The #SOTEU hashtag will be trending on Twitter today, at least in the EU bubble. In her State of the (European) Union address, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will present her agenda for the coming months, dressed up in euphonious, sometimes pathetic words. We gave you a taste of her speech in the European Parliament here. In tomorrow’s edition, we will go into more detail.
For the Greens, Ska Keller will respond to von der Leyen’s speech. For six years, she has led the group together with the Belgian Philippe Lamberts, and was also the top candidate in the European elections. Probably not for much longer, as Markus Grabitz has learned: In the party, it is expected that the politician will announce her retirement from the front row of the European Greens in the next few weeks.
More from the Greens, this time from the Bundestag: Anton Hofreiter has been chairman of the Europe Committee since December. In an interview with Falk Steiner and me, the former parliamentary group leader talks about the importance of nuclear power plants for European solidarity, a new edition of the EU recovery fund and the work of Ursula von der Leyen.
The Commission President was zealous to keep the tension high before her speech: All legislative proposals adopted by the Commission yesterday remained under lock and key. Nevertheless, Corinna Visser has already taken a closer look at the draft European Media Freedom Act.
I wish you an interesting read and a nice day!
Ska Keller has been the most important Green politician at EU level since 2016. Together with Belgian Philippe Lamberts (59), she has led the group for six years. She was the top candidate for the European Greens in 2019 and also ran for first place for the German Greens in the same year. In the European Parliament, she also ran to become parliamentary president in 2019. She gave an engaging speech but could not prevail against David Sassoli, the Socialist candidate. Now she is giving up.
The politician is expected to announce her retirement from the front row of the European Greens in the coming weeks. She will unlikely run again for a seat in the European Parliament. She herself is shrouding herself in silence. Multiple requests from Europe.Table to comment on the reports went unanswered by Keller.
The disappointment in the group, which comprises 72 members and thus makes up the fourth-largest group in the Strasbourg Parliament, is palpable. To the outside world, Keller seems her usual self these days. When she takes the floor in plenary, she radiates self-assurance. She speaks English without an accent, she smiles and appears confident when she delivers a rhetorically skillful speech.
However, members of the parliamentary group report from the other side: For some time now, she has seemed listless; she hardly takes the political initiative anymore. Over the summer, she had largely disappeared, and at times was not even available for internal party votes. Media inquiries also went unanswered – live interviews with politicians from other parties were then broadcast on television.
Keller was first elected to the EU Parliament in 2009. She could have taken over the leadership of the group as early as 2014. However, she wanted to familiarize herself and wait until 2016, she told the leadership. In 2016, her predecessor Rebecca Harms wanted to retire anyway. But Keller had not familiarized herself with the new position, according to people in the parliament. She has also failed over the years to build relationships with important politicians from other parties, even within her own parliamentary group. It is enough for her to deliver the speech in the plenum that her people have written down for her. She has not played a role in a single controversy that has been fought out within the party over the years.
In January, internal elections were held halfway through the term, and she was already on the verge of being replaced. But no one wanted to run against her. That won’t happen again. It is a foregone conclusion among the Greens who will replace Keller: Terry Reintke, the 35-year-old Green MP from the Ruhr area, is supposed to take over. In the parliamentary group, it is said that Reintke would have had the majority in January, but she did not want to coup against Keller. So Keller will likely serve the remaining almost two years in the European Parliament. Reintke is also said to have a good chance of becoming the top candidate in the next European elections.
Keller is apparently drawn to Brandenburg. After the last state election in 2019, she would have liked to become a minister there. But the state association in which the native of East Brandenburg started her career did not want to give her a seat at the cabinet table. She now wants to be the top candidate in the 2024 state elections, they say. Until then, it could be a depressing time for Keller, the chairwoman on call, and the European Greens.
As in the other parties, the Greens are just beginning the internal party election campaign. Realos and leftists are sounding out who would have support when the lists are drawn up at state and federal level in 2023.
The top posts in the Green Party are always shared by one woman and one man. Ska Keller is joined in the EU Parliament by the Belgian Philippe Lamberts. He, too, will retire in 2024, according to the internal rules of his party in Belgium. There is as yet no reliable speculation as to which man might succeed him.
To that end, the German Greens are lining up male candidates for the second spot on the list. Since Sven Giegold became a civil servant state secretary in the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs last year, Rasmus Andresen has led the 21 German Green deputies in the Strasbourg parliament. Andresen has not been there long; he still lacks the visibility that the prominent Giegold stood for.
Behind the scenes, at least four Green MEPs are currently sounding out their chances of running for second place against Andresen: Michael Bloss from Stuttgart is confident that he can score points with climate policy in the next European elections, Daniel Freund from Aachen is focusing on the rule of law and transparency, and Sergey Lagodinsky from Berlin could run as an expert on foreign policy. No one has yet dared to come out of hiding. But one of the participants announced: “It won’t be long before the decisions are made.”
Mr. Hofreiter, your party colleague Robert Habeck has announced that the remaining nuclear power plants will be put in reserve. How can such a decision be communicated to European neighbors in the midst of an electricity crisis?
Hofreiter: Anyone who knows their way around the electricity market will not find this lacking in solidarity. The electricity market does not work on the principle that the more electricity you produce, the cheaper it becomes.
You don’t see a risk of acute undersupply?
Yes, we see the danger. That’s why we’re putting nuclear power plants in reserve and bringing a not inconsiderable number of coal-fired power plants back online.
You can’t restart nuclear power plants overnight.
No one is planning to do that either. A decision will be made at the end of the year: Will the nuclear power plants be needed or not? That depends on the coal-fired power plants, and in particular on how things look in southern Germany, especially in southern Bavaria. The CSU has prevented replacement power plants, power lines and wind turbines from being built.
The EU Commission wants to reform the mechanisms of the electricity market. Is this the right approach?
At the moment, we are having great difficulty with the merit order principle, in which the most expensive power plant determines the price of electricity. We need to reform that, at least for the crisis. Time is pressing. If things don’t move fast enough at the European level because of the complexity, then we need a national electricity price brake.
Do you think a gas price cap is called for?
I think this is absolutely the right approach. I believe that we must form a mandatory purchasing cartel in Europe, not on a voluntary basis, which is what the Chancellor’s Office has been promoting so far. And not just for Russian natural gas – we hardly buy from them anymore – but for natural gas purchases in general. Many medium-sized companies are in trouble because of the high gas prices. But it is not trivial to design a price cap so that there is also an incentive to use energy sparingly.
If Europe also caps prices for LNG, the tankers will head for Asia instead.
If Slovakia or Germany said that, you would be right. But Europe has such a large purchasing power that it should be possible to achieve a lower price.
Solidarity among member states will be hard-pressed over this winter – do you think it will last?
The crucial thing is for everyone to do what they can in the short time available. It doesn’t help to accuse the Belgians of having ailing nuclear power plants and neglecting the expansion of renewables. It also doesn’t help to accuse France of having a completely ailing power system and therefore needing substantial amounts from Germany. We can bring back coal-fired power plants, and keep nuclear power plants in reserve.
The EU theoretically has an internal energy market, but there are national egoisms. France, for example, is resisting the construction of the MidCat gas pipeline to Spain. How is that compatible with the declarations of solidarity?
We have nation states. We have to deal with that calmly. Among the 16 federal states, solidarity is quickly over in concrete terms, for example, in the financial equalization between Bavaria and Bremen. Nevertheless, we have to work continuously on coming closer together. Above all, we need to strengthen the Community institutions, i.e., the EU Commission and the European Parliament. They are much better at organizing solidarity.
There are elections in Italy, and governments in other countries are under pressure. Do you fear a change of course in these countries and thus an end to their solidarity?
No. That’s what Putin wants us to believe. But when push comes to shove, he doesn’t succeed in dividing Europe. But we have to be aware that the right-wing populist, radical right-wing parties that we are talking about here are de facto the agents of our adversary. If you keep repeating the argument and combining it with the narrative that the sanctions didn’t work, you are implicitly – and in the case of the far-right, explicitly – serving Putin. The sanctions are working: Car production in Russia has plummeted, airplanes are successively at a standstill, it’s just a matter of how long they can maintain their metro systems. When you’re a country to the point where you have to buy from North Korea, you can’t say that sanctions don’t affect you.
Is the Russian-Chinese partnership mainly rhetoric?
Take a look at the numbers: The export of goods from China to Russia has plummeted by almost 40 percent. The reasons are that high technology in China is heavily produced by Western companies, and Chinese companies are not supplying it either because they are afraid of the US secondary sanctions.
Highly indebted countries like Italy are having difficulty financing relief packages for their citizens. Do we need new European instruments?
We have the Next Generation EU development fund, which is also helping us now. If the money is used to stimulate investments in renewable energies in the member states, then that also saves expensive fossil energy. Personally, I think there should be a follow-up program for Next Generation EU to encourage public investment in renewable energy, electricity grids, railroads, and so on.
You still have to convince your coalition partner, the FDP. Does the current crisis perhaps offer the opportunity to do so?
I am not saying that a new program is needed now – Next Generation EU still contains many billions. But my concern is that the crisis will not be over next year. And I am convinced that the crisis will make everyone more pragmatic.
Chancellor Scholz indicated during his European policy speech in Prague that he could imagine a new edition of the SURE program. This has via EU bonds financed national short-time work programs during the Covid pandemic. Should such a program be set up again in view of the looming recession?
SURE worked really well, and it would be wise to discuss it.
In his speech in Prague, Scholz did not take up some ideas from the coalition agreement, such as convening a European convention or strengthening the competences of the European Parliament – pragmatism or lack of ambition?
I think some things have to be done very pragmatically at the moment. I see it above all as the task of the European Parliament and also of the national parliaments to push for a convention and more rights for the European Parliament.
Scholz has repeatedly called for the abolition of the unanimity principle in foreign and tax policy. But how do you get countries like Poland or Hungary to drop their veto?
In the case of Hungary, it is really complicated – only massive pressure via the rule of law procedures can help. But Viktor Orbán’s behavior in recent months has led to an intensive reflection process in other, previously hostile countries such as Poland or the Baltic states. They find it intolerable that a single country, acting de facto as Putin’s agent, can limit the European Union’s ability to act on such a central issue. That is why the chances are better than ever.
What might such a reform look like?
In the Baltic States, there are already ideas on how to change unanimity that I find very exciting. For example, limiting the right of veto to cases where national security interests are affected. Such a decision should then be reviewable by the ECJ based on specific criteria. This would qualify the veto. That would be progress in many areas, even if I prefer a qualified majority.
The question is: Who will drive such reforms? Are you counting on Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and her State of the Union speech? Or are you hoping for a Franco-German initiative?
Everyone who feels called to do so should drive this forward. I think it would be very positive if we had an intensive debate about different models and ideas and then arrived at a model. I hope that Ursula von der Leyen will drive this process forward in her speech.
Were you hoping for more commitment from France’s President Emmanuel Macron? Things have been relatively quiet since the election.
Absolutely! Of course, it was also always a problem that Germany never responded to his proposals. Now we have the chancellor’s speech in Prague. It would be good if France now backed up its ideas with concrete papers.
Do you think Ursula von der Leyen is doing a good job as Commission President?
I would say the balance is mixed. She gives the EU a face, makes good speeches and also has good ideas. However, the execution could be a bit more consistent in terms of craftsmanship.
With the oil sanctions against Russia, for example?
Yes, and on the subject of the rule of law.
How would you feel if Ursula von der Leyen were to seek a second term in office?
She would have to decide on that first. But I believe that she is smart enough to keep her deliberations about this in a smaller circle.
For the Greens, this would mean that they would lose their right of first refusal under the coalition agreement for the German commissioner post in 2024.
In the case of Ursula von der Leyen, it’s not about a commissioner post but about the Commission President. That’s a different matter. Moreover, she can also become Commission President if the German government doesn’t propose her – we don’t decide that on our own.
You are said to have a personal interest in becoming an EU Commissioner after the election. Is there any truth in that?
I don’t think much at all of such speculation about personnel. That applies all the more when it’s as far away as the European elections.
Europe is still one of the regions in the world where journalists can work relatively freely, as shown by the annual ranking of freedom of the press compiled by Reporters Without Borders. But media professionals in Europe also experience violence, are harassed by the state and are prevented from expressing their opinions freely.
With the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA, the draft is available to Europe.Table), the EU Commission wants to solve “a number of problems (…) affecting the functioning of the internal market for media services and the activities of media service providers”. But the proposal is meeting with considerable resistance – German publishers see freedom of the press in danger and are calling for far-reaching changes to the Media Freedom Act.
One of the reasons given by the EU Commission for the new legal act is that media companies in the EU were faced with obstacles that hindered their activities and had an impact on investment conditions in the internal market, such as “differing national rules and procedures relating to freedom of the media and pluralism”. Such rules had led to fragmentation of the internal market and impaired legal certainty for media market players.
The Commission’s proposal is divided into four areas:
1. promoting cross-border activity and investment in media services by harmonizing national frameworks.
2. strengthening regulatory cooperation and convergence through cross-border coordination tools and EU-level opinions and guidelines.
3. reducing the risk of undue public and private interference with editorial freedom so that journalists can work freely and their sources and communications remain protected.
4. ensuring transparent and fair allocation of economic resources in the internal media market by increasing transparency and fairness in audience measurement and allocation of state advertising.
The Commission sees its proposal as being in line with existing horizontal and sectoral EU regulations for media and online services and thus wants to close regulatory gaps – and give the European Regulators Group for Audiovisual Media Services (ERGA) greater scope for action and additional tasks. ERGA is to become the European Media Services Committee.
The German Newspaper Publishers and Digitalpublishers Association (BDZV) and the Free Press Media Association (MVFP) consider the current draft “a ‘media freedom regulation’ and an affront to the values of the European Union and democracy. With the plan to “de facto suspend” the principle of publishers’ editorial freedom, the EU would destroy freedom of the press, the associations say.
Harsh criticism also comes from Heike Raab, State Secretary and Plenipotentiary of the State of Rhineland-Palatinate to the Federal Government and for Europe. She views the legal act with concern. “If we want to safeguard the diversity and independence of the media, we have to protect them from state, ideological or economic influence as well as unrestricted platform dominance. That’s why media policy is more than digital single market or platform economy.” As soon as the Commission’s proposal is published, the German states want to measure it “against our standards of freedom of the media and Article 5 of the Basic Law.”
“Should the Commission actually plan to create a centralized media regulator in Europe, or understand freedom of the press as part of market regulation, I would indeed see the freedom and diversity of the media in danger,” Raab explains. “I see Europe’s cultural diversity as a strength. How the Commission wants to impose quasi-freedom in the media with this legal act and at the same time restrict it is beyond comprehension.”
MEP Petra Kammerevert (S&D), member of the Committee on Culture and Education (CULT), also explicitly warns against such a regulation. “It is wrong to assume that one can secure European freedom of the media and thus a diverse and liberal media landscape in the EU by regulating it with the most stringent means available, while at the same time deeply interfering with the competences of the member states,” criticizes Kammerevert.
Just because two states, namely Poland and Hungary, are currently not sufficiently able to guarantee comprehensive freedom of the media, this is not sufficient to impose more restrictive media regulations on all EU member states. However, the reason why a regulation and not a directive is planned is probably also that the legal act will then also apply to foreign companies operating within the EU.
Kammerevert also criticizes the planned new set-up of ERGA and stresses that the non-governmental and independent organization of such an authority is indispensable. The EU Commission – like the member states – must stay out of the control and supervision of the media. “We must protect the media from state influence, also by the EU Commission,” she warns. The German Bundesrat had already declared in a resolution in March that supervision of the media and their dissemination must be “independent, remote from the state and decentralized”.
Sabine Verheyen (EPP), Chairwoman of the CULT Committee, also says: “In the European Parliament, we will pay particular attention to ensuring that a European regulatory authority can operate with complete political independence and that the editorial responsibility of the media is preserved.” Moreover, she does not view the draft as critically as, say, publishers. She thinks the developments in freedom of the media in some EU member states are worrying. “The overriding goal must be to preserve the editorial independence of European media houses. Additionally, we need more convergence of national regulators as well as measures against the increasing fragmentation of the media market, especially in the digital sector.”
The reaction of the NGO Reporters Without Borders is quite similar. “We believe that the draft European law on freedom of the media shows a commitment to ensuring the integrity of information and is an important step in the right direction,” says Julie Majerczak, head of the Brussels office. “Freedom of the press has seriously deteriorated in the EU in recent years. It’s high time to do something about it, and the European Media Freedom Act will help.”
Majerczak emphasizes two points: First, the regulation contains a number of guarantees for the preservation of editorial independence. For example, member states are prohibited from interfering in editorial policy or media decisions. At the same time, the media would have to take measures to guarantee the editorial independence of editors, and they would have to be transparent about their owners and shareholders, who “can influence their strategic decisions,” as well as possible conflicts of interest.
On the other hand, the independence of public service media is also to be strengthened. “Media advertising by public institutions or authorities – an important means of media control – will also be better regulated,” says Majerczak. It must be awarded according to “transparent, objective, proportionate and non-discriminatory” criteria and procedures. “Some provisions need to be tightened,” Majerczak thinks. But the Commission’s proposal is a good start.
During the debate on the Digital Services Act (DSA), media groups had already demanded that content from media service providers on very large online platforms such as Google or Facebook be treated differently from content from private providers. In the DSA, the request failed; there is no media privilege. Now the Commission is taking up this project again in Article 17. “The background to this is that the media are already subject to control by the Press Council or the media supervisory authority and we see no reason why they should be subject to further scrutiny by the ‘terms and conditions’ of the major platforms,” explains Tobias Schmid, Director of the Media Authority of North Rhine-Westphalia and European Commissioner of the Directors’ Conference of the Media Authorities.
Schmid sees the Commission’s new proposal as an attempt at compromise. There is no privilege for media per se, but there is the right of media service providers to be informed and to have it explained why something should be blocked. There is also the right to a moderation process. “I don’t expect that to go down well with publishers,” Schmid says. “However, I currently see this as the only approach for further negotiations. What’s clear is that we can’t get around the rules of the DSA.”
Maria Luisa Stasi, Head of the Legal and Policy Department for Digital Markets at the NGO Article 19, on the other hand, takes a critical view of media privilege. Above all, she says, because it is based on the media’s self-classification. She doesn’t think much of a “fast lane” for media companies and sees a danger to freedom of expression here if media were given preferential treatment. “The question is, do we really need this, or is it not rather a risky approach?”
When Sanna Mirella Marin became Prime Minister of Finland in December 2019, she was by no means the first woman to hold the office. But she was the youngest female prime minister in Finland’s history. At 34, she was even the world’s youngest head of government when she took office – at least until Sebastian Kurz became chancellor again in Austria in January 2020.
For a few weeks, the now 36-year-old social democrat has had one more unusual publicity feature – she is the dancing prime minister. And not everyone likes it. Marin has been heavily criticized by conservatives for the videos that show her dancing. They even demanded a drug test. Marin complied without much ado, and as expected, presented a negative result shortly after. Marin is popular among the Finnish population; according to a recent survey, 68 percent were “at least fairly satisfied” with her politics – her popularity has even increased in recent months.
Marin also received support from the EU Parliament on Tuesday. After her speech on the situation in Europe, Belgian MEP Assita Kanko (EPP) said that people tend to forget that politicians are also human beings and not machines. Women would be more strictly controlled and some would give up their offices because of that.
In her speech to the EU Parliament in Strasbourg, Marin made it clear once again that there are far bigger problems ahead than dancing female ministers. “In its war of aggression against Ukraine, Russia has breached and abandoned the key principles and commitments of the European security order. The energy market is suffering from exceptional uncertainty, and that, together with inflation, may cause an economic downturn in Europe,” she said. “This summer’s record drought and natural disasters show how climate change is progressing. If we don’t act in time – if we don’t act immediately – it will be too late. We will not get a second chance.”
Paulo Rangel (EPP) congratulated Marin on the decision to join NATO. He said it was one of the most important geopolitical achievements of the 21st century, not only because it strengthened Finland’s safety but also because it strengthened the entire Euro-Atlantic community and its collective security.
In a subsequent appearance with Parliament President Roberta Metsola, Marin demanded further sanctions packages from the EU Commission. “Sanctions are our only way to weaken Russia, and we will be open to the EU Commission’s new sanctions.” Russia’s war against Ukraine is also the final warning shot that the EU must be capable of standing on its own two feet when it comes down to it, Marin said. Metsola made it equally clear that the EU must stop relying on unreliable partners and cannot delay the energy transition.
Marin was born in Helsinki and grew up with two mothers. She stands for a young generation and modern politics. She took interest in politics early on, writing her master’s thesis on “Finland, the land of mayors” and the professionalization process of political leadership in Finnish cities.
She is regarded as a shooting star and skilled politician and becomes the second chairwoman of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in 2014. In 2015, her first time as a candidate, she is elected to the Finnish Parliament and serves on the Main and Environment Committees, among others. In the government led by her predecessor Antti Rinne (SDP), she becomes Minister of Transport and Communications. She has held the presidency of the Social Democratic Party since August 2020.
Environmental issues still accompany her today. Her government has set itself highly ambitious goals: Finland wants to be carbon-neutral by 2035 and become the world’s first fossil-free welfare society. For this reason, but also in view of Russia’s war against Ukraine, Marin calls for the rapid expansion of renewable energies, since Finland is also dependent on Russian energy supplies. Lisa-Martina Klein
The #SOTEU hashtag will be trending on Twitter today, at least in the EU bubble. In her State of the (European) Union address, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will present her agenda for the coming months, dressed up in euphonious, sometimes pathetic words. We gave you a taste of her speech in the European Parliament here. In tomorrow’s edition, we will go into more detail.
For the Greens, Ska Keller will respond to von der Leyen’s speech. For six years, she has led the group together with the Belgian Philippe Lamberts, and was also the top candidate in the European elections. Probably not for much longer, as Markus Grabitz has learned: In the party, it is expected that the politician will announce her retirement from the front row of the European Greens in the next few weeks.
More from the Greens, this time from the Bundestag: Anton Hofreiter has been chairman of the Europe Committee since December. In an interview with Falk Steiner and me, the former parliamentary group leader talks about the importance of nuclear power plants for European solidarity, a new edition of the EU recovery fund and the work of Ursula von der Leyen.
The Commission President was zealous to keep the tension high before her speech: All legislative proposals adopted by the Commission yesterday remained under lock and key. Nevertheless, Corinna Visser has already taken a closer look at the draft European Media Freedom Act.
I wish you an interesting read and a nice day!
Ska Keller has been the most important Green politician at EU level since 2016. Together with Belgian Philippe Lamberts (59), she has led the group for six years. She was the top candidate for the European Greens in 2019 and also ran for first place for the German Greens in the same year. In the European Parliament, she also ran to become parliamentary president in 2019. She gave an engaging speech but could not prevail against David Sassoli, the Socialist candidate. Now she is giving up.
The politician is expected to announce her retirement from the front row of the European Greens in the coming weeks. She will unlikely run again for a seat in the European Parliament. She herself is shrouding herself in silence. Multiple requests from Europe.Table to comment on the reports went unanswered by Keller.
The disappointment in the group, which comprises 72 members and thus makes up the fourth-largest group in the Strasbourg Parliament, is palpable. To the outside world, Keller seems her usual self these days. When she takes the floor in plenary, she radiates self-assurance. She speaks English without an accent, she smiles and appears confident when she delivers a rhetorically skillful speech.
However, members of the parliamentary group report from the other side: For some time now, she has seemed listless; she hardly takes the political initiative anymore. Over the summer, she had largely disappeared, and at times was not even available for internal party votes. Media inquiries also went unanswered – live interviews with politicians from other parties were then broadcast on television.
Keller was first elected to the EU Parliament in 2009. She could have taken over the leadership of the group as early as 2014. However, she wanted to familiarize herself and wait until 2016, she told the leadership. In 2016, her predecessor Rebecca Harms wanted to retire anyway. But Keller had not familiarized herself with the new position, according to people in the parliament. She has also failed over the years to build relationships with important politicians from other parties, even within her own parliamentary group. It is enough for her to deliver the speech in the plenum that her people have written down for her. She has not played a role in a single controversy that has been fought out within the party over the years.
In January, internal elections were held halfway through the term, and she was already on the verge of being replaced. But no one wanted to run against her. That won’t happen again. It is a foregone conclusion among the Greens who will replace Keller: Terry Reintke, the 35-year-old Green MP from the Ruhr area, is supposed to take over. In the parliamentary group, it is said that Reintke would have had the majority in January, but she did not want to coup against Keller. So Keller will likely serve the remaining almost two years in the European Parliament. Reintke is also said to have a good chance of becoming the top candidate in the next European elections.
Keller is apparently drawn to Brandenburg. After the last state election in 2019, she would have liked to become a minister there. But the state association in which the native of East Brandenburg started her career did not want to give her a seat at the cabinet table. She now wants to be the top candidate in the 2024 state elections, they say. Until then, it could be a depressing time for Keller, the chairwoman on call, and the European Greens.
As in the other parties, the Greens are just beginning the internal party election campaign. Realos and leftists are sounding out who would have support when the lists are drawn up at state and federal level in 2023.
The top posts in the Green Party are always shared by one woman and one man. Ska Keller is joined in the EU Parliament by the Belgian Philippe Lamberts. He, too, will retire in 2024, according to the internal rules of his party in Belgium. There is as yet no reliable speculation as to which man might succeed him.
To that end, the German Greens are lining up male candidates for the second spot on the list. Since Sven Giegold became a civil servant state secretary in the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs last year, Rasmus Andresen has led the 21 German Green deputies in the Strasbourg parliament. Andresen has not been there long; he still lacks the visibility that the prominent Giegold stood for.
Behind the scenes, at least four Green MEPs are currently sounding out their chances of running for second place against Andresen: Michael Bloss from Stuttgart is confident that he can score points with climate policy in the next European elections, Daniel Freund from Aachen is focusing on the rule of law and transparency, and Sergey Lagodinsky from Berlin could run as an expert on foreign policy. No one has yet dared to come out of hiding. But one of the participants announced: “It won’t be long before the decisions are made.”
Mr. Hofreiter, your party colleague Robert Habeck has announced that the remaining nuclear power plants will be put in reserve. How can such a decision be communicated to European neighbors in the midst of an electricity crisis?
Hofreiter: Anyone who knows their way around the electricity market will not find this lacking in solidarity. The electricity market does not work on the principle that the more electricity you produce, the cheaper it becomes.
You don’t see a risk of acute undersupply?
Yes, we see the danger. That’s why we’re putting nuclear power plants in reserve and bringing a not inconsiderable number of coal-fired power plants back online.
You can’t restart nuclear power plants overnight.
No one is planning to do that either. A decision will be made at the end of the year: Will the nuclear power plants be needed or not? That depends on the coal-fired power plants, and in particular on how things look in southern Germany, especially in southern Bavaria. The CSU has prevented replacement power plants, power lines and wind turbines from being built.
The EU Commission wants to reform the mechanisms of the electricity market. Is this the right approach?
At the moment, we are having great difficulty with the merit order principle, in which the most expensive power plant determines the price of electricity. We need to reform that, at least for the crisis. Time is pressing. If things don’t move fast enough at the European level because of the complexity, then we need a national electricity price brake.
Do you think a gas price cap is called for?
I think this is absolutely the right approach. I believe that we must form a mandatory purchasing cartel in Europe, not on a voluntary basis, which is what the Chancellor’s Office has been promoting so far. And not just for Russian natural gas – we hardly buy from them anymore – but for natural gas purchases in general. Many medium-sized companies are in trouble because of the high gas prices. But it is not trivial to design a price cap so that there is also an incentive to use energy sparingly.
If Europe also caps prices for LNG, the tankers will head for Asia instead.
If Slovakia or Germany said that, you would be right. But Europe has such a large purchasing power that it should be possible to achieve a lower price.
Solidarity among member states will be hard-pressed over this winter – do you think it will last?
The crucial thing is for everyone to do what they can in the short time available. It doesn’t help to accuse the Belgians of having ailing nuclear power plants and neglecting the expansion of renewables. It also doesn’t help to accuse France of having a completely ailing power system and therefore needing substantial amounts from Germany. We can bring back coal-fired power plants, and keep nuclear power plants in reserve.
The EU theoretically has an internal energy market, but there are national egoisms. France, for example, is resisting the construction of the MidCat gas pipeline to Spain. How is that compatible with the declarations of solidarity?
We have nation states. We have to deal with that calmly. Among the 16 federal states, solidarity is quickly over in concrete terms, for example, in the financial equalization between Bavaria and Bremen. Nevertheless, we have to work continuously on coming closer together. Above all, we need to strengthen the Community institutions, i.e., the EU Commission and the European Parliament. They are much better at organizing solidarity.
There are elections in Italy, and governments in other countries are under pressure. Do you fear a change of course in these countries and thus an end to their solidarity?
No. That’s what Putin wants us to believe. But when push comes to shove, he doesn’t succeed in dividing Europe. But we have to be aware that the right-wing populist, radical right-wing parties that we are talking about here are de facto the agents of our adversary. If you keep repeating the argument and combining it with the narrative that the sanctions didn’t work, you are implicitly – and in the case of the far-right, explicitly – serving Putin. The sanctions are working: Car production in Russia has plummeted, airplanes are successively at a standstill, it’s just a matter of how long they can maintain their metro systems. When you’re a country to the point where you have to buy from North Korea, you can’t say that sanctions don’t affect you.
Is the Russian-Chinese partnership mainly rhetoric?
Take a look at the numbers: The export of goods from China to Russia has plummeted by almost 40 percent. The reasons are that high technology in China is heavily produced by Western companies, and Chinese companies are not supplying it either because they are afraid of the US secondary sanctions.
Highly indebted countries like Italy are having difficulty financing relief packages for their citizens. Do we need new European instruments?
We have the Next Generation EU development fund, which is also helping us now. If the money is used to stimulate investments in renewable energies in the member states, then that also saves expensive fossil energy. Personally, I think there should be a follow-up program for Next Generation EU to encourage public investment in renewable energy, electricity grids, railroads, and so on.
You still have to convince your coalition partner, the FDP. Does the current crisis perhaps offer the opportunity to do so?
I am not saying that a new program is needed now – Next Generation EU still contains many billions. But my concern is that the crisis will not be over next year. And I am convinced that the crisis will make everyone more pragmatic.
Chancellor Scholz indicated during his European policy speech in Prague that he could imagine a new edition of the SURE program. This has via EU bonds financed national short-time work programs during the Covid pandemic. Should such a program be set up again in view of the looming recession?
SURE worked really well, and it would be wise to discuss it.
In his speech in Prague, Scholz did not take up some ideas from the coalition agreement, such as convening a European convention or strengthening the competences of the European Parliament – pragmatism or lack of ambition?
I think some things have to be done very pragmatically at the moment. I see it above all as the task of the European Parliament and also of the national parliaments to push for a convention and more rights for the European Parliament.
Scholz has repeatedly called for the abolition of the unanimity principle in foreign and tax policy. But how do you get countries like Poland or Hungary to drop their veto?
In the case of Hungary, it is really complicated – only massive pressure via the rule of law procedures can help. But Viktor Orbán’s behavior in recent months has led to an intensive reflection process in other, previously hostile countries such as Poland or the Baltic states. They find it intolerable that a single country, acting de facto as Putin’s agent, can limit the European Union’s ability to act on such a central issue. That is why the chances are better than ever.
What might such a reform look like?
In the Baltic States, there are already ideas on how to change unanimity that I find very exciting. For example, limiting the right of veto to cases where national security interests are affected. Such a decision should then be reviewable by the ECJ based on specific criteria. This would qualify the veto. That would be progress in many areas, even if I prefer a qualified majority.
The question is: Who will drive such reforms? Are you counting on Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and her State of the Union speech? Or are you hoping for a Franco-German initiative?
Everyone who feels called to do so should drive this forward. I think it would be very positive if we had an intensive debate about different models and ideas and then arrived at a model. I hope that Ursula von der Leyen will drive this process forward in her speech.
Were you hoping for more commitment from France’s President Emmanuel Macron? Things have been relatively quiet since the election.
Absolutely! Of course, it was also always a problem that Germany never responded to his proposals. Now we have the chancellor’s speech in Prague. It would be good if France now backed up its ideas with concrete papers.
Do you think Ursula von der Leyen is doing a good job as Commission President?
I would say the balance is mixed. She gives the EU a face, makes good speeches and also has good ideas. However, the execution could be a bit more consistent in terms of craftsmanship.
With the oil sanctions against Russia, for example?
Yes, and on the subject of the rule of law.
How would you feel if Ursula von der Leyen were to seek a second term in office?
She would have to decide on that first. But I believe that she is smart enough to keep her deliberations about this in a smaller circle.
For the Greens, this would mean that they would lose their right of first refusal under the coalition agreement for the German commissioner post in 2024.
In the case of Ursula von der Leyen, it’s not about a commissioner post but about the Commission President. That’s a different matter. Moreover, she can also become Commission President if the German government doesn’t propose her – we don’t decide that on our own.
You are said to have a personal interest in becoming an EU Commissioner after the election. Is there any truth in that?
I don’t think much at all of such speculation about personnel. That applies all the more when it’s as far away as the European elections.
Europe is still one of the regions in the world where journalists can work relatively freely, as shown by the annual ranking of freedom of the press compiled by Reporters Without Borders. But media professionals in Europe also experience violence, are harassed by the state and are prevented from expressing their opinions freely.
With the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA, the draft is available to Europe.Table), the EU Commission wants to solve “a number of problems (…) affecting the functioning of the internal market for media services and the activities of media service providers”. But the proposal is meeting with considerable resistance – German publishers see freedom of the press in danger and are calling for far-reaching changes to the Media Freedom Act.
One of the reasons given by the EU Commission for the new legal act is that media companies in the EU were faced with obstacles that hindered their activities and had an impact on investment conditions in the internal market, such as “differing national rules and procedures relating to freedom of the media and pluralism”. Such rules had led to fragmentation of the internal market and impaired legal certainty for media market players.
The Commission’s proposal is divided into four areas:
1. promoting cross-border activity and investment in media services by harmonizing national frameworks.
2. strengthening regulatory cooperation and convergence through cross-border coordination tools and EU-level opinions and guidelines.
3. reducing the risk of undue public and private interference with editorial freedom so that journalists can work freely and their sources and communications remain protected.
4. ensuring transparent and fair allocation of economic resources in the internal media market by increasing transparency and fairness in audience measurement and allocation of state advertising.
The Commission sees its proposal as being in line with existing horizontal and sectoral EU regulations for media and online services and thus wants to close regulatory gaps – and give the European Regulators Group for Audiovisual Media Services (ERGA) greater scope for action and additional tasks. ERGA is to become the European Media Services Committee.
The German Newspaper Publishers and Digitalpublishers Association (BDZV) and the Free Press Media Association (MVFP) consider the current draft “a ‘media freedom regulation’ and an affront to the values of the European Union and democracy. With the plan to “de facto suspend” the principle of publishers’ editorial freedom, the EU would destroy freedom of the press, the associations say.
Harsh criticism also comes from Heike Raab, State Secretary and Plenipotentiary of the State of Rhineland-Palatinate to the Federal Government and for Europe. She views the legal act with concern. “If we want to safeguard the diversity and independence of the media, we have to protect them from state, ideological or economic influence as well as unrestricted platform dominance. That’s why media policy is more than digital single market or platform economy.” As soon as the Commission’s proposal is published, the German states want to measure it “against our standards of freedom of the media and Article 5 of the Basic Law.”
“Should the Commission actually plan to create a centralized media regulator in Europe, or understand freedom of the press as part of market regulation, I would indeed see the freedom and diversity of the media in danger,” Raab explains. “I see Europe’s cultural diversity as a strength. How the Commission wants to impose quasi-freedom in the media with this legal act and at the same time restrict it is beyond comprehension.”
MEP Petra Kammerevert (S&D), member of the Committee on Culture and Education (CULT), also explicitly warns against such a regulation. “It is wrong to assume that one can secure European freedom of the media and thus a diverse and liberal media landscape in the EU by regulating it with the most stringent means available, while at the same time deeply interfering with the competences of the member states,” criticizes Kammerevert.
Just because two states, namely Poland and Hungary, are currently not sufficiently able to guarantee comprehensive freedom of the media, this is not sufficient to impose more restrictive media regulations on all EU member states. However, the reason why a regulation and not a directive is planned is probably also that the legal act will then also apply to foreign companies operating within the EU.
Kammerevert also criticizes the planned new set-up of ERGA and stresses that the non-governmental and independent organization of such an authority is indispensable. The EU Commission – like the member states – must stay out of the control and supervision of the media. “We must protect the media from state influence, also by the EU Commission,” she warns. The German Bundesrat had already declared in a resolution in March that supervision of the media and their dissemination must be “independent, remote from the state and decentralized”.
Sabine Verheyen (EPP), Chairwoman of the CULT Committee, also says: “In the European Parliament, we will pay particular attention to ensuring that a European regulatory authority can operate with complete political independence and that the editorial responsibility of the media is preserved.” Moreover, she does not view the draft as critically as, say, publishers. She thinks the developments in freedom of the media in some EU member states are worrying. “The overriding goal must be to preserve the editorial independence of European media houses. Additionally, we need more convergence of national regulators as well as measures against the increasing fragmentation of the media market, especially in the digital sector.”
The reaction of the NGO Reporters Without Borders is quite similar. “We believe that the draft European law on freedom of the media shows a commitment to ensuring the integrity of information and is an important step in the right direction,” says Julie Majerczak, head of the Brussels office. “Freedom of the press has seriously deteriorated in the EU in recent years. It’s high time to do something about it, and the European Media Freedom Act will help.”
Majerczak emphasizes two points: First, the regulation contains a number of guarantees for the preservation of editorial independence. For example, member states are prohibited from interfering in editorial policy or media decisions. At the same time, the media would have to take measures to guarantee the editorial independence of editors, and they would have to be transparent about their owners and shareholders, who “can influence their strategic decisions,” as well as possible conflicts of interest.
On the other hand, the independence of public service media is also to be strengthened. “Media advertising by public institutions or authorities – an important means of media control – will also be better regulated,” says Majerczak. It must be awarded according to “transparent, objective, proportionate and non-discriminatory” criteria and procedures. “Some provisions need to be tightened,” Majerczak thinks. But the Commission’s proposal is a good start.
During the debate on the Digital Services Act (DSA), media groups had already demanded that content from media service providers on very large online platforms such as Google or Facebook be treated differently from content from private providers. In the DSA, the request failed; there is no media privilege. Now the Commission is taking up this project again in Article 17. “The background to this is that the media are already subject to control by the Press Council or the media supervisory authority and we see no reason why they should be subject to further scrutiny by the ‘terms and conditions’ of the major platforms,” explains Tobias Schmid, Director of the Media Authority of North Rhine-Westphalia and European Commissioner of the Directors’ Conference of the Media Authorities.
Schmid sees the Commission’s new proposal as an attempt at compromise. There is no privilege for media per se, but there is the right of media service providers to be informed and to have it explained why something should be blocked. There is also the right to a moderation process. “I don’t expect that to go down well with publishers,” Schmid says. “However, I currently see this as the only approach for further negotiations. What’s clear is that we can’t get around the rules of the DSA.”
Maria Luisa Stasi, Head of the Legal and Policy Department for Digital Markets at the NGO Article 19, on the other hand, takes a critical view of media privilege. Above all, she says, because it is based on the media’s self-classification. She doesn’t think much of a “fast lane” for media companies and sees a danger to freedom of expression here if media were given preferential treatment. “The question is, do we really need this, or is it not rather a risky approach?”
When Sanna Mirella Marin became Prime Minister of Finland in December 2019, she was by no means the first woman to hold the office. But she was the youngest female prime minister in Finland’s history. At 34, she was even the world’s youngest head of government when she took office – at least until Sebastian Kurz became chancellor again in Austria in January 2020.
For a few weeks, the now 36-year-old social democrat has had one more unusual publicity feature – she is the dancing prime minister. And not everyone likes it. Marin has been heavily criticized by conservatives for the videos that show her dancing. They even demanded a drug test. Marin complied without much ado, and as expected, presented a negative result shortly after. Marin is popular among the Finnish population; according to a recent survey, 68 percent were “at least fairly satisfied” with her politics – her popularity has even increased in recent months.
Marin also received support from the EU Parliament on Tuesday. After her speech on the situation in Europe, Belgian MEP Assita Kanko (EPP) said that people tend to forget that politicians are also human beings and not machines. Women would be more strictly controlled and some would give up their offices because of that.
In her speech to the EU Parliament in Strasbourg, Marin made it clear once again that there are far bigger problems ahead than dancing female ministers. “In its war of aggression against Ukraine, Russia has breached and abandoned the key principles and commitments of the European security order. The energy market is suffering from exceptional uncertainty, and that, together with inflation, may cause an economic downturn in Europe,” she said. “This summer’s record drought and natural disasters show how climate change is progressing. If we don’t act in time – if we don’t act immediately – it will be too late. We will not get a second chance.”
Paulo Rangel (EPP) congratulated Marin on the decision to join NATO. He said it was one of the most important geopolitical achievements of the 21st century, not only because it strengthened Finland’s safety but also because it strengthened the entire Euro-Atlantic community and its collective security.
In a subsequent appearance with Parliament President Roberta Metsola, Marin demanded further sanctions packages from the EU Commission. “Sanctions are our only way to weaken Russia, and we will be open to the EU Commission’s new sanctions.” Russia’s war against Ukraine is also the final warning shot that the EU must be capable of standing on its own two feet when it comes down to it, Marin said. Metsola made it equally clear that the EU must stop relying on unreliable partners and cannot delay the energy transition.
Marin was born in Helsinki and grew up with two mothers. She stands for a young generation and modern politics. She took interest in politics early on, writing her master’s thesis on “Finland, the land of mayors” and the professionalization process of political leadership in Finnish cities.
She is regarded as a shooting star and skilled politician and becomes the second chairwoman of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in 2014. In 2015, her first time as a candidate, she is elected to the Finnish Parliament and serves on the Main and Environment Committees, among others. In the government led by her predecessor Antti Rinne (SDP), she becomes Minister of Transport and Communications. She has held the presidency of the Social Democratic Party since August 2020.
Environmental issues still accompany her today. Her government has set itself highly ambitious goals: Finland wants to be carbon-neutral by 2035 and become the world’s first fossil-free welfare society. For this reason, but also in view of Russia’s war against Ukraine, Marin calls for the rapid expansion of renewable energies, since Finland is also dependent on Russian energy supplies. Lisa-Martina Klein
