MEPs of the Environment and Economics Committees in the European Parliament celebrated their vote yesterday as an “important milestone victory”: They voted by a majority against the inclusion of nuclear power and natural gas in the EU taxonomy. Members of both committees had objected to the Commission’s plan. My colleague Leonie Düngefeld explains what happens next.
Using so-called Solidarity Lanes, the EU wants to help transport millions of tons of grain from Ukraine and bring it to the global market, where it is urgently needed. Mostly by truck and rail. While this was well-meant, said Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Agrarian Policy in the EU parliament, transporting such vast amounts of exports is only possible by sea. Focus should now be on the Danube region and the Romanian Black Sea ports. Timo Landenberger has the details.
There is a new case against Apple. After disputes over apps and payment options in the App Store, it is this time about access to customer data. Has Apple also taken illegal advantage here? Torsten Kleinz has summarized what the investigation by the German Federal Cartel Office is all about.
When Robert Habeck took over the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, positions inside the Ministry were reshuffled. Most of the top posts were reassigned – but not those in the ministry’s European department. Till Hoppe introduces Kirsten Scholl in today’s Profile.
MEPs of the Environment and Economic Affairs Committees in the European Parliament yesterday voted against the Delegated Act under which the European Commission wants to include nuclear power and natural gas in the EU taxonomy. During a joint meeting of the two committees, 76 MEPs voted across political groups in favor of the rejection, four abstained and 62 voted against it. In early July, the plenary will vote on the resolution – and make the final decision on whether the legislation will be passed.
With the second Delegated Act on the EU taxonomy proposed in January, the Commission wants to designate nuclear energy and natural gas as sustainable economic activities. In March, MEPs from the Greens/EFA and S&D had raised objections to this, formally initiating the veto procedure. Then, on May 20, a cross-party alliance of MEPs from the Environment and Economic Affairs Committees had submitted a resolution. It was unclear whether enough MEPs from the EPP and Renew groups would also support the resolution. Both groups were at least not unanimous in their support for the veto. Last week, however, MEPs from all four groups had jointly campaigned for the objection.
“For the upcoming plenary vote on the taxonomy, today’s voting result in the committees is an important milestone victory,” Delara Burkhardt (SPD), member of the Environment Committee, told Europe.Table. The fact that an agreement with the naturally more business-oriented Economic Committee was achieved gave her hope. “However, we should not be too sure about the votes in the plenum in July. The nuclear and gas lobbies will step up their efforts again to ensure a different end result.”
“The relevant committees of the European Parliament are sending a clear signal to stop the greenwashing of nuclear power and gas,” said Jutta Paulus (Greens), also a member of the Environment Committee. Only the Parliament could now prevent the taxonomy’s credibility from being destroyed, she added. “Because investors will not have confidence in a label that downplays the climate impact of fossil gas and the radiating waste of nuclear power plants.” She expects all German MEPs to take a firm stand against the Commission’s plan.
At a press conference prior to the vote, MEPs from the Greens, S&D, Renew and EPP groups had sharply criticized the Commission’s actions. Swedish MEP Emma Wiesner (Renew) spoke of a “ping-pong game between Germany and France” who enforced their respective political interests. “The taxonomy must be based on scientific findings and must not be politically instrumentalized,” Wiesner said.
Whether nuclear energy and natural gas should be labeled as sustainable economic activities has so far not only caused opposition in the EU Parliament. An expert opinion published by Deutsche Umwelthilfe (DUH) in January declared the inclusion of nuclear energy and natural gas in the EU taxonomy to be incompatible with both current EU law and the German constitution (Europe.Table reported). The Commission would not only lack the formal authority to draft the delegated act. It also violates the precautionary principle laid down in the European treaties, which obliges risk prevention, and the taxonomy regulation itself.
An expert opinion commissioned by the Austrian government also concluded that the Commission was overstepping its powers and the provisions laid down in the Taxonomy Regulation with the Delegated Act. For this reason, the expert opinion sees high chances for a legal action, which Austria and also Luxembourg had announced in the event the act is passed (Europe.Table reported).
“If this watering down goes through, it will be an incredible reputation damage to the EU Commission’s objective that will be hard to heal,” Kristina Jeromin, Managing Director of the Green and Sustainable Finance Cluster Germany (SFCG), said on Monday at a discussion in the run-up to the vote. As soon as the business community feels that politicians are not proceeding with the necessary will, it falls far short of its potential, she said. Credibility among the population would also dwindle.
Furthermore, the work of the expert panel that advised the Commission on the taxonomy had been scientifically based and aligned with the EU climate targets. The proposal to label nuclear energy and natural gas as sustainable undermines this work. It is unclear what consequences this will have for achieving the climate targets.
The plenary will vote on the resolution in the first week of July. An absolute majority is required for it to be passed and force the Commission to withdraw or amend its proposal: 353 votes. Whether the rally will work and this many deputies join the veto is uncertain. In the meantime, a mood is emerging, explained Michael Bloss (Greens): “An alliance of just under 200 S&D, Greens and Left, a few Liberals and some Conservatives will certainly vote for the rejection of the legal act. Over 100 MEPs are currently considered undecided, and the vote of another 100 MEPs is unclear.”
The close result in the committees offered a glimpse of the vote in plenary, said Joachim Schuster, Economic and Financial Policy Spokesman for the SPD MEPs. “Apparently, parts of the deeply divided EPP have not yet realized the gravity of the situation.” He said the EU Commission must learn to take the Parliament’s proposals seriously. Schuster is in favor of including a special category for nuclear power and gas in the taxonomy, which includes a clear phase-out scenario.
The Parliament and the European Council have until July 11 to veto the Commission’s proposal. The Council is no longer expected to object. Although the German government has now also announced its rejection of the legislation, there is no majority among other member states. If no majority is reached in Parliament either, the Delegated Act will become legally binding from January 2023.
The situation is dramatic, Markian Dmytrasevych told the European Parliament’s Agriculture Committee on Tuesday. Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Agriculture is responsible for food exports of the country and faces an unprecedented challenge. Estimates are that more than 20 million tons of grain are stuck in the country as a result of the war and the blockade of Ukrainian ports.
The food is urgently needed on the global market and time is pressing: The next harvest already begins in July, at which point the silos should actually be empty. The European Commission has therefore launched an action plan to support Ukraine’s exports. The grain is to be transported by truck and rail from the country to the EU ports on the North Sea, the Baltic Sea and the Mediterranean Sea via so-called Solidarity Lanes.
Although well-meant, it is ultimately merely a drop in the bucket, Dmytrasevych said. Usually, Ukraine would be exporting 5-6 million tonnes per month, he said, but in March it exported only 200,000 tonnes. A lot more cannot be in June either, despite the Solidarity Lanes. 2.4 million tons is said to be the maximum of what is currently possible. By comparison, before the war broke out, Ukraine exported five to six million tons of grain per month, which is roughly equivalent to Germany’s annual export volume.
Ukraine handled more than 90 percent of these deliveries by sea; alternative transport routes simply lacked capacity. The only real solution would be for Russia to abandon the blockade of our ports and make regular shipping possible again, the deputy minister said.
During a visit to Turkey last week, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov blamed Ukraine for the Black Sea blockade. He called on the country to clear the ports of the mines placed there. Russia would not use this for its own benefit. But Ukraine does not trust this offer.
In the Agriculture Committee, Dmytrasevych advocated strengthening the Danube region to transport grain via the river and connecting waterways to Romania’s Black Sea ports. The concrete proposals:
However, Norbert Lins (CDU), Chairman of the Agriculture Committee, pointed out that concentrating too much on one transport route would also make it particularly vulnerable. Thus, it is right to further improve the northern routes via Poland and the Baltic States. Here, bottlenecks at borders need to be eliminated as far as possible.
Next week, the committee plans to travel to the Ukrainian border to assess the logistical challenges. Due to a lack of capacity, thousands of trucks are waiting there for customs clearance. Rail transport is also stalled, as Ukraine uses a different gauge than the EU. (Europe.Table reported)
It is already clear that the storage facilities will probably not be empty in time. Ukraine is expecting only about 50 percent of the yield from previous years for the upcoming harvest. Nevertheless, a storage deficit of about 15 million tons must be assumed, according to Dmytrasevych. Especially since some storage facilities have been destroyed by Russian attacks or are blocked by Russia. This would make the creation of temporary and provisional grain storage facilities essential in order to save food from spoiling and not exacerbate the global food crisis.
“It is a cynical attempt by Russia to use food for military purposes,” said Martin Hlaváček (Renew) in the Agriculture Committee. It would target the EU, not Ukraine. “It is about destabilizing the European community by raising food prices and ultimately triggering a wave of migration from developing countries where people are starving.”
Ukrainian grain accounts for twelve percent of global exports. Russia and Belarus are also important export countries and have largely ceased their exports. However, countries in the so-called MENA region, i.e. the Middle East and North Africa, are particularly dependent on them. Egypt, for example, imports more than 80 percent of its wheat from Ukraine and Russia. As a result, the World Food Program has already warned of impending famine and mass migration from the MENA region to Europe.
The new investigation is part of a whole series of other antitrust cases involving Apple’s iron-fisted control over its own ecosystem. The App Store is a persistent point of contention, as the US corporation does not just decide who is allowed to install its apps on the iPhone and iPad and who is not. Particularly disputed are the interferences in money flows. Apple charges a fee for most of the sales that app developers make.
In 2021, EU Commissioner for Competition Margrethe Vestager accused Apple’s App Store of violating competition law because, among other things, the company allegedly hindered its competitor Spotify. In April, it was revealed that the Commission even wants to expand the antitrust action. In January, the Dutch market regulator had fined the iPhone group €5 million for not approving dating apps that wanted to offer their customers a payment system independent of Apple. Apple has been in a long-running dispute with Fortnite developer Epic for years, as the latter, like Spotify, does not want to share its revenues on Apple’s terms. There is also a dispute about access to the NFC chips necessary for payments; the Commission accuses Apple of favoring its own payment service.
The German Federal Cartel Office is now investigating the other side of the medal: Because until now, advertising revenue was a way to monetize apps without paying Apple any commissions. With its advertising ID IDFA, the company had even created an interface that was particularly important for the online advertising industry. Since Apple users were classified as a particularly affluent target group, app developers could charge advertisers high prices – without giving any of it to Apple. However, the company profited indirectly through a wide range of apps on its platform.
With the iOS 14.5 update in April 2021, Apple did not end these business partnerships but shook them to their foundations. As part of the App Tracking Transparency Framework, app developers must first ask their users for consent to process certain data and have been cut off from others altogether. For example, Apple suppresses many tracking cookies by default in its Safari browser, which are used to create overarching advertising profiles. As a result, advertising rates for Apple users plummeted. Facebook accuses Apple that the new privacy regulations have cost the social media provider $10 billion in just one year.
Apple critics also accuse the company of favoring its own apps. For example, the banner with which Apple itself asks for permission to display personalized ads seems much less menacing than in other apps. In addition, Apple’s own advertising business has gone through the roof after the introduction of anti-tracking technology: Consulting firm Omdia calculated a 238 percent increase to $3.7 billion in 2021. Apple, on the other hand, published a study in April denying a connection between the tracking stop and its own advertising growth.
The German Federal Cartel Office will have no shortage of complaints. Both publishers and advertisers filed complaints against Apple’s anti-tracking measures in April 2021. Andreas Mundt, President of the German Federal Cartel Office, is now stepping on the gas: He has launched new investigations even before his agency has identified the cross-market significance for competition within the context of Section 19a of the Act against Restraints of Competition (Europe Table reported).
The sheer volume of proceedings seems to have at least made an impression on Apple. As was announced on Monday, the company will refrain from giving its own streaming service Apple Music a particularly prominent place on the home screen in the upcoming update to iOS 15.6. However, given such minimal concessions, any settlement on issues such as commissions and advertising data is likely to take many years.
Whenever a new minister takes office, the great staff shuffling begins. When Robert Habeck took over the Federal Ministry of Economics, it was no different. The Green politician replaced his ministry’s management team almost completely; of the 11 department heads, only three remained.
Kirsten Scholl has stayed. Peter Altmaier (CDU) appointed her to Head the Europe department in 2017, and Habeck is keeping her. The 54-year-old civil servant has no party affiliation and is considered very loyal. So the new minister hardly has to fear that Scholl will thwart his agenda at the EU level.
She would certainly have the means to do so. The Economics Ministry traditionally plays a central role in the German government’s coordination of European policy; together with the Foreign Office, it is responsible for Germany’s positioning in the Council. Scholl has to sign off on every directive that falls within the purview of Coreper 1, the Committee of Permanent Representatives of the Member States in Brussels.
To this end, she constantly coordinates with the other ministries, tries to mediate conflicts and, if necessary, moves them up to the next level of state secretaries. The German government’s policy needs “a solid European foundation,” she says.
This also involves coordinating with other governments and forging possible alliances. Scholl particularly likes the working style of her colleagues from Scandinavia, who are “unpretentious, modern and reliable,” she says, which makes cooperation much easier.
Her interest in Europe was aroused early. Her family lived in Portugal from 1973 to 1975, where her father built up a photographic camera factory. She thus experienced the Carnation Revolution that overthrew long-term dictator Salazar.
She was also influenced by her French godmother, says Scholl. Her mother had lived with her in Paris as an au pair, and the two families have been closely bonded ever since. “We often talked, she was deeply convinced of German-French friendship.” By staying with her godmother and taking language courses, she also learned to speak French fluently.
This later proved beneficial to her career. “Without my French skills, I would hardly have been able to take responsibility for the European department,” she says. Minister Altmaier, for example, loved to speak in Molière’s language, so meetings with his colleague Bruno Le Maire were often held largely in French.
Habeck also cultivates a close relationship with Paris – the close ties are a central component of Germany’s European policy. Given their family ties, Scholl was particularly touched when she was honored with France’s Order of Merit in January for her commitment to bilateral relations.
Europe was a thread running through her career as a civil servant. After three years in the ministry’s human resources department, she worked at the Permanent Representation in Brussels for a few months in 2000 before taking parental leave. After the birth of her two children, she initially managed regional policy at the BMWi and was then involved in the negotiations on a European constitution and the Lisbon Treaty. In 2010, she took over as Head of Unit of the Future of Europe, later becoming Sub-Department Head. Altmaier then promoted her to Head of Department.
Over this long period, Scholl has witnessed how relations between the EU states have changed – and not always for the better. The lawyer wrote her dissertation in Munich on interstate liability in Community law long before legal disputes such as the one between Poland and the Czech Republic over the open-cast lignite mine in Turów arose. “In the ’90s, it was still considered very theoretical that one member state would sue another for damages,” she says. “In a good family, such a thing didn’t happen, it was said at the time.” Till Hoppe
MEPs of the Environment and Economics Committees in the European Parliament celebrated their vote yesterday as an “important milestone victory”: They voted by a majority against the inclusion of nuclear power and natural gas in the EU taxonomy. Members of both committees had objected to the Commission’s plan. My colleague Leonie Düngefeld explains what happens next.
Using so-called Solidarity Lanes, the EU wants to help transport millions of tons of grain from Ukraine and bring it to the global market, where it is urgently needed. Mostly by truck and rail. While this was well-meant, said Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Agrarian Policy in the EU parliament, transporting such vast amounts of exports is only possible by sea. Focus should now be on the Danube region and the Romanian Black Sea ports. Timo Landenberger has the details.
There is a new case against Apple. After disputes over apps and payment options in the App Store, it is this time about access to customer data. Has Apple also taken illegal advantage here? Torsten Kleinz has summarized what the investigation by the German Federal Cartel Office is all about.
When Robert Habeck took over the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, positions inside the Ministry were reshuffled. Most of the top posts were reassigned – but not those in the ministry’s European department. Till Hoppe introduces Kirsten Scholl in today’s Profile.
MEPs of the Environment and Economic Affairs Committees in the European Parliament yesterday voted against the Delegated Act under which the European Commission wants to include nuclear power and natural gas in the EU taxonomy. During a joint meeting of the two committees, 76 MEPs voted across political groups in favor of the rejection, four abstained and 62 voted against it. In early July, the plenary will vote on the resolution – and make the final decision on whether the legislation will be passed.
With the second Delegated Act on the EU taxonomy proposed in January, the Commission wants to designate nuclear energy and natural gas as sustainable economic activities. In March, MEPs from the Greens/EFA and S&D had raised objections to this, formally initiating the veto procedure. Then, on May 20, a cross-party alliance of MEPs from the Environment and Economic Affairs Committees had submitted a resolution. It was unclear whether enough MEPs from the EPP and Renew groups would also support the resolution. Both groups were at least not unanimous in their support for the veto. Last week, however, MEPs from all four groups had jointly campaigned for the objection.
“For the upcoming plenary vote on the taxonomy, today’s voting result in the committees is an important milestone victory,” Delara Burkhardt (SPD), member of the Environment Committee, told Europe.Table. The fact that an agreement with the naturally more business-oriented Economic Committee was achieved gave her hope. “However, we should not be too sure about the votes in the plenum in July. The nuclear and gas lobbies will step up their efforts again to ensure a different end result.”
“The relevant committees of the European Parliament are sending a clear signal to stop the greenwashing of nuclear power and gas,” said Jutta Paulus (Greens), also a member of the Environment Committee. Only the Parliament could now prevent the taxonomy’s credibility from being destroyed, she added. “Because investors will not have confidence in a label that downplays the climate impact of fossil gas and the radiating waste of nuclear power plants.” She expects all German MEPs to take a firm stand against the Commission’s plan.
At a press conference prior to the vote, MEPs from the Greens, S&D, Renew and EPP groups had sharply criticized the Commission’s actions. Swedish MEP Emma Wiesner (Renew) spoke of a “ping-pong game between Germany and France” who enforced their respective political interests. “The taxonomy must be based on scientific findings and must not be politically instrumentalized,” Wiesner said.
Whether nuclear energy and natural gas should be labeled as sustainable economic activities has so far not only caused opposition in the EU Parliament. An expert opinion published by Deutsche Umwelthilfe (DUH) in January declared the inclusion of nuclear energy and natural gas in the EU taxonomy to be incompatible with both current EU law and the German constitution (Europe.Table reported). The Commission would not only lack the formal authority to draft the delegated act. It also violates the precautionary principle laid down in the European treaties, which obliges risk prevention, and the taxonomy regulation itself.
An expert opinion commissioned by the Austrian government also concluded that the Commission was overstepping its powers and the provisions laid down in the Taxonomy Regulation with the Delegated Act. For this reason, the expert opinion sees high chances for a legal action, which Austria and also Luxembourg had announced in the event the act is passed (Europe.Table reported).
“If this watering down goes through, it will be an incredible reputation damage to the EU Commission’s objective that will be hard to heal,” Kristina Jeromin, Managing Director of the Green and Sustainable Finance Cluster Germany (SFCG), said on Monday at a discussion in the run-up to the vote. As soon as the business community feels that politicians are not proceeding with the necessary will, it falls far short of its potential, she said. Credibility among the population would also dwindle.
Furthermore, the work of the expert panel that advised the Commission on the taxonomy had been scientifically based and aligned with the EU climate targets. The proposal to label nuclear energy and natural gas as sustainable undermines this work. It is unclear what consequences this will have for achieving the climate targets.
The plenary will vote on the resolution in the first week of July. An absolute majority is required for it to be passed and force the Commission to withdraw or amend its proposal: 353 votes. Whether the rally will work and this many deputies join the veto is uncertain. In the meantime, a mood is emerging, explained Michael Bloss (Greens): “An alliance of just under 200 S&D, Greens and Left, a few Liberals and some Conservatives will certainly vote for the rejection of the legal act. Over 100 MEPs are currently considered undecided, and the vote of another 100 MEPs is unclear.”
The close result in the committees offered a glimpse of the vote in plenary, said Joachim Schuster, Economic and Financial Policy Spokesman for the SPD MEPs. “Apparently, parts of the deeply divided EPP have not yet realized the gravity of the situation.” He said the EU Commission must learn to take the Parliament’s proposals seriously. Schuster is in favor of including a special category for nuclear power and gas in the taxonomy, which includes a clear phase-out scenario.
The Parliament and the European Council have until July 11 to veto the Commission’s proposal. The Council is no longer expected to object. Although the German government has now also announced its rejection of the legislation, there is no majority among other member states. If no majority is reached in Parliament either, the Delegated Act will become legally binding from January 2023.
The situation is dramatic, Markian Dmytrasevych told the European Parliament’s Agriculture Committee on Tuesday. Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Agriculture is responsible for food exports of the country and faces an unprecedented challenge. Estimates are that more than 20 million tons of grain are stuck in the country as a result of the war and the blockade of Ukrainian ports.
The food is urgently needed on the global market and time is pressing: The next harvest already begins in July, at which point the silos should actually be empty. The European Commission has therefore launched an action plan to support Ukraine’s exports. The grain is to be transported by truck and rail from the country to the EU ports on the North Sea, the Baltic Sea and the Mediterranean Sea via so-called Solidarity Lanes.
Although well-meant, it is ultimately merely a drop in the bucket, Dmytrasevych said. Usually, Ukraine would be exporting 5-6 million tonnes per month, he said, but in March it exported only 200,000 tonnes. A lot more cannot be in June either, despite the Solidarity Lanes. 2.4 million tons is said to be the maximum of what is currently possible. By comparison, before the war broke out, Ukraine exported five to six million tons of grain per month, which is roughly equivalent to Germany’s annual export volume.
Ukraine handled more than 90 percent of these deliveries by sea; alternative transport routes simply lacked capacity. The only real solution would be for Russia to abandon the blockade of our ports and make regular shipping possible again, the deputy minister said.
During a visit to Turkey last week, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov blamed Ukraine for the Black Sea blockade. He called on the country to clear the ports of the mines placed there. Russia would not use this for its own benefit. But Ukraine does not trust this offer.
In the Agriculture Committee, Dmytrasevych advocated strengthening the Danube region to transport grain via the river and connecting waterways to Romania’s Black Sea ports. The concrete proposals:
However, Norbert Lins (CDU), Chairman of the Agriculture Committee, pointed out that concentrating too much on one transport route would also make it particularly vulnerable. Thus, it is right to further improve the northern routes via Poland and the Baltic States. Here, bottlenecks at borders need to be eliminated as far as possible.
Next week, the committee plans to travel to the Ukrainian border to assess the logistical challenges. Due to a lack of capacity, thousands of trucks are waiting there for customs clearance. Rail transport is also stalled, as Ukraine uses a different gauge than the EU. (Europe.Table reported)
It is already clear that the storage facilities will probably not be empty in time. Ukraine is expecting only about 50 percent of the yield from previous years for the upcoming harvest. Nevertheless, a storage deficit of about 15 million tons must be assumed, according to Dmytrasevych. Especially since some storage facilities have been destroyed by Russian attacks or are blocked by Russia. This would make the creation of temporary and provisional grain storage facilities essential in order to save food from spoiling and not exacerbate the global food crisis.
“It is a cynical attempt by Russia to use food for military purposes,” said Martin Hlaváček (Renew) in the Agriculture Committee. It would target the EU, not Ukraine. “It is about destabilizing the European community by raising food prices and ultimately triggering a wave of migration from developing countries where people are starving.”
Ukrainian grain accounts for twelve percent of global exports. Russia and Belarus are also important export countries and have largely ceased their exports. However, countries in the so-called MENA region, i.e. the Middle East and North Africa, are particularly dependent on them. Egypt, for example, imports more than 80 percent of its wheat from Ukraine and Russia. As a result, the World Food Program has already warned of impending famine and mass migration from the MENA region to Europe.
The new investigation is part of a whole series of other antitrust cases involving Apple’s iron-fisted control over its own ecosystem. The App Store is a persistent point of contention, as the US corporation does not just decide who is allowed to install its apps on the iPhone and iPad and who is not. Particularly disputed are the interferences in money flows. Apple charges a fee for most of the sales that app developers make.
In 2021, EU Commissioner for Competition Margrethe Vestager accused Apple’s App Store of violating competition law because, among other things, the company allegedly hindered its competitor Spotify. In April, it was revealed that the Commission even wants to expand the antitrust action. In January, the Dutch market regulator had fined the iPhone group €5 million for not approving dating apps that wanted to offer their customers a payment system independent of Apple. Apple has been in a long-running dispute with Fortnite developer Epic for years, as the latter, like Spotify, does not want to share its revenues on Apple’s terms. There is also a dispute about access to the NFC chips necessary for payments; the Commission accuses Apple of favoring its own payment service.
The German Federal Cartel Office is now investigating the other side of the medal: Because until now, advertising revenue was a way to monetize apps without paying Apple any commissions. With its advertising ID IDFA, the company had even created an interface that was particularly important for the online advertising industry. Since Apple users were classified as a particularly affluent target group, app developers could charge advertisers high prices – without giving any of it to Apple. However, the company profited indirectly through a wide range of apps on its platform.
With the iOS 14.5 update in April 2021, Apple did not end these business partnerships but shook them to their foundations. As part of the App Tracking Transparency Framework, app developers must first ask their users for consent to process certain data and have been cut off from others altogether. For example, Apple suppresses many tracking cookies by default in its Safari browser, which are used to create overarching advertising profiles. As a result, advertising rates for Apple users plummeted. Facebook accuses Apple that the new privacy regulations have cost the social media provider $10 billion in just one year.
Apple critics also accuse the company of favoring its own apps. For example, the banner with which Apple itself asks for permission to display personalized ads seems much less menacing than in other apps. In addition, Apple’s own advertising business has gone through the roof after the introduction of anti-tracking technology: Consulting firm Omdia calculated a 238 percent increase to $3.7 billion in 2021. Apple, on the other hand, published a study in April denying a connection between the tracking stop and its own advertising growth.
The German Federal Cartel Office will have no shortage of complaints. Both publishers and advertisers filed complaints against Apple’s anti-tracking measures in April 2021. Andreas Mundt, President of the German Federal Cartel Office, is now stepping on the gas: He has launched new investigations even before his agency has identified the cross-market significance for competition within the context of Section 19a of the Act against Restraints of Competition (Europe Table reported).
The sheer volume of proceedings seems to have at least made an impression on Apple. As was announced on Monday, the company will refrain from giving its own streaming service Apple Music a particularly prominent place on the home screen in the upcoming update to iOS 15.6. However, given such minimal concessions, any settlement on issues such as commissions and advertising data is likely to take many years.
Whenever a new minister takes office, the great staff shuffling begins. When Robert Habeck took over the Federal Ministry of Economics, it was no different. The Green politician replaced his ministry’s management team almost completely; of the 11 department heads, only three remained.
Kirsten Scholl has stayed. Peter Altmaier (CDU) appointed her to Head the Europe department in 2017, and Habeck is keeping her. The 54-year-old civil servant has no party affiliation and is considered very loyal. So the new minister hardly has to fear that Scholl will thwart his agenda at the EU level.
She would certainly have the means to do so. The Economics Ministry traditionally plays a central role in the German government’s coordination of European policy; together with the Foreign Office, it is responsible for Germany’s positioning in the Council. Scholl has to sign off on every directive that falls within the purview of Coreper 1, the Committee of Permanent Representatives of the Member States in Brussels.
To this end, she constantly coordinates with the other ministries, tries to mediate conflicts and, if necessary, moves them up to the next level of state secretaries. The German government’s policy needs “a solid European foundation,” she says.
This also involves coordinating with other governments and forging possible alliances. Scholl particularly likes the working style of her colleagues from Scandinavia, who are “unpretentious, modern and reliable,” she says, which makes cooperation much easier.
Her interest in Europe was aroused early. Her family lived in Portugal from 1973 to 1975, where her father built up a photographic camera factory. She thus experienced the Carnation Revolution that overthrew long-term dictator Salazar.
She was also influenced by her French godmother, says Scholl. Her mother had lived with her in Paris as an au pair, and the two families have been closely bonded ever since. “We often talked, she was deeply convinced of German-French friendship.” By staying with her godmother and taking language courses, she also learned to speak French fluently.
This later proved beneficial to her career. “Without my French skills, I would hardly have been able to take responsibility for the European department,” she says. Minister Altmaier, for example, loved to speak in Molière’s language, so meetings with his colleague Bruno Le Maire were often held largely in French.
Habeck also cultivates a close relationship with Paris – the close ties are a central component of Germany’s European policy. Given their family ties, Scholl was particularly touched when she was honored with France’s Order of Merit in January for her commitment to bilateral relations.
Europe was a thread running through her career as a civil servant. After three years in the ministry’s human resources department, she worked at the Permanent Representation in Brussels for a few months in 2000 before taking parental leave. After the birth of her two children, she initially managed regional policy at the BMWi and was then involved in the negotiations on a European constitution and the Lisbon Treaty. In 2010, she took over as Head of Unit of the Future of Europe, later becoming Sub-Department Head. Altmaier then promoted her to Head of Department.
Over this long period, Scholl has witnessed how relations between the EU states have changed – and not always for the better. The lawyer wrote her dissertation in Munich on interstate liability in Community law long before legal disputes such as the one between Poland and the Czech Republic over the open-cast lignite mine in Turów arose. “In the ’90s, it was still considered very theoretical that one member state would sue another for damages,” she says. “In a good family, such a thing didn’t happen, it was said at the time.” Till Hoppe
