take a crowbar to the issue. But you only have to listen to her, for example at the recent meeting of far-right parties in Madrid with people like Orbán, Le Pen and Abascal. And she is now proceeding slowly but surely in Italy. Take the media: the Berlusconi broadcasters are already in line with the government, now, she wants to bring state television under control too. This line is not so different from Orbán’s or the PiS. But Europe is a community of values. And European democracy needs to be resilient.
According to current forecasts, there will no longer be a majority to the left of the EPP in the new European Parliament. Without the Christian Democrats, nothing would work. Is that what really bothers you?
There is also unlikely to be a majority without the Social Democrats. And according to the polls so far, it is hardly conceivable that there will be a stable right-wing majority of the EPP, ECR and ID. Marine Le Pen has also said that she will definitely not vote for von der Leyen. Of course, all of this presupposes that citizens will actually go to the polls and vote against a shift to the right in Europe.
What do the Social Democrats want in return for voting Mrs von der Leyen?
First of all, the EPP must become the strongest party, that is not yet a foregone conclusion.
Very well.
Regardless of our position in the talks, we are calling for social rights to be strengthened. For example, we need better public services, such as healthcare and social housing. Our second condition is to continue the Green Deal, combined with a stronger social balance. If we want to achieve the climate targets, we cannot take a break now. And thirdly, we need a more European-coordinated and financed industrial policy.
And you want to put this in writing in a kind of coalition agreement?
We need a solid agreement. There was already a certain coalition agreement in this legislature. Mrs von der Leyen has also stuck to it. The European minimum wage, for example, was not a good thing for everyone in the CDU.
And how will that work? The day after the election, you sit down and start the talks?
I assume there will be talks at various levels, with the Liberals and the EPP. Then the question arises: what about the Greens? The EPP doesn’t seem particularly enthusiastic, even though the CDU is governing with the Greens in some federal states. Then we talk about the big issues that the Commission will have to deal with in the next legislature.
But first, you negotiate the distribution of the top posts, right?
We have to see what the heads of state and government do at their meeting on June 17. Last time, they did not adhere to the top candidate principle. I expect things to be different this time.
How do you read these rumors that Emmanuel Macron and Giorgia Meloni could bring in former ECB head Mario Draghi? Are they trying to extract concessions from von der Leyen?
For some people, Mario Draghi seems to be good for all sorts of things…
António Costa from Portugal is being touted as the future President of the Council from your party family. Do you still hope that he will be able to get rid of the judicial investigations against him in time?
The procedure seems to have come to nothing. Nothing has happened for many months. I don’t see António Costa as incriminated.
Manfred Weber claims to still put up the President of the European Parliament with Roberta Metsola. Do you grant him that?
It’s not my job to distribute the posts now. We will need to clarify this after the elections and it depends on many factors. It also depends on the EPP’s position on the right.
And you? As a trained diplomat, would you be interested in the post of foreign minister?
I don’t want to speculate on that.
You touched on some of the substantive issues for the next legislature earlier, but I would like to go into more depth. The issue of affordable housing has so far been a matter for the Member States and local authorities. What can and should the EU do here?
You are right, this is essentially a matter for nation-states. I do not claim any extended competence in this area. But the problems of housing policy go much deeper: when people well into the middle class spend 30 to 40 percent of their income on rent, this raises socio-political questions. Wherever I go in Europe, the issue of affordable housing is pressing.
What do you want to do specifically?
Firstly, we could provide more financial resources at the EU level, from the Cohesion Fund and via the European Investment Bank, to invest in housing. Secondly, we need to return to the fact that housing cannot be left to market forces alone and cannot be used for speculation. The states need more leverage here to create affordable and social housing. To this end, we also need to discuss relaxing the rules on state aid, for example.
Do you want to set the member states binding targets for social housing?
I’m rather skeptical about that. Another starting point is short-term rentals. I have nothing against Airbnb, but in attractive cities like Barcelona, the high number of apartments rented out to tourists has disastrous consequences for the housing market. That’s why we need rules to restrict this to a certain extent.
What do you think of a Europe-wide framework for rent caps, as called for by the Left’s leading candidate Walter Baier?
It sounds nice, but I think it’s primarily up to national governments to ensure that rents don’t go through the roof. However, Europe must set the right framework conditions for this.
Another demand from your party family is to regulate minimum incomes more strongly, i.e. beyond the Commission’s recommendations. What exactly do you have in mind?
We discussed this in the Commission last year and I then decided on a recommendation. There are now calls for what is in the recommendation to be cast in a directive. I am in favor of this.
You said that the Green Deal needs to be more socially cushioned. Is the agreed social climate fund with its €65 billion too small?
Yes, that is not enough. Europe can do more here. But it is also a national task to return money to the people, for example, by making them pay more as part of emissions trading. Climate protection yes, but with strong social cushioning and fair opportunities for all – that’s what it has to be about.
With the Green Deal, the European Union has set itself ambitious climate targets to become climate-neutral by 2050. The Net-Zero Industry Act (NZIA), which aims to promote new technologies and their application in industry in order to prevent, reduce or store CO2 emissions, is intended to be a key component in achieving these goals. In this way, the potential of the internal market can be used to strengthen Europe’s leading role in the field of green industrial technologies.
However, we must not yet celebrate the NZIA as a success, because the devil is in the detail or rather the implementation. We must also not forget that the NZIA is only part of the solution and that we need further social and regulatory approaches to tackle the climate crisis.
The member states will be responsible for an instrument, that is used to enable exceptions to regulation in the interest of the cause: “regulatory sandboxes.” These test environments are intended to enable companies to develop and test new technologies and business models under simplified conditions – explicitly including start-ups.
The Regulatory Sandboxes offer ClimateTech start-ups the opportunity to develop their innovative solutions in line with the NZIA. The sandboxes make it possible to test in a controlled environment how new technologies work in practice and what adaptations are necessary to use them on a broad scale. This reduces the risk for investors and companies and simultaneously promotes the development of pioneering technologies. In other words, start-ups can bring their technologies to market faster.
At least in theory. Due to the urgency of deploying climate-friendly technologies, the funding apparatus launched with the NZIA seems rather sluggish. It will probably be another one to two years before the member states have developed the necessary structures for implementation. This is because the EU countries are supposed to provide administrative, communicative and financial support for the use of sandboxes by SMEs and start-ups. That takes time.
At the same time, there is the challenge of finding a balance between innovation and regulation. The test environments must be designed in such a way that they offer enough freedom for experiments while ensuring that there are no negative effects on the environment or society. Especially as nuclear technologies are also among those being promoted.
The EU and the member states should thus ensure that sufficient funds are made available to support projects within the sandboxes. This could be achieved through special funding programs, tax breaks or public-private partnerships. In any case, the NZIA provides room for maneuver.
One of the crucial points of the sandboxes will be to shape the collaboration between start-ups and established companies (and state institutions) in such a way that synergies can be exploited and new solutions can be implemented quickly. This moment, where the real magic happens, is difficult to create.
My idea: Regulatory sandboxes should be seen as an opportunity for corporate venturing and specifically promoted. Start-ups would then emerge directly in the sphere of influence of the companies addressed by the NZIA. A direct link between the old and new economy would pay off twice for established companies: Thanks to new methods and technologies, they can achieve climate targets in their core business more quickly and add lucrative business models to their portfolio. For start-ups, the proximity to corporate know-how and support offers an advantage over independently developing new solutions.
ClimateTech start-ups play a central role in the success of the Net-Zero Industry Act and therefore also the Green Deal. Their innovative strength and agility are crucial to achieving the technological breakthroughs needed to meet the ambitious climate targets. By supporting and promoting these (corporate) start-ups, the EU Member States can not only achieve their climate targets but also strengthen their position as global innovation leaders in the field of green technologies.
Simon Bail is the founder and Managing Director of the climate action start-up “OneClimate.”
As is well known, the European People’s Party has chosen Ursula von der Leyen as its lead candidate for the European elections, but so far little has been seen of her in her native Germany. At least, the Commission President has not been depicted on the CDU and CSU election posters. Some might have thought that the CDU/CSU preferred to hide their candidate from the voters.
But such malicious rumors are now being dispelled: at the weekend, CDU campaign workers put up new posters showing von der Leyen and Friedrich Merz side by side. The party leader and candidate are therefore contesting the final spurt hand in hand, at least on the roadsides. This Monday, von der Leyen will also be making appearances in Potsdam and Berlin.
Otherwise, the CDU campaign did not go so smoothly at the weekend. First, the Christian Democrats discovered that their online survey on the end of the combustion engine had been hijacked. The result: a large majority rejected the end of the combustion engine ban, the party had to stop the survey and spoke of “massive manipulation.” Then, fake election posters appeared in Saxony on which the party was allegedly campaigning for a caliphate, in both German and Arabic. The CDU immediately filed criminal charges. But, as we all know, the laugh is always on the looser. Till Hoppe
How much longer do the European partners have to let Hungary show them up? The EU’s foreign and defense ministers are meeting in Brussels today or tomorrow, where, in addition to the situation in the Middle East, the focus is once again likely to be on Hungary’s blockade of support for Ukraine.
With the so-called windfall profits on the frozen Russian central bank funds, an elegant way had finally been found, so it was thought: €2.7 billion in fresh money would be available this year alone to purchase ammunition and armaments for Ukraine for the first time without detours. However, following the political agreement, Budapest is now blocking the legal implementation – the prerequisite for the first purchases at the beginning of July.
When it comes to Hungary, he now has to resort to tranquilizers in order not to lose his nerve, one EU diplomat said sarcastically. Budapest was using every opportunity to weaken Ukraine’s ability to defend itself against an aggressor. Hungary’s behavior is “hair-raising.”
The list of blockades is getting longer and longer. Hungary has been preventing the release of an eighth tranche from the joint pot for almost a year. The European partners have also rejoiced too soon over the agreement to increase the peace facility by €5 billion. The money is stuck. In the meantime, the ninth and tenth tranches have also been blocked. Poland is said to be very annoyed because the country is now waiting for reimbursements of €400 million from the pot.
Hungary’s foreign and defense ministers must therefore be prepared for plain words at the meeting in Brussels. However, it is questionable whether this will make an impression in Budapest.
Mr Schmit, how difficult is it to campaign against your boss?
Ursula von der Leyen is not my boss in the election campaign, she is simply a different candidate. And we stand for different political directions. Otherwise, she and I have a very correct personal relationship and have known each other for a long time, when I was Minister of Labor in Luxembourg and she was Minister of Labor in Germany.
The European election campaign has been barely noticeable so far, at least in Germany. During the TV debate on Thursday, you only attacked Mrs von der Leyen for not distinguishing herself sharply enough from the far right.
Definitively, but not only for that: I have also criticized her, for example, for the migration agreement with Tunisia, which I consider to be incompatible with European values.
Where do you draw the red line for the Social Democrats when it comes to continuing cooperation with the EPP after the election? When Mrs von der Leyen speaks openly with Giorgia Meloni about working together?
If there is an agreement between the two, with Meloni’s conditions, then that will be a problem for us Social Democrats. Von der Leyen wants us to believe in good right-wing extremists and bad ones.
Meloni is a right-wing extremist for you?
She is politically extreme right-wing. But for Mrs von der Leyen, she is probably a conservative. I feel that she is looking to get close to Mrs Meloni, but is not actually listening to her.
In your opinion, is Meloni not as “clearly pro-European” as von der Leyen thinks?
That almost makes me laugh, bitterly. Meloni is clever, of course, she doesn’t bang her fist on the table in the European Council – although she announced this before her election. But her vision is certainly not a strong, integrated Europe. She wants to strengthen the nation. She is a nationalist. In any case, German Christian Democrats like Helmut Kohl used to represent completely different ideas.
Has Meloni perhaps learned a lesson from the experiences of Viktor Orbán or the Polish PiS government not to openly confront Brussels?
She knows that she cannot take a crowbar to the issue. But you only have to listen to her, for example at the recent meeting of far-right parties in Madrid with people like Orbán, Le Pen and Abascal. And she is now proceeding slowly but surely in Italy. Take the media: the Berlusconi broadcasters are already in line with the government, now, she wants to bring state television under control too. This line is not so different from Orbán’s or the PiS. But Europe is a community of values. And European democracy needs to be resilient.
According to current forecasts, there will no longer be a majority to the left of the EPP in the new European Parliament. Without the Christian Democrats, nothing would work. Is that what really bothers you?
There is also unlikely to be a majority without the Social Democrats. And according to the polls so far, it is hardly conceivable that there will be a stable right-wing majority of the EPP, ECR and ID. Marine Le Pen has also said that she will definitely not vote for von der Leyen. Of course, all of this presupposes that citizens will actually go to the polls and vote against a shift to the right in Europe.
What do the Social Democrats want in return for voting Mrs von der Leyen?
First of all, the EPP must become the strongest party, that is not yet a foregone conclusion.
Very well.
Regardless of our position in the talks, we are calling for social rights to be strengthened. For example, we need better public services, such as healthcare and social housing. Our second condition is to continue the Green Deal, combined with a stronger social balance. If we want to achieve the climate targets, we cannot take a break now. And thirdly, we need a more European-coordinated and financed industrial policy.
And you want to put this in writing in a kind of coalition agreement?
We need a solid agreement. There was already a certain coalition agreement in this legislature. Mrs von der Leyen has also stuck to it. The European minimum wage, for example, was not a good thing for everyone in the CDU.
And how will that work? The day after the election, you sit down and start the talks?
I assume there will be talks at various levels, with the Liberals and the EPP. Then the question arises: what about the Greens? The EPP doesn’t seem particularly enthusiastic, even though the CDU is governing with the Greens in some federal states. Then we talk about the big issues that the Commission will have to deal with in the next legislature.
But first, you negotiate the distribution of the top posts, right?
We have to see what the heads of state and government do at their meeting on June 17. Last time, they did not adhere to the top candidate principle. I expect things to be different this time.
How do you read these rumors that Emmanuel Macron and Giorgia Meloni could bring in former ECB head Mario Draghi? Are they trying to extract concessions from von der Leyen?
For some people, Mario Draghi seems to be good for all sorts of things…
António Costa from Portugal is being touted as the future President of the Council from your party family. Do you still hope that he will be able to get rid of the judicial investigations against him in time?
The procedure seems to have come to nothing. Nothing has happened for many months. I don’t see António Costa as incriminated.
Manfred Weber claims to still put up the President of the European Parliament with Roberta Metsola. Do you grant him that?
It’s not my job to distribute the posts now. We will need to clarify this after the elections and it depends on many factors. It also depends on the EPP’s position on the right.
And you? As a trained diplomat, would you be interested in the post of foreign minister?
I don’t want to speculate on that.
You touched on some of the substantive issues for the next legislature earlier, but I would like to go into more depth. The issue of affordable housing has so far been a matter for the Member States and local authorities. What can and should the EU do here?
You are right, this is essentially a matter for nation-states. I do not claim any extended competence in this area. But the problems of housing policy go much deeper: when people well into the middle class spend 30 to 40 percent of their income on rent, this raises socio-political questions. Wherever I go in Europe, the issue of affordable housing is pressing.
What do you want to do specifically?
Firstly, we could provide more financial resources at the EU level, from the Cohesion Fund and via the European Investment Bank, to invest in housing. Secondly, we need to return to the fact that housing cannot be left to market forces alone and cannot be used for speculation. The states need more leverage here to create affordable and social housing. To this end, we also need to discuss relaxing the rules on state aid, for example.
Do you want to set the member states binding targets for social housing?
I’m rather skeptical about that. Another starting point is short-term rentals. I have nothing against Airbnb, but in attractive cities like Barcelona, the high number of apartments rented out to tourists has disastrous consequences for the housing market. That’s why we need rules to restrict this to a certain extent.
What do you think of a Europe-wide framework for rent caps, as called for by the Left’s leading candidate Walter Baier?
It sounds nice, but I think it’s primarily up to national governments to ensure that rents don’t go through the roof. However, Europe must set the right framework conditions for this.
Another demand from your party family is to regulate minimum incomes more strongly, i.e. beyond the Commission’s recommendations. What exactly do you have in mind?
We discussed this in the Commission last year and I then decided on a recommendation. There are now calls for what is in the recommendation to be cast in a directive. I am in favor of this.
You said that the Green Deal needs to be more socially cushioned. Is the agreed social climate fund with its €65 billion too small?
Yes, that is not enough. Europe can do more here. But it is also a national task to return money to the people, for example, by making them pay more as part of emissions trading. Climate protection yes, but with strong social cushioning and fair opportunities for all – that’s what it has to be about.
With the Green Deal, the European Union has set itself ambitious climate targets to become climate-neutral by 2050. The Net-Zero Industry Act (NZIA), which aims to promote new technologies and their application in industry in order to prevent, reduce or store CO2 emissions, is intended to be a key component in achieving these goals. In this way, the potential of the internal market can be used to strengthen Europe’s leading role in the field of green industrial technologies.
However, we must not yet celebrate the NZIA as a success, because the devil is in the detail or rather the implementation. We must also not forget that the NZIA is only part of the solution and that we need further social and regulatory approaches to tackle the climate crisis.
The member states will be responsible for an instrument, that is used to enable exceptions to regulation in the interest of the cause: “regulatory sandboxes.” These test environments are intended to enable companies to develop and test new technologies and business models under simplified conditions – explicitly including start-ups.
The Regulatory Sandboxes offer ClimateTech start-ups the opportunity to develop their innovative solutions in line with the NZIA. The sandboxes make it possible to test in a controlled environment how new technologies work in practice and what adaptations are necessary to use them on a broad scale. This reduces the risk for investors and companies and simultaneously promotes the development of pioneering technologies. In other words, start-ups can bring their technologies to market faster.
At least in theory. Due to the urgency of deploying climate-friendly technologies, the funding apparatus launched with the NZIA seems rather sluggish. It will probably be another one to two years before the member states have developed the necessary structures for implementation. This is because the EU countries are supposed to provide administrative, communicative and financial support for the use of sandboxes by SMEs and start-ups. That takes time.
At the same time, there is the challenge of finding a balance between innovation and regulation. The test environments must be designed in such a way that they offer enough freedom for experiments while ensuring that there are no negative effects on the environment or society. Especially as nuclear technologies are also among those being promoted.
The EU and the member states should thus ensure that sufficient funds are made available to support projects within the sandboxes. This could be achieved through special funding programs, tax breaks or public-private partnerships. In any case, the NZIA provides room for maneuver.
One of the crucial points of the sandboxes will be to shape the collaboration between start-ups and established companies (and state institutions) in such a way that synergies can be exploited and new solutions can be implemented quickly. This moment, where the real magic happens, is difficult to create.
My idea: Regulatory sandboxes should be seen as an opportunity for corporate venturing and specifically promoted. Start-ups would then emerge directly in the sphere of influence of the companies addressed by the NZIA. A direct link between the old and new economy would pay off twice for established companies: Thanks to new methods and technologies, they can achieve climate targets in their core business more quickly and add lucrative business models to their portfolio. For start-ups, the proximity to corporate know-how and support offers an advantage over independently developing new solutions.
ClimateTech start-ups play a central role in the success of the Net-Zero Industry Act and therefore also the Green Deal. Their innovative strength and agility are crucial to achieving the technological breakthroughs needed to meet the ambitious climate targets. By supporting and promoting these (corporate) start-ups, the EU Member States can not only achieve their climate targets but also strengthen their position as global innovation leaders in the field of green technologies.
Simon Bail is the founder and Managing Director of the climate action start-up “OneClimate.”
As is well known, the European People’s Party has chosen Ursula von der Leyen as its lead candidate for the European elections, but so far little has been seen of her in her native Germany. At least, the Commission President has not been depicted on the CDU and CSU election posters. Some might have thought that the CDU/CSU preferred to hide their candidate from the voters.
But such malicious rumors are now being dispelled: at the weekend, CDU campaign workers put up new posters showing von der Leyen and Friedrich Merz side by side. The party leader and candidate are therefore contesting the final spurt hand in hand, at least on the roadsides. This Monday, von der Leyen will also be making appearances in Potsdam and Berlin.
Otherwise, the CDU campaign did not go so smoothly at the weekend. First, the Christian Democrats discovered that their online survey on the end of the combustion engine had been hijacked. The result: a large majority rejected the end of the combustion engine ban, the party had to stop the survey and spoke of “massive manipulation.” Then, fake election posters appeared in Saxony on which the party was allegedly campaigning for a caliphate, in both German and Arabic. The CDU immediately filed criminal charges. But, as we all know, the laugh is always on the looser. Till Hoppe
