How can peace be achieved? The EU foreign and defense ministers met yesterday in Brussels for the “Jumbo Council” to answer this question, among others. The result is a new security policy strategy. This strategy was not explicitly drawn up for the war in Ukraine, but it should be part of the response, according to EU Foreign Affairs Commissioner Josep Borrell.
A 5,000 soldiers strong military intervention force, which will not be ready for deployment until 2025, is not part of the answer, but it is probably the most concrete achievement of the new strategy, as Eric Bonse analyzes. As for ways to peace, both the ministers and their new strategy have little to show for themselves.
To be less vulnerable to the enormous gas price fluctuations in the future, the EU plans to impose minimum gas storage volumes thresholds on member states. A leaked draft of the new gas storage regulation shows that Germany’s planned minimum levels are insufficient to meet the EU’s expectations. German storage facilities are supposed to be 90 percent full before winter. The government factions in the Bundestag are only planning for 80 percent, as Manuel Berkel points out.
The prevalence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria has been on the rise for years and naturally does not care about national borders. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) recommendation on which antibiotics should be used exclusively in human medicine in the future is currently causing outrage. One of the criticisms is that it does nothing to prevent the emergence and spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in animal husbandry. Eugenie Ankowitsch puts the EMA’s recommendations and criticism in context and clarifies how important European action is now.
The EU has completed its new security policy strategy. After two years of work, the so-called “Strategic Compass” was adopted by the 27 EU foreign ministers in Brussels on Monday. The strategy will strengthen the EU as a “security provider”, said High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell.
The 47-page text, which was published on the Council’s website after a long period of secrecy, contains, among other things, the mandate to establish a new military rapid deployment force. The “EU Rapid Deployment Capacity” is to comprise up to 5,000 soldiers and replace the previous “Battle Groups”, which were never used.
Germany could provide the first contingent, said Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht at the “Jumbo Council” – the joint meeting with foreign ministers – in Brussels. Given the war in Ukraine, the SPD politician said that the German government was sending a “clear signal”: “We stand up for each other.”
However, the new force, which was conceived against the backdrop of the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, will probably not be launched until 2025 – too late for the war in Ukraine. The new strategy also looks outdated in some other respects: When the consultations began in the fall of 2020 under the German presidency, Turkey, in particular, was considered a troublemaker – it threatened EU members Greece and Cyprus with military action because of oil and gas drilling in the Mediterranean. After that, Afghanistan and China were added as new problem cases.
Russia had been on the EU diplomats’ radar for some time. “Europe is in danger,” they said in earlier drafts of the new strategy. However, what was meant were “hybrid tactics, cyberattacks and disinformation” from Moscow (Europe-Table reported). However, there was no mention of war.
This is now completely different. “The return of war in Europe, with unjustified and unprovoked Russian aggression against Ukraine […] are challenging our ability to promote our vision and defend our interests,” the new strategy says at the very beginning.
What is also new is that the EU invokes its unity (“we are more united than ever”) and emphasizes its “unprecedented determination” to restore peace in Europe. A stronger Union, equipped with new capabilities, will contribute to security and work complementarily to NATO, the introduction says.
But even the commitment to a rules-based order, “with the United Nations at its core”, seems antiquated given Russia’s deliberate violation of the rules. The strategy has been overtaken by reality and hardly seems suited to provide guidance for the next decade, as was originally planned. “It’s not the answer to the Ukraine war, but it’s part of the answer,” Borrell acknowledged. Just in time, the strategy defines the concepts and capabilities needed to put Russia in its place and restore peace in Europe.
But already on the question of how such peace can be achieved, the “Compass” does not provide an answer. So far, the EU is not even involved in the ongoing negotiations on a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine. Council President Charles Michel and Commission President Ursula von der Leyen are holding back – at the risk that in the end, Israel, Turkey, or even China will bring peace, not the EU. It is not the Commission’s job to get involved in peace negotiations, according to the Brussels authority.
The foreign ministers also do not feel responsible. They discussed new sanctions against Russia and additional arms deliveries to Ukraine on Monday – but not a peace plan or diplomatic initiative. Lithuania’s Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis called for talking about Russia’s energy sector and imposing an oil embargo. Oil is Russia’s most important source of income and should not be exempt from sanctions. Poland had previously expressed similar views. Ukraine also calls for an energy embargo.
This increases the pressure on Germany, which – like Austria, Italy, and Hungary – is dependent on Russian energy supplies. The German government continues to believe that it is not yet able to do without oil imports from Russia, said government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit in Berlin. Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said in Brussels that it would only be possible to “gradually” withdraw from Russian energy. An energy embargo is the “most difficult issue”, she said. Therefore, one should first focus on closing the last gaps in the existing sanctions.
No new decisions were taken. The debate on sanctions and the Strategic Compass will now move to the European Council, which will discuss the war in Ukraine and the EU’s further course of action on Thursday and Friday in Brussels.
Germany is threatening to fall short of the EU’s expectations in the struggle to refill gas storage facilities. By October, those 18 member states on whose territory gas storage facilities are located are to fill the reservoirs to 90 percent. By February 1 of next year, German storage facilities are to be at least 55 percent full. That’s according to a draft of a new gas storage regulation published by the research portal Contexte on Monday.
Last Thursday, the government factions introduced a national storage law in the Bundestag containing lower requirements. According to the law, storage operators would only have to achieve a minimum filling level of 80 percent by October of each year and only 40 percent by February. If gas traders do not fill the storage facilities sufficiently by market means, the market area manager Trading Hub Europe (THE) is to be given extended options for procuring gas.
The EU regulation has not yet been adopted, and the targets are intended to be only indicative; moreover, the draft provides for a deviation of up to two percentage points. However, the draft makes clear the Commission’s expectation that Germany will shoulder its responsibility for community energy security. The largest natural gas storage capacities in Central Europe are located on the territory of the Federal Republic.
For the winter month of February in particular, the Commission expects Germany to hold higher gas reserves. The fill level of 55 percent is well above the German target of 40 percent, and it is also above the EU average of 51 percent targeted by the Commission. Brussels expects even higher winter fill levels only from Spain, Portugal, and Sweden. So if Germany takes the Commission’s expectations seriously, depending on the weather, pressure could increase to procure more gas or save for the benefit of EU partners.
Without mentioning Gazprom by name, the member states are also to be able to expropriate storage operators if necessary (Europe.Table reported). Some storage facilities operated by Gazprom subsidiary Astora were unusually empty during the winter. According to the draft regulation, all operators should undergo certification. “Member states are to ensure that each storage operator, […] is certified by the regulatory authority […] to ensure that the owner of the storage operator does not endanger the security of energy supply or other essential security interests of the Union or a member state,” the draft recitals state.
The decision on certifications will be made by the regulatory authorities within just under six months (175 days) of the directive coming into force. If certification is denied, the regulation provides for several possible consequences for the persons concerned:
(a) to dispose of the interest or rights they hold in the storage system operator
(b) order other measures to ensure that persons do not exercise control or rights over the storage facility operator
The authorities then also decide on appropriate compensation. However, the regulatory authorities do not decide on their own but give the Commission the opportunity to comment. These must be taken into account by the national authorities “as far as possible”. Even after certification, continuous monitoring of storage operators will be introduced in certain cases, for example, at the request of the Commission. In addition, companies must notify regulators in advance of planned sales of their facilities in the future.
Just a few days ago, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) presented a recommendation on which antibiotics should be used exclusively in human medicine in the future. This is intended to ensure that sufficient effective antibiotics will still be available for humans in the future within the framework of the new EU veterinary medicines regulation.
However, the list met with mixed reactions. The Commission and the European Platform for the Responsible Using of Medicines in Animals (EPRUMA) welcomed the recommendations. However, among members of the European Parliament’s Committee on Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI), the list caused disappointment and bewilderment across party lines.
“The EMA proposal does not yet convince me,” said MEP Peter Liese (EPP). He expressed concern about the Commission’s presumed interpretation of the “One Health” approach: “It seems more important to treat a sick animal than to reserve antibiotics for humans,” Liese said. He would never accept that.
Martin Häusling of the Green Party was even stunned by the EMA recommendations. “Over a million deaths worldwide, and what comes out of the EMA and Commission review? Everything remains the same,” he objected. Häusling and Anja Hazekamp of the Left Party also sharply criticized that the drug called colistin did not make it onto the EMA list. Back in February, 150 health professionals sent a letter to Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides urging her to add colistin to the list. This is often the last resort for patients with multi-resistant germs, but is also used in animal husbandry, for example to treat diarrhea in piglets.
Germanwatch, Deutsche Umwelthilfe, Gesellschaft für Ganzheitliche Tiermedizinthe (society for holistic veterinary medicine), and the initiative “Doctors against factory farming” also described the EMA recommendation as completely misguided. The EMA list does not name a single antibiotic that has so far been approved for use in veterinary medicine. Thus, it does nothing to combat the emergence and spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in animal husbandry, according to their statement.
The associations warn against incorporating the EMA recommendation unchanged into the planned legal act implementing the Veterinary Medicinal Products Regulation. This would open the door to the routine use of antibiotics in animal husbandry and thus to the risk of further antibiotic resistance.
Resistant pathogens are among the top ten global threats to public health, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). In the European Union, approximately 33,000 people die each year from infections caused by multidrug-resistant germs. Worldwide, that number is 1.2 million. According to current projections, the number of deaths caused by antibiotic resistance will rise to 10 million by 2050. Since fall 2021, the WHO has used the term “silent pandemic” to describe the ever-increasing spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The EU estimates that the cumulative economic cost will be about 1.5 times today’s global GDP.
According to the joint ECDC, EFSA (European Food Safety Authority), EMA, and OECD report on antibiotic resistance in the EU and European Economic Area (EEA), published in early March, antibiotic resistance has increased in both humans (by 23 percent) and animals (by 43 percent) since 2011, despite a decline in consumption. The authors rated the rise in resistance to critically important antibiotics used to treat common healthcare-associated infections as of particular concern. They also pointed to significant differences between countries.
In their report, the organizations emphasize that EU/EEA countries have made important progress in recent years in developing and implementing national action plans against antimicrobial resistance. However, gaps remain. OECD identified the following priorities for the EU/EEA in this area:
Plans for a new EU policy initiative to promote the implementation of the EU’s One Health action plan against antimicrobial resistance provide an opportunity for further action, in the organizations’ view, including:
The European One Health action plan against antimicrobial resistance was adopted in June 2017. It is based on three pillars: Making the EU a best-practice region, a boost to research, development and innovation, and shaping the global agenda.
Most recently, at a ministerial conference on antimicrobial resistance, agriculture and health ministers from EU countries discussed remaining gaps at the EU level and opportunities for improvement, particularly concerning education, infection prevention, the proper use of antibiotics, or the development of common, meaningful indicators.
Another factor torpedoing global efforts to curb drug-resistant infections is the lack of new antibiotics. As part of its new drug strategy, for example, the Commission wants to try to address the market failure and promote the development of antibiotics. How remains unclear so far.
One option could be public-private partnerships, says Patrick Stockebrandt of the Center for European Policy (cep) in his analysis of the EU Medicines Strategy. These could play a crucial role in the long term, particularly by supporting the development of AMR research and development capacities, including to facilitate the market introduction of products. European and national measures could be essential, in his view, to build these new capacities and avoid losing valuable knowledge and methods in this area.
And urgently so. Although new antibiotics are becoming increasingly important, in recent decades, the large pharmaceutical companies, in particular, have been withdrawing more and more from this area of business. Until the 1990s, almost all major manufacturers were still developing antibiotics.
The reason: There is significantly less money to be made with antibiotics than, for example, with cancer drugs or drugs for chronic diseases. Antibiotics are generally prescribed for only a short time. Moreover, new agents should only be used in emergencies to prevent the development of resistance.
More pressure on the pharmaceutical industry could come from joint action by the EU, says Helmut Schröder, deputy managing director of the Scientific Institute of the AOK (WIdO). Among the nearly 450 new active ingredients that the industry has launched in Germany over the past decade, only eleven were new antibiotics. “National action alone will not be able to persuade manufacturers to push research and development of antibiotic agents,” he is convinced. This is where the EU can successfully use its market power.
Anyone searching for Frederick Richter on the Internet will find almost exclusively professional information about him. In most photos, he wears a tie – except in an interview conducted from his home office in Berlin. Here he can be seen without a tie, with a painting in the background and a porcelain stag on the windowsill.
The fact that you won’t find any selfies of him online while on vacation or having a drink with colleagues is no coincidence: He is a board member and director of the Stiftung Datenschutz (Foundation for Data Protection), an independent institution that has been working for data protection in Germany since it was founded in 2013. The federal foundation educates people about data protection through newsletters and webinar series and develops recommendations for improving data protection together with politicians, business, academia, and society.
“I have always been careful not to reveal any private things about myself on the Internet,” explains Frederick Richter. There was no key experience. “But I’ve always had this feeling: Not everyone needs to know everything about me, no one needs to find photos of my children online.” Even during his law studies in Hamburg, Frederick Richter preferred to deal with data protection and Internet law rather than civil or inheritance law: “It was very exciting to deal with an area of law that was just emerging.”
He subsequently earned a master’s degree in IT law at the University of Vienna. Later, he was an advisor at the Federation of German Industries and worked as a legal policy officer for the FDP parliamentary group in the Bundestag. Since the establishment of the Stiftung Datenschutz (Foundation for Data Protection), a project dear to the hearts of liberals and in particular former Federal Minister of Justice Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, he has served as its board member.
Frederick Richter says he has long been annoyed by the narrative that data protection prevents digitization. Of course, data protection makes digital projects more complex. “But it’s hardly in people’s interest to ignore their rights just because you want to speed up processes,” he says. At the moment, data protection is only included in digitization projects, for example, in public administration, at the end. That is much too late: “Data protection must be considered from the very beginning. Then we’ll be done much quicker.”
Another challenge that his foundation has to contend with time and again is the lack of awareness among the general public of the need to protect personal data. Unlike the issue of data security, the dangers are often very abstract. When young people upload videos from their everyday lives to YouTube, they often can’t assess the dangers. “That’s easier to understand with data security. If the PIN is gone, soon the account is empty.”
Frederick Richter wants to get data protection out of the bureaucratic corner, not just the abstract one. That’s why, as a board member, he has recently been spending a lot of time looking at the question of what could replace cookie banners: “After all, they are deeply annoying to all citizens.” The law with the unwieldy title Telecommunications and Telemedia Data Protection Act (TTDPA), which is supposed to open the door for this, came into force on December 1, 2021. In the future, Personal Information Management Systems (PIMS) could make collecting and giving consent much easier and automated, if the conditions are right.
The solution is not yet in sight, but things are moving in the right direction, says Frederick Richter. For him, data protection must always be pragmatic: “If people feel that the law doesn’t protect them and means mainly bureaucracy, then we have to change something.” Sarah Kröger
How can peace be achieved? The EU foreign and defense ministers met yesterday in Brussels for the “Jumbo Council” to answer this question, among others. The result is a new security policy strategy. This strategy was not explicitly drawn up for the war in Ukraine, but it should be part of the response, according to EU Foreign Affairs Commissioner Josep Borrell.
A 5,000 soldiers strong military intervention force, which will not be ready for deployment until 2025, is not part of the answer, but it is probably the most concrete achievement of the new strategy, as Eric Bonse analyzes. As for ways to peace, both the ministers and their new strategy have little to show for themselves.
To be less vulnerable to the enormous gas price fluctuations in the future, the EU plans to impose minimum gas storage volumes thresholds on member states. A leaked draft of the new gas storage regulation shows that Germany’s planned minimum levels are insufficient to meet the EU’s expectations. German storage facilities are supposed to be 90 percent full before winter. The government factions in the Bundestag are only planning for 80 percent, as Manuel Berkel points out.
The prevalence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria has been on the rise for years and naturally does not care about national borders. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) recommendation on which antibiotics should be used exclusively in human medicine in the future is currently causing outrage. One of the criticisms is that it does nothing to prevent the emergence and spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in animal husbandry. Eugenie Ankowitsch puts the EMA’s recommendations and criticism in context and clarifies how important European action is now.
The EU has completed its new security policy strategy. After two years of work, the so-called “Strategic Compass” was adopted by the 27 EU foreign ministers in Brussels on Monday. The strategy will strengthen the EU as a “security provider”, said High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell.
The 47-page text, which was published on the Council’s website after a long period of secrecy, contains, among other things, the mandate to establish a new military rapid deployment force. The “EU Rapid Deployment Capacity” is to comprise up to 5,000 soldiers and replace the previous “Battle Groups”, which were never used.
Germany could provide the first contingent, said Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht at the “Jumbo Council” – the joint meeting with foreign ministers – in Brussels. Given the war in Ukraine, the SPD politician said that the German government was sending a “clear signal”: “We stand up for each other.”
However, the new force, which was conceived against the backdrop of the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, will probably not be launched until 2025 – too late for the war in Ukraine. The new strategy also looks outdated in some other respects: When the consultations began in the fall of 2020 under the German presidency, Turkey, in particular, was considered a troublemaker – it threatened EU members Greece and Cyprus with military action because of oil and gas drilling in the Mediterranean. After that, Afghanistan and China were added as new problem cases.
Russia had been on the EU diplomats’ radar for some time. “Europe is in danger,” they said in earlier drafts of the new strategy. However, what was meant were “hybrid tactics, cyberattacks and disinformation” from Moscow (Europe-Table reported). However, there was no mention of war.
This is now completely different. “The return of war in Europe, with unjustified and unprovoked Russian aggression against Ukraine […] are challenging our ability to promote our vision and defend our interests,” the new strategy says at the very beginning.
What is also new is that the EU invokes its unity (“we are more united than ever”) and emphasizes its “unprecedented determination” to restore peace in Europe. A stronger Union, equipped with new capabilities, will contribute to security and work complementarily to NATO, the introduction says.
But even the commitment to a rules-based order, “with the United Nations at its core”, seems antiquated given Russia’s deliberate violation of the rules. The strategy has been overtaken by reality and hardly seems suited to provide guidance for the next decade, as was originally planned. “It’s not the answer to the Ukraine war, but it’s part of the answer,” Borrell acknowledged. Just in time, the strategy defines the concepts and capabilities needed to put Russia in its place and restore peace in Europe.
But already on the question of how such peace can be achieved, the “Compass” does not provide an answer. So far, the EU is not even involved in the ongoing negotiations on a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine. Council President Charles Michel and Commission President Ursula von der Leyen are holding back – at the risk that in the end, Israel, Turkey, or even China will bring peace, not the EU. It is not the Commission’s job to get involved in peace negotiations, according to the Brussels authority.
The foreign ministers also do not feel responsible. They discussed new sanctions against Russia and additional arms deliveries to Ukraine on Monday – but not a peace plan or diplomatic initiative. Lithuania’s Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis called for talking about Russia’s energy sector and imposing an oil embargo. Oil is Russia’s most important source of income and should not be exempt from sanctions. Poland had previously expressed similar views. Ukraine also calls for an energy embargo.
This increases the pressure on Germany, which – like Austria, Italy, and Hungary – is dependent on Russian energy supplies. The German government continues to believe that it is not yet able to do without oil imports from Russia, said government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit in Berlin. Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said in Brussels that it would only be possible to “gradually” withdraw from Russian energy. An energy embargo is the “most difficult issue”, she said. Therefore, one should first focus on closing the last gaps in the existing sanctions.
No new decisions were taken. The debate on sanctions and the Strategic Compass will now move to the European Council, which will discuss the war in Ukraine and the EU’s further course of action on Thursday and Friday in Brussels.
Germany is threatening to fall short of the EU’s expectations in the struggle to refill gas storage facilities. By October, those 18 member states on whose territory gas storage facilities are located are to fill the reservoirs to 90 percent. By February 1 of next year, German storage facilities are to be at least 55 percent full. That’s according to a draft of a new gas storage regulation published by the research portal Contexte on Monday.
Last Thursday, the government factions introduced a national storage law in the Bundestag containing lower requirements. According to the law, storage operators would only have to achieve a minimum filling level of 80 percent by October of each year and only 40 percent by February. If gas traders do not fill the storage facilities sufficiently by market means, the market area manager Trading Hub Europe (THE) is to be given extended options for procuring gas.
The EU regulation has not yet been adopted, and the targets are intended to be only indicative; moreover, the draft provides for a deviation of up to two percentage points. However, the draft makes clear the Commission’s expectation that Germany will shoulder its responsibility for community energy security. The largest natural gas storage capacities in Central Europe are located on the territory of the Federal Republic.
For the winter month of February in particular, the Commission expects Germany to hold higher gas reserves. The fill level of 55 percent is well above the German target of 40 percent, and it is also above the EU average of 51 percent targeted by the Commission. Brussels expects even higher winter fill levels only from Spain, Portugal, and Sweden. So if Germany takes the Commission’s expectations seriously, depending on the weather, pressure could increase to procure more gas or save for the benefit of EU partners.
Without mentioning Gazprom by name, the member states are also to be able to expropriate storage operators if necessary (Europe.Table reported). Some storage facilities operated by Gazprom subsidiary Astora were unusually empty during the winter. According to the draft regulation, all operators should undergo certification. “Member states are to ensure that each storage operator, […] is certified by the regulatory authority […] to ensure that the owner of the storage operator does not endanger the security of energy supply or other essential security interests of the Union or a member state,” the draft recitals state.
The decision on certifications will be made by the regulatory authorities within just under six months (175 days) of the directive coming into force. If certification is denied, the regulation provides for several possible consequences for the persons concerned:
(a) to dispose of the interest or rights they hold in the storage system operator
(b) order other measures to ensure that persons do not exercise control or rights over the storage facility operator
The authorities then also decide on appropriate compensation. However, the regulatory authorities do not decide on their own but give the Commission the opportunity to comment. These must be taken into account by the national authorities “as far as possible”. Even after certification, continuous monitoring of storage operators will be introduced in certain cases, for example, at the request of the Commission. In addition, companies must notify regulators in advance of planned sales of their facilities in the future.
Just a few days ago, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) presented a recommendation on which antibiotics should be used exclusively in human medicine in the future. This is intended to ensure that sufficient effective antibiotics will still be available for humans in the future within the framework of the new EU veterinary medicines regulation.
However, the list met with mixed reactions. The Commission and the European Platform for the Responsible Using of Medicines in Animals (EPRUMA) welcomed the recommendations. However, among members of the European Parliament’s Committee on Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI), the list caused disappointment and bewilderment across party lines.
“The EMA proposal does not yet convince me,” said MEP Peter Liese (EPP). He expressed concern about the Commission’s presumed interpretation of the “One Health” approach: “It seems more important to treat a sick animal than to reserve antibiotics for humans,” Liese said. He would never accept that.
Martin Häusling of the Green Party was even stunned by the EMA recommendations. “Over a million deaths worldwide, and what comes out of the EMA and Commission review? Everything remains the same,” he objected. Häusling and Anja Hazekamp of the Left Party also sharply criticized that the drug called colistin did not make it onto the EMA list. Back in February, 150 health professionals sent a letter to Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides urging her to add colistin to the list. This is often the last resort for patients with multi-resistant germs, but is also used in animal husbandry, for example to treat diarrhea in piglets.
Germanwatch, Deutsche Umwelthilfe, Gesellschaft für Ganzheitliche Tiermedizinthe (society for holistic veterinary medicine), and the initiative “Doctors against factory farming” also described the EMA recommendation as completely misguided. The EMA list does not name a single antibiotic that has so far been approved for use in veterinary medicine. Thus, it does nothing to combat the emergence and spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in animal husbandry, according to their statement.
The associations warn against incorporating the EMA recommendation unchanged into the planned legal act implementing the Veterinary Medicinal Products Regulation. This would open the door to the routine use of antibiotics in animal husbandry and thus to the risk of further antibiotic resistance.
Resistant pathogens are among the top ten global threats to public health, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). In the European Union, approximately 33,000 people die each year from infections caused by multidrug-resistant germs. Worldwide, that number is 1.2 million. According to current projections, the number of deaths caused by antibiotic resistance will rise to 10 million by 2050. Since fall 2021, the WHO has used the term “silent pandemic” to describe the ever-increasing spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The EU estimates that the cumulative economic cost will be about 1.5 times today’s global GDP.
According to the joint ECDC, EFSA (European Food Safety Authority), EMA, and OECD report on antibiotic resistance in the EU and European Economic Area (EEA), published in early March, antibiotic resistance has increased in both humans (by 23 percent) and animals (by 43 percent) since 2011, despite a decline in consumption. The authors rated the rise in resistance to critically important antibiotics used to treat common healthcare-associated infections as of particular concern. They also pointed to significant differences between countries.
In their report, the organizations emphasize that EU/EEA countries have made important progress in recent years in developing and implementing national action plans against antimicrobial resistance. However, gaps remain. OECD identified the following priorities for the EU/EEA in this area:
Plans for a new EU policy initiative to promote the implementation of the EU’s One Health action plan against antimicrobial resistance provide an opportunity for further action, in the organizations’ view, including:
The European One Health action plan against antimicrobial resistance was adopted in June 2017. It is based on three pillars: Making the EU a best-practice region, a boost to research, development and innovation, and shaping the global agenda.
Most recently, at a ministerial conference on antimicrobial resistance, agriculture and health ministers from EU countries discussed remaining gaps at the EU level and opportunities for improvement, particularly concerning education, infection prevention, the proper use of antibiotics, or the development of common, meaningful indicators.
Another factor torpedoing global efforts to curb drug-resistant infections is the lack of new antibiotics. As part of its new drug strategy, for example, the Commission wants to try to address the market failure and promote the development of antibiotics. How remains unclear so far.
One option could be public-private partnerships, says Patrick Stockebrandt of the Center for European Policy (cep) in his analysis of the EU Medicines Strategy. These could play a crucial role in the long term, particularly by supporting the development of AMR research and development capacities, including to facilitate the market introduction of products. European and national measures could be essential, in his view, to build these new capacities and avoid losing valuable knowledge and methods in this area.
And urgently so. Although new antibiotics are becoming increasingly important, in recent decades, the large pharmaceutical companies, in particular, have been withdrawing more and more from this area of business. Until the 1990s, almost all major manufacturers were still developing antibiotics.
The reason: There is significantly less money to be made with antibiotics than, for example, with cancer drugs or drugs for chronic diseases. Antibiotics are generally prescribed for only a short time. Moreover, new agents should only be used in emergencies to prevent the development of resistance.
More pressure on the pharmaceutical industry could come from joint action by the EU, says Helmut Schröder, deputy managing director of the Scientific Institute of the AOK (WIdO). Among the nearly 450 new active ingredients that the industry has launched in Germany over the past decade, only eleven were new antibiotics. “National action alone will not be able to persuade manufacturers to push research and development of antibiotic agents,” he is convinced. This is where the EU can successfully use its market power.
Anyone searching for Frederick Richter on the Internet will find almost exclusively professional information about him. In most photos, he wears a tie – except in an interview conducted from his home office in Berlin. Here he can be seen without a tie, with a painting in the background and a porcelain stag on the windowsill.
The fact that you won’t find any selfies of him online while on vacation or having a drink with colleagues is no coincidence: He is a board member and director of the Stiftung Datenschutz (Foundation for Data Protection), an independent institution that has been working for data protection in Germany since it was founded in 2013. The federal foundation educates people about data protection through newsletters and webinar series and develops recommendations for improving data protection together with politicians, business, academia, and society.
“I have always been careful not to reveal any private things about myself on the Internet,” explains Frederick Richter. There was no key experience. “But I’ve always had this feeling: Not everyone needs to know everything about me, no one needs to find photos of my children online.” Even during his law studies in Hamburg, Frederick Richter preferred to deal with data protection and Internet law rather than civil or inheritance law: “It was very exciting to deal with an area of law that was just emerging.”
He subsequently earned a master’s degree in IT law at the University of Vienna. Later, he was an advisor at the Federation of German Industries and worked as a legal policy officer for the FDP parliamentary group in the Bundestag. Since the establishment of the Stiftung Datenschutz (Foundation for Data Protection), a project dear to the hearts of liberals and in particular former Federal Minister of Justice Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, he has served as its board member.
Frederick Richter says he has long been annoyed by the narrative that data protection prevents digitization. Of course, data protection makes digital projects more complex. “But it’s hardly in people’s interest to ignore their rights just because you want to speed up processes,” he says. At the moment, data protection is only included in digitization projects, for example, in public administration, at the end. That is much too late: “Data protection must be considered from the very beginning. Then we’ll be done much quicker.”
Another challenge that his foundation has to contend with time and again is the lack of awareness among the general public of the need to protect personal data. Unlike the issue of data security, the dangers are often very abstract. When young people upload videos from their everyday lives to YouTube, they often can’t assess the dangers. “That’s easier to understand with data security. If the PIN is gone, soon the account is empty.”
Frederick Richter wants to get data protection out of the bureaucratic corner, not just the abstract one. That’s why, as a board member, he has recently been spending a lot of time looking at the question of what could replace cookie banners: “After all, they are deeply annoying to all citizens.” The law with the unwieldy title Telecommunications and Telemedia Data Protection Act (TTDPA), which is supposed to open the door for this, came into force on December 1, 2021. In the future, Personal Information Management Systems (PIMS) could make collecting and giving consent much easier and automated, if the conditions are right.
The solution is not yet in sight, but things are moving in the right direction, says Frederick Richter. For him, data protection must always be pragmatic: “If people feel that the law doesn’t protect them and means mainly bureaucracy, then we have to change something.” Sarah Kröger
