As announced yesterday, the traffic light coalition in Berlin has presented its coalition agreement. And it is not only comprehensive but also highly relevant in terms of European policy.
And that is the core of this issue: we have examined the work program of the SPD, the Greens, and the FDP for you to see to what extent Europe has been taken into account here, where European goals are promoted or also ignored, how this German Federal Government wants to act in Europe in the future, et cetera. Will there be an interplay between the national and European levels? Or will Germany’s role in Europe become that of an outsider with the traffic light coalition, whether in climate, digital, transport, or financial policy?
How the further procedure up to the formation of the government looks like and what was to be experienced at the presentation yesterday and what was missing, I describe to you today.
My colleague Eric Bonse analyzes what the traffic light coalition will mean for the rule of law mechanism, European electoral law, and the common foreign and security policy – and whether Ursula von der Leyen will have to reckon with more headwinds from Berlin in the future.
Till Hoppe explains why Christian Lindner in his new role as finance minister need not be the bogeyman of the other European capitals, but why Germany will not jump to the side of the reformers either.
It’s no secret that Germany would like to be climate champion. Yesterday, Christian Lindner spoke of the most ambitious climate protection plan of any industrialized country, and the Greens even want to get on the 1.5-degree path with the coalition agreement – but Timo Landenberger has found out where this plan still has significant deficits.
Digital is better, as the band Tocotronic, equally popular with the FDP, SPD, and Greens, once said. Their loyal listeners may now be allowed to govern the federal government, but in the digital sphere, the EU has decisive powers in many areas. I have summarised whether and how national projects and the European synthesis of the parts fit together.
Is Germany now becoming a sustainability showcase? The intention is there, but that alone is not enough. Not in trade agreements, not in supply chains, not in the taxonomy, as Till Hoppe analyses.
It was already clear from the exploratory paper that the traffic lights will not make any great leaps in transport. But the coalition agreement cannot be described as unambitious, even if in some places the principle of hope (for technological solutions that have yet to be developed) is also governing, as Lukas Scheid reports.
“The traffic light stands.” With this sentence, which is both a goal and a central insight, Chancellor-designate Olaf Scholz yesterday opened the presentation of the coalition agreement between the SPD, Alliance 90/The Greens and the FDP. Scholz, FDP leader Christian Lindner, the Green party leadership duo Annalena Baerbock and Robert Habeck, and SPD leader Saskia Esken and her outgoing co-chair Norbert Walter-Borjans never tired of emphasizing how much closer they had become.
Unity that this coalition will need. On Tuesday, in the middle of the final spurt of negotiations, the chancellor called the negotiators of the traffic light coalition to discuss the Corona situation with them. One of many inherited crises – but the most urgent one that won’t tolerate a 100-day grace period.
The 177-page coalition agreement is entitled “Dare more progress”. It is no coincidence that this is supposed to be reminiscent of Willy Brandt’s “Dare more democracy”. The post-Merkel era, as the Liberals, Greens, and Social Democrats have resolved, is to be a time of new beginnings. And it should also be European – even if the European chapter does not begin until page 131 of the treaty: almost as a matter of course, the European regulations and projects are part of the substantive chapters (we explain them to you in this issue on a topic-by-topic basis).
And there is a method to this – or to be more precise: in the future it should once again have the Community method. The coalition government wants to give it priority again, but with a right of initiative for the European Parliament” preferably in the treaties”. In this way, it wants to give the EU institutions more weight again. An offer to Emmanuel Macron? Or rather an announcement immediately before the French presidency? According to Olaf Scholz, they want to “make European policy together”.
The only question is: how? The coalition partners claim that they want to coordinate more effectively on European policy issues – the “German vote” in the Brussels Council is to become a thing of the past. The parties are still silent on exactly how this is to be achieved. The coalition agreement speaks of “regular coordination of European policy” and of “close cooperation” between the ministers and the Chancellor. One thing is clear: Olaf Scholz wants to hold the reins in this key area himself.
It is striking how FDP leader Christian Lindner emphasizes the great unity in all the differences between the coalition partners. Nothing is reminiscent of the man who, four years ago almost to the day, would rather “not govern than govern wrongly”. Lindner is suddenly the ambassador for the traffic light: he got to know Olaf Scholz anew in these negotiations, he is a good chancellor for this country. Scholz and Lindner are the visible players on this day in Berlin. But maybe that’s not so bad: there are no FDP, Green, and SPD ministers in this government, Lindner continued. Instead, ministers serve the country.
But exactly these ministers were not publicly named at the event. For the Greens and the Liberals, this question seems to have been settled – but for the SPD it is still open.
For the Greens, Robert Habeck is to head the Economy and Climate Protection department as Vice Chancellor. Annalena Baerbock is to take over the foreign office. Katrin Göring-Eckardt, who is still the leader of the Green Party, will be responsible for family, seniors, women and youth, Steffi Lemke will be responsible for the environment, nature conservation and nuclear safety, and Anton Hofreiter will be in charge of nutrition and agriculture.
In the FDP, Christian Lindner is to serve as finance minister, Marco Buschmann in the justice portfolio, Volker Wissing as transport and digital minister and Bettina Stark-Watzinger as education and research minister.
But who of the Social Democrats, apart from Olaf Scholz and Wolfgang Schmidt (Chief Minister), may sit on the other five SPD-marked chairs at the cabinet table, is still open. The soon-to-be chancellor said he wanted to tackle the personnel issues now and discuss them with all parties involved.
It is considered likely that Labour and Social Affairs Minister Hubertus Heil will remain in place. But who will lead the SPD’s ministries of health, interior, economic cooperation and development, defence, and construction and housing, which have been separated from the Federal Ministry of the Interior? First the content, then the posts, according to the social democratic process – which, however, points to internal disagreement.
In European policy, the traffic light coalition formulates new goals: The European Union should act with “strategic sovereignty” and be further developed into a “federal European state“. A “Social Europe”, which Chancellor Angela Merkel avoided as much as possible, is also high on the agenda of the new government.
The traffic light coalition also wants to stand up for the rule of law more strongly than Merkel. So Poland and Hungary must expect more pressure from Germany. First of all the rule of law conditionality introduced at the beginning of 2021 is to be used, something Merkel had put on the back burner. The plan is to “use and enforce the existing rule of law instruments more consistently and promptly”.
This is also a call to Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who is hesitating concerning a pending ruling by the European Court of Justice. Indirectly, the traffic light coalition is even threatening to withdraw EU money from the “Next Generation EU” fund. The coalition agreement states that the plans for the reconstruction fund will only be approved “if conditions such as an independent judiciary are secured”.
In European foreign policy, the new coalition is seeking to abolish the principle of unanimity. To achieve the desired qualified majority in the Council, it wants to approach small countries like Luxembourg, which have so far been reluctant to do so. In addition, the traffic light coalition is in favor of upgrading the status of the EU foreign affairs commissioner – he or she is to become a “real” EU foreign minister (or foreign minister).
In terms of defense policy, the goals are also ambitious. The new coalition wants to create “joint command structures and a joint civil-military headquarters”. The coalition agreement states that interoperability and complementarity with NATO structures and capabilities must be ensured. The traffic light coalition also wants a “constructive dialogue” with Russia, but are distancing themselves verbally from China.
With a view to the European elections in 2024, the traffic light partners have made it clear: “We support a uniform European electoral law with partly transnational lists and a binding system of leading candidates. A power struggle over the appointment of the EU Commission as in 2019 should thus be ruled out.
This decision could benefit von der Leyen. The coalition agreement gives the Greens the right to propose the next German commissioner. However, with the proviso that “the Commission President does not come from Germany”.
Green representative Sven Giegold explains the passage as follows: If the upcoming electoral law reform enshrines the top candidate principle and the EPP successfully enters the next European election campaign with CDU politician von der Leyen, then the new federal government will not oppose it. Then the Greens would have been “dealing with lemons”.
It was one of the biggest worries in Paris, Rome, or Madrid: that a new federal government with the participation of the FDP would lay down red lines right away in the coalition agreement and thus stifle the incipient discussion on the reform of the European budget rules. The more or less discreet hints from the other capitals have had an effect.
FDP leader Christian Lindner is anything but the choice of the governments in France, Italy, and Spain for the post of German finance minister. But the passages in the coalition agreement on European economic and financial policy read more openly than the FDP election manifesto would have suggested.
It does repeat the wording from the exploratory paper, according to which the Stability and Growth Pact has “proven its flexibility”. At the same time, however, it also speaks of a “further development of the fiscal policy rules”. This should be geared towards securing economic growth, maintaining debt sustainability, and ensuring sustainable and climate-friendly investment. At the same time, “the Stability Pact should become simpler and more transparent, also to strengthen its enforcement”.
FDP deputy leader Nicola Beer stresses that the planned further development does not mean a departure from the limits in the Stability Pact, three percent for the deficit and 60 percent for public debt. Lucas Guttenberg, deputy director of the Jacques Delors Centre, nevertheless sees the formulations as a major step: “The fact that the traffic light coalition is explicitly prepared to further develop the fiscal rules goes beyond the exploratory paper and is very good news: it opens up the possibility of finally adapting the fiscal rules to reality.”
The coalition agreement also contains no clear position in the debate on a new edition of the EU bond-financed reconstruction instrument: “Next Generation EU (NGEU) is an instrument limited in time and amount,” it does say. Beer also stresses that the 750 billion pot is “not a permanent institution”. But Guttenberg does not see this as a clear rejection: “The fact that NGEU is limited in amount and scope is a correct and trivial statement: the treaty does not specify a possible follow-up instrument.
The coalition partners are taking a major step forward concerning the banking union: they declare themselves “willing to create European reinsurance for national deposit guarantee schemes “. Germany had long put the brakes on the European deposit insurance scheme (EDIS) at the European level. With the agreement, “a ten-year blockade in the direction of banking union will finally be lifted“, says Green finance politician Sven Giegold.
However, Giegold also makes it clear that this does not mean Berlin’s approval of a full communitization of deposit insurance, as the EU Commission is seeking. The coalition agreement lists several restrictions: The prerequisite is a further reduction of risks in bank balance sheets, the further strengthening of the resolution regime and the preservation of the institutional protection of the savings banks and Volksbanks – “with the clear goal of avoiding additional economic burdens on the small and medium-sized banks belonging to them”.
Green Giegold also stresses that the coalition partners want to set different accents than their predecessors, but not shift the foundation of German European policy: “The new German government will also insist on solidity and solidarity.”
With an immediate climate protection program including all necessary laws, ordinances, and measures, the new traffic light coalition wants to consistently orient its climate, energy, and economic policy towards the 1.5-degree path by 2022 at the latest. In this context, all draft legislation is to be reviewed in terms of its impact on the climate. The coalition agreement does not specify what exactly this “climate check” is to look like.
However, the path to climate neutrality should be as open to technology as possible. The term is mentioned several times in the chapter on Climate, Energy, and Transformation is an important concern for the FDP in particular and may have caused the Greens some stomachaches.
As expected, they were able to push through one of their core demands: The coal phase-out should take place as early as 2030, eight years earlier than previously planned. At least “ideally”, as they say. For Michael Bloss, climate policy spokesman for the Greens in the EU Parliament, a key achievement. “This alone will save us an enormous amount of CO2,” the MEP, who was involved in the coalition negotiations for the Greens, tells Europe.Table. “But it was not a walk in the park. For many points, we had to fight.”
This also includes the ambitious target for renewable energies. Despite the increased demand for electricity, 80 percent of electricity is to come from renewable sources in 2030. Accordingly, the expansion is to be massively accelerated and approval procedures are to be significantly shortened.
In addition to a solar offensive on as many suitable roofs as possible, onshore wind energy, the expansion of which has stalled in recent years, is to be accelerated again, with two percent of the state’s land area to be used for this purpose. The traffic light coalition also wants to significantly increase wind power capacities at sea. However, this can only be done in cooperation with other European partners, says Sylwia Andralojc-Bodych from the environmental organization Germanwatch.
“Without harmonious interaction between Germany and EU member states, the generation potential in the Baltic Sea, estimated by the European Commission at 93 gigawatts, will hardly be exploited.” In any case, Germany will remain an energy importing country. So whether 80 percent of electricity comes from renewable energies in 2030 also depends on whether partner countries and the EU follow suit.
Until security of supply is ensured by renewable energies, the traffic light coalition is counting on the construction of new gas-fired power plants that can be converted to climate-neutral gases such as hydrogen (H2-ready). Natural gas is indispensable for the transition period, according to the paper, which also contains a commitment to the gas phase-out, albeit in a somewhat vague form. According to the paper, operating licenses for power plants are to be issued in such a way that operations beyond 2045 can only continue with non-fossil fuels.
Until then, gas will also play an important role in the production of hydrogen. While domestic production based on renewable energies has priority, the paper states that for a rapid ramp-up, the focus must be on a technology-open design. At the European level, the traffic light coalition wants to advocate a uniform certification of hydrogen and its derived products, strengthen European import partnerships and quickly implement the IPCEI Hydrogen.
In addition, the future government is backing a strengthening of EU emissions trading and wants to push for an ETS minimum price of 60 euros. This is roughly equivalent to the current price level. “I will push in the EU Parliament for us to actually get that,” says Michael Bloss, ETS shadow rapporteur for the Greens.
However, since energy prices have already been very high for several weeks, the traffic light wants to stick to the current price path of the Fuel Emissions Trading Act for the time being and not increase it additionally. The Greens had demanded this, but could not prevail here.
In addition, the financing of the EEG surcharge via the electricity price is to end on 1 January 2023. With the completion of the coal phase-out, the promotion of renewables is to be phased out completely. At the same time, however, tax concessions for the economic use of electricity are to be dismantled.
To protect industry, the traffic light coalition also wants to advocate effective carbon leakage protection and is committed to the EU’s Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM). When amending the European climate, environment, and energy aid guidelines and other regulations, the coalition wants to “ensure that the competitiveness of companies is maintained”. With the “right framework conditions”, companies are to be supported on their way to climate neutrality. These include, in particular, climate protection differential contracts, competitive energy prices, a transformation fund at KfW, and incentives for lead markets and for climate-neutral products.
Global climate and energy foreign policy are to be shaped by international climate clubs, based on the initiative of Germany and the EU. During the German G7 presidency in 2022, the traffic light coalition wants to work towards the medium-term establishment of a global emissions trading system with a uniform CO2 price and joint CO2 border adjustment. Lukas Scheid
Thinking about European and national projects together is a firm declaration of intent in the coalition agreement: “A digital awakening that safeguards our values, digital sovereignty, and a strong technology location can only succeed within a progressive European framework,” it says on page 15. The focus will now also be on the Federal Ministry of Transport, Building, and Urban Affairs: With Volker Wissing (FDP) at the helm, the building on Invalidenstraße is set to become a key driver ministry for digital as well. But there are relevant digital projects in almost every department.
However, digital progress depends on two aspects: In which environment should something happen – and with which political and regulatory tool can it be addressed? At the same time, European regulations always bring about changes to primarily national projects.
In national digital policy, of course, the expansion of infrastructure with fiber optics and mobile telephones plays a key role, and here the coalition partners are primarily steering the course with procedural changes such as the gigabit land register. In the case of administrative modernization, too, it is less a case of reinventing the wheel and more a case of following the path that has already been taken.
Digitization is to become the standard in the healthcare system, and citizens are to have to actively opt out of the electronic patient file, which is in line with the DSGVO. In the future, it should be possible to provide all medical services digitally, up to and including “tele-emergency medical care” – the coalition partners do not reveal how these plans are to be compatible across Europe, at least not in the text of the agreement.
A digital legislative portal is also planned, which will contain the current status, including synopses, and will test public comment options. This could be closely linked to the planned amendment to the Lobby Register Act, which is intended to record contacts at speaker level in the future, and the plan to include the “legislative footprint“, i.e. input from outside, in draft legislation. Here, too, there is regrettably no indication of any conceivable interoperability with European systems and projects.
Conflict potential arises in the question of the regulatory handling of data: The coalition agreement envisages, among other things, a Data Act to create “standardized and machine-readable access to self-generated data”. However, this could also be part of the regulations of the proposal for a Data Act at the European level planned for the end of 2021. The same applies to the coalition’s plans for data in agriculture: here, too, the targets of the traffic light and the EU level would have to be reconciled.
Concerning data protection, the GDPR is to remain untouched, but the cooperation of the supervisory authorities is to be strengthened both nationally and at the European level. The traffic light coalition could have a special effect on the e-privacy regulation, which has been stuck for years: Here, the SPD, Greens, and FDP want an “ambitious” regulation to be passed quickly, without going into further detail.
Closely related to both areas is the position of the upcoming federal government on data retention: here the negotiators have omitted a political assessment and simply referred to the pending rulings of the European Court of Justice as justification. Nevertheless: the VDS is to be history. What the coalition agreement now envisages corresponds to the “quick freeze” concept, i.e. storage on an ad hoc basis.
The coalition is committed to the Digital Services Act. Based on this act, they want to revise the Telemedia Act and the Network Enforcement Act, among other things. However, the explanations on the DSA are rather slim – for example, which authority is to become the German Digital Services Coordinator is not specified further.
However, elsewhere the Bundeskartellamt has been given a strong role in dealing with platforms. This also refers to the negotiations on the Digital Markets Act. The DMA is supported in principle – but with the proviso that it should not be weaker than national law.
This refers to the amendments to the Act against Restraints of Competition (GWB) still implemented under the black-red government, in particular, the Section 19a introduced with it, which the Bundeskartellamt is currently examining for its effectiveness in various proceedings. The coalition wants to further develop the GWB. Merger control is also to be further sharpened at the European level and killer acquisitions banned.
The European effects of the projects in the area of IT security are not exactly foreseeable. For example, the traffic light coalition wants to introduce a right to encryption as well as security-by-design/default as a requirement. This is partly in conflict with plans of the EU Commission, for example on the subject of chat surveillance. Elsewhere in the coalition agreement, too, “measures to scan private communications” are rejected.
The effects are likely to be more far-reaching elsewhere: The future federal government wants to prohibit the purchase of vulnerabilities by government agencies and establish a reporting system via the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) so that security vulnerabilities that become known are closed by manufacturers as quickly as possible. This is flanked, among other things, by the announcement of an “ambitious cyber security policy”, which is intended to empower the Bundeswehr. At the same time, cyberspace is to be peaceful – in terms of foreign policy, the focus is on international legal norms and an arms control regime.
The change from a black-red coalition to a traffic light coalition has led to significant differences, particularly in the areas of data protection and IT security.
Here, too, the coalition partners have not forgotten Europe: AI, in particular, is to be promoted. AI regulation is considered good if liability is clarified and a multi-level risk approach is included. The fact that biometric recognition in public spaces is categorically ruled out by the coalition corresponds to the other change from the previous German government line in the security sector and is likely to mean negotiation work at the European level – or an opening clause for national legislators.
In the case of key technologies, on the other hand, this also corresponds to the previous German line: the EU Chips Act is to be supported, the IPCEIs strengthened. For the FDP, the Greens, and the SPD, quantum communication, distributed ledger technologies (the word blockchain was so elegantly avoided), robotics, and cyber security continue to be among the key technologies that matter.
The positioning on “strategic sovereignty”, which the coalition partners want to increase, also stands for continuity with the policy of the grand coalition. The aim is to “establish our capacity to act in the global context and to be less dependent and vulnerable in important strategic areas such as energy supply, health, raw materials imports, and digital technology”, they say. Of course, without sealing off Europe.
This means better protection of critical technology and infrastructure, as well as strategic consideration of the formulation of standards and public procurement. A concrete example of this reading can be found in the coalition agreement: in the case of critical infrastructures, “non-trustworthy companies” are not to be considered in the expansion. In keeping with this, the coalition partners want to initiate a European open source 5/6G consortium.
Hardly anything currently causes such heated debates in Brussels as the question about whether investments in nuclear power and natural gas should be classified as sustainable. There is not a word about the taxonomy in the coalition agreement. Which does not mean that the three parties have not discussed and argued about it.
The Greens’ negotiator Sven Giegold, for example, had explicitly warned that neither investments in gas nor nuclear energy should be “greenwashed by inclusion in the taxonomy”. The SPD and FDP, on the other hand, are relying on gas as a bridging technology and blocked a clear positioning.
The Greens finally complied and justified this with higher goals: The dispute over nuclear power should not jeopardize the relationship with French President Emmanuel Macron and the desired departure, says Giegold. “That would be a serious mistake in European policy.” Therefore, in the coming weeks, they want to try and get it in the can – in other words, to find a practicable compromise.
Regarding environmental and social standards for supply chains, the struggle between the three parties resulted in very little. “We support an effective EU supply chain law, based on the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, that does not overburden small and medium-sized enterprises,” it says. Green trade politician Anna Cavazzini, an advocate of far-reaching standards for companies, points to the word “effective”. She said details would be discussed when the Commission presented its draft due diligence law, which had been scheduled for December.
The sections on trade policy, on the other hand, clearly bear the signature of the Greens and those in the SPD who are critical of all trade agreements signed so far. A quick ratification of the still pending agreements with Canada, Mercosur, and China can hardly be expected from the traffic light.
The agreement states that the coalition will decide on the ratification of the CETA agreement with Canada after the Federal Constitutional Court has finished its review. A constitutional complaint by the NGOs Foodwatch, Campact, and Mehr Demokratie is still pending. Even if the judges in Karlsruhe reject this appeal, this does not automatically pave the way for ratification of the agreement, which is provisionally in force. Cavazzini sees this as a “great success”: It will give them time to renegotiate with the Canadian government, especially on the investment protection section of the agreement.
The Greens and SPD pushed through that the traffic light will also work beyond CETA to limit the scope of investors for lawsuits. For example, the agreements should “focus investment protection for companies abroad on direct expropriation and discrimination”. Cavazzini hopes this will fuel discussion in Brussels on the issue and lead to a new model chapter on investment protection that will be included in future agreements.
The traffic light also wants to renegotiate the agreement with the Mercosur states. Before ratification, the coalition agreement states that partner countries must make legally binding commitments to environmental, social, and human rights protection, as well as additional practically implementable agreements to protect and preserve existing woodlands.
In addition, they want to ensure that future trade agreements, for example with Chile, New Zealand, or Australia, are “provided with effective sustainability standards using a dispute settlement mechanism”. Here, too, the sticking point is likely to be what the three partners mean by “effective” – sanctions or dialogue formats.
New jobs are to be created in battery production. European battery IPCEIs are to be continued and German cell production expanded. However, automotive expert Ferdinand Dudenhoeffer criticizes that there are no specifics to be found anywhere, “neither in the financing nor in the measures, such as taxation of fossil fuels.” But: Germany is to become the “lead market for electromobility” and put 15 million fully electric cars on the road by 2030.
The traffic light parties also refer to the EU Commission’s proposal to allow only CO2-neutral vehicles from 2035. Germany is supposed to achieve this even sooner. However, no specific date has been set.
Things get a bit more concrete when it comes to the EU fleet limits: the traffic lights generally support these. For Stef Cornelis, Director Germany at the NGO Transport & Environment, this represents a breakthrough. However, he would have preferred more ambitious targets within the framework of fleet regulation. Cornelis demands: The new German government should work to cut emissions of the car fleet by 25 percent from 2025 instead of the proposed 15 percent. Emissions reductions from 2030 on should be raised from 50 to 80 percent
In the upcoming renewal of pollutant standards for vehicles, the traffic light wants to promote an “ambitious” Euro 7 standard. However, it is also emphasized at this point that this standard must take into account added value and jobs. Which environmental criteria it is to meet is not specified. This means that the focus of Euro 7 for the traffic lights is not on more climate protection, but on a lighter burden for the automotive industry.
In any case, there is no explicit mention of phasing out the combustion engine. The formulation on e-fuels found in the exploratory paper has also made it into the coalition agreement: Outside the EU fleet limits, the traffic lights want to continue to approve internal combustion vehicles that can be refueled exclusively with e-fuels. However, the EU fleet regulation does not provide for such an exception. E-fuels are thus only part of the traffic light’s decarbonization strategy on paper. In practice, they are still unlikely to play any role in traffic.
The situation is quite different for aviation. The traffic light supports the “research and market ramp-up of synthetic fuels that enable climate-neutral flying“. “Ambitious quotas” are to serve as an incentive for the market ramp-up. These quotas are not quantified in the coalition agreement. However, the wording of the paper clearly indicates that the aviation sector, in general, is to be held more accountable. Cheap tickets are to be prevented and an aviation levy – if not a kerosene tax – is to be introduced throughout Europe.
When it comes to the decarbonization of shipping, on the other hand, the coalition partners remain rather vague. Quotas for synthetic fuels are to be introduced here as well, but when it comes to the “fit for 55” package, there is only a hollow phrase of “keeping an eye on the overall burden on shipping”. This sounds as if the shipping industry needs to be protected from too tough a line from Brussels. In any case, there are no concrete decarbonization plans for the maritime industry.
As announced yesterday, the traffic light coalition in Berlin has presented its coalition agreement. And it is not only comprehensive but also highly relevant in terms of European policy.
And that is the core of this issue: we have examined the work program of the SPD, the Greens, and the FDP for you to see to what extent Europe has been taken into account here, where European goals are promoted or also ignored, how this German Federal Government wants to act in Europe in the future, et cetera. Will there be an interplay between the national and European levels? Or will Germany’s role in Europe become that of an outsider with the traffic light coalition, whether in climate, digital, transport, or financial policy?
How the further procedure up to the formation of the government looks like and what was to be experienced at the presentation yesterday and what was missing, I describe to you today.
My colleague Eric Bonse analyzes what the traffic light coalition will mean for the rule of law mechanism, European electoral law, and the common foreign and security policy – and whether Ursula von der Leyen will have to reckon with more headwinds from Berlin in the future.
Till Hoppe explains why Christian Lindner in his new role as finance minister need not be the bogeyman of the other European capitals, but why Germany will not jump to the side of the reformers either.
It’s no secret that Germany would like to be climate champion. Yesterday, Christian Lindner spoke of the most ambitious climate protection plan of any industrialized country, and the Greens even want to get on the 1.5-degree path with the coalition agreement – but Timo Landenberger has found out where this plan still has significant deficits.
Digital is better, as the band Tocotronic, equally popular with the FDP, SPD, and Greens, once said. Their loyal listeners may now be allowed to govern the federal government, but in the digital sphere, the EU has decisive powers in many areas. I have summarised whether and how national projects and the European synthesis of the parts fit together.
Is Germany now becoming a sustainability showcase? The intention is there, but that alone is not enough. Not in trade agreements, not in supply chains, not in the taxonomy, as Till Hoppe analyses.
It was already clear from the exploratory paper that the traffic lights will not make any great leaps in transport. But the coalition agreement cannot be described as unambitious, even if in some places the principle of hope (for technological solutions that have yet to be developed) is also governing, as Lukas Scheid reports.
“The traffic light stands.” With this sentence, which is both a goal and a central insight, Chancellor-designate Olaf Scholz yesterday opened the presentation of the coalition agreement between the SPD, Alliance 90/The Greens and the FDP. Scholz, FDP leader Christian Lindner, the Green party leadership duo Annalena Baerbock and Robert Habeck, and SPD leader Saskia Esken and her outgoing co-chair Norbert Walter-Borjans never tired of emphasizing how much closer they had become.
Unity that this coalition will need. On Tuesday, in the middle of the final spurt of negotiations, the chancellor called the negotiators of the traffic light coalition to discuss the Corona situation with them. One of many inherited crises – but the most urgent one that won’t tolerate a 100-day grace period.
The 177-page coalition agreement is entitled “Dare more progress”. It is no coincidence that this is supposed to be reminiscent of Willy Brandt’s “Dare more democracy”. The post-Merkel era, as the Liberals, Greens, and Social Democrats have resolved, is to be a time of new beginnings. And it should also be European – even if the European chapter does not begin until page 131 of the treaty: almost as a matter of course, the European regulations and projects are part of the substantive chapters (we explain them to you in this issue on a topic-by-topic basis).
And there is a method to this – or to be more precise: in the future it should once again have the Community method. The coalition government wants to give it priority again, but with a right of initiative for the European Parliament” preferably in the treaties”. In this way, it wants to give the EU institutions more weight again. An offer to Emmanuel Macron? Or rather an announcement immediately before the French presidency? According to Olaf Scholz, they want to “make European policy together”.
The only question is: how? The coalition partners claim that they want to coordinate more effectively on European policy issues – the “German vote” in the Brussels Council is to become a thing of the past. The parties are still silent on exactly how this is to be achieved. The coalition agreement speaks of “regular coordination of European policy” and of “close cooperation” between the ministers and the Chancellor. One thing is clear: Olaf Scholz wants to hold the reins in this key area himself.
It is striking how FDP leader Christian Lindner emphasizes the great unity in all the differences between the coalition partners. Nothing is reminiscent of the man who, four years ago almost to the day, would rather “not govern than govern wrongly”. Lindner is suddenly the ambassador for the traffic light: he got to know Olaf Scholz anew in these negotiations, he is a good chancellor for this country. Scholz and Lindner are the visible players on this day in Berlin. But maybe that’s not so bad: there are no FDP, Green, and SPD ministers in this government, Lindner continued. Instead, ministers serve the country.
But exactly these ministers were not publicly named at the event. For the Greens and the Liberals, this question seems to have been settled – but for the SPD it is still open.
For the Greens, Robert Habeck is to head the Economy and Climate Protection department as Vice Chancellor. Annalena Baerbock is to take over the foreign office. Katrin Göring-Eckardt, who is still the leader of the Green Party, will be responsible for family, seniors, women and youth, Steffi Lemke will be responsible for the environment, nature conservation and nuclear safety, and Anton Hofreiter will be in charge of nutrition and agriculture.
In the FDP, Christian Lindner is to serve as finance minister, Marco Buschmann in the justice portfolio, Volker Wissing as transport and digital minister and Bettina Stark-Watzinger as education and research minister.
But who of the Social Democrats, apart from Olaf Scholz and Wolfgang Schmidt (Chief Minister), may sit on the other five SPD-marked chairs at the cabinet table, is still open. The soon-to-be chancellor said he wanted to tackle the personnel issues now and discuss them with all parties involved.
It is considered likely that Labour and Social Affairs Minister Hubertus Heil will remain in place. But who will lead the SPD’s ministries of health, interior, economic cooperation and development, defence, and construction and housing, which have been separated from the Federal Ministry of the Interior? First the content, then the posts, according to the social democratic process – which, however, points to internal disagreement.
In European policy, the traffic light coalition formulates new goals: The European Union should act with “strategic sovereignty” and be further developed into a “federal European state“. A “Social Europe”, which Chancellor Angela Merkel avoided as much as possible, is also high on the agenda of the new government.
The traffic light coalition also wants to stand up for the rule of law more strongly than Merkel. So Poland and Hungary must expect more pressure from Germany. First of all the rule of law conditionality introduced at the beginning of 2021 is to be used, something Merkel had put on the back burner. The plan is to “use and enforce the existing rule of law instruments more consistently and promptly”.
This is also a call to Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who is hesitating concerning a pending ruling by the European Court of Justice. Indirectly, the traffic light coalition is even threatening to withdraw EU money from the “Next Generation EU” fund. The coalition agreement states that the plans for the reconstruction fund will only be approved “if conditions such as an independent judiciary are secured”.
In European foreign policy, the new coalition is seeking to abolish the principle of unanimity. To achieve the desired qualified majority in the Council, it wants to approach small countries like Luxembourg, which have so far been reluctant to do so. In addition, the traffic light coalition is in favor of upgrading the status of the EU foreign affairs commissioner – he or she is to become a “real” EU foreign minister (or foreign minister).
In terms of defense policy, the goals are also ambitious. The new coalition wants to create “joint command structures and a joint civil-military headquarters”. The coalition agreement states that interoperability and complementarity with NATO structures and capabilities must be ensured. The traffic light coalition also wants a “constructive dialogue” with Russia, but are distancing themselves verbally from China.
With a view to the European elections in 2024, the traffic light partners have made it clear: “We support a uniform European electoral law with partly transnational lists and a binding system of leading candidates. A power struggle over the appointment of the EU Commission as in 2019 should thus be ruled out.
This decision could benefit von der Leyen. The coalition agreement gives the Greens the right to propose the next German commissioner. However, with the proviso that “the Commission President does not come from Germany”.
Green representative Sven Giegold explains the passage as follows: If the upcoming electoral law reform enshrines the top candidate principle and the EPP successfully enters the next European election campaign with CDU politician von der Leyen, then the new federal government will not oppose it. Then the Greens would have been “dealing with lemons”.
It was one of the biggest worries in Paris, Rome, or Madrid: that a new federal government with the participation of the FDP would lay down red lines right away in the coalition agreement and thus stifle the incipient discussion on the reform of the European budget rules. The more or less discreet hints from the other capitals have had an effect.
FDP leader Christian Lindner is anything but the choice of the governments in France, Italy, and Spain for the post of German finance minister. But the passages in the coalition agreement on European economic and financial policy read more openly than the FDP election manifesto would have suggested.
It does repeat the wording from the exploratory paper, according to which the Stability and Growth Pact has “proven its flexibility”. At the same time, however, it also speaks of a “further development of the fiscal policy rules”. This should be geared towards securing economic growth, maintaining debt sustainability, and ensuring sustainable and climate-friendly investment. At the same time, “the Stability Pact should become simpler and more transparent, also to strengthen its enforcement”.
FDP deputy leader Nicola Beer stresses that the planned further development does not mean a departure from the limits in the Stability Pact, three percent for the deficit and 60 percent for public debt. Lucas Guttenberg, deputy director of the Jacques Delors Centre, nevertheless sees the formulations as a major step: “The fact that the traffic light coalition is explicitly prepared to further develop the fiscal rules goes beyond the exploratory paper and is very good news: it opens up the possibility of finally adapting the fiscal rules to reality.”
The coalition agreement also contains no clear position in the debate on a new edition of the EU bond-financed reconstruction instrument: “Next Generation EU (NGEU) is an instrument limited in time and amount,” it does say. Beer also stresses that the 750 billion pot is “not a permanent institution”. But Guttenberg does not see this as a clear rejection: “The fact that NGEU is limited in amount and scope is a correct and trivial statement: the treaty does not specify a possible follow-up instrument.
The coalition partners are taking a major step forward concerning the banking union: they declare themselves “willing to create European reinsurance for national deposit guarantee schemes “. Germany had long put the brakes on the European deposit insurance scheme (EDIS) at the European level. With the agreement, “a ten-year blockade in the direction of banking union will finally be lifted“, says Green finance politician Sven Giegold.
However, Giegold also makes it clear that this does not mean Berlin’s approval of a full communitization of deposit insurance, as the EU Commission is seeking. The coalition agreement lists several restrictions: The prerequisite is a further reduction of risks in bank balance sheets, the further strengthening of the resolution regime and the preservation of the institutional protection of the savings banks and Volksbanks – “with the clear goal of avoiding additional economic burdens on the small and medium-sized banks belonging to them”.
Green Giegold also stresses that the coalition partners want to set different accents than their predecessors, but not shift the foundation of German European policy: “The new German government will also insist on solidity and solidarity.”
With an immediate climate protection program including all necessary laws, ordinances, and measures, the new traffic light coalition wants to consistently orient its climate, energy, and economic policy towards the 1.5-degree path by 2022 at the latest. In this context, all draft legislation is to be reviewed in terms of its impact on the climate. The coalition agreement does not specify what exactly this “climate check” is to look like.
However, the path to climate neutrality should be as open to technology as possible. The term is mentioned several times in the chapter on Climate, Energy, and Transformation is an important concern for the FDP in particular and may have caused the Greens some stomachaches.
As expected, they were able to push through one of their core demands: The coal phase-out should take place as early as 2030, eight years earlier than previously planned. At least “ideally”, as they say. For Michael Bloss, climate policy spokesman for the Greens in the EU Parliament, a key achievement. “This alone will save us an enormous amount of CO2,” the MEP, who was involved in the coalition negotiations for the Greens, tells Europe.Table. “But it was not a walk in the park. For many points, we had to fight.”
This also includes the ambitious target for renewable energies. Despite the increased demand for electricity, 80 percent of electricity is to come from renewable sources in 2030. Accordingly, the expansion is to be massively accelerated and approval procedures are to be significantly shortened.
In addition to a solar offensive on as many suitable roofs as possible, onshore wind energy, the expansion of which has stalled in recent years, is to be accelerated again, with two percent of the state’s land area to be used for this purpose. The traffic light coalition also wants to significantly increase wind power capacities at sea. However, this can only be done in cooperation with other European partners, says Sylwia Andralojc-Bodych from the environmental organization Germanwatch.
“Without harmonious interaction between Germany and EU member states, the generation potential in the Baltic Sea, estimated by the European Commission at 93 gigawatts, will hardly be exploited.” In any case, Germany will remain an energy importing country. So whether 80 percent of electricity comes from renewable energies in 2030 also depends on whether partner countries and the EU follow suit.
Until security of supply is ensured by renewable energies, the traffic light coalition is counting on the construction of new gas-fired power plants that can be converted to climate-neutral gases such as hydrogen (H2-ready). Natural gas is indispensable for the transition period, according to the paper, which also contains a commitment to the gas phase-out, albeit in a somewhat vague form. According to the paper, operating licenses for power plants are to be issued in such a way that operations beyond 2045 can only continue with non-fossil fuels.
Until then, gas will also play an important role in the production of hydrogen. While domestic production based on renewable energies has priority, the paper states that for a rapid ramp-up, the focus must be on a technology-open design. At the European level, the traffic light coalition wants to advocate a uniform certification of hydrogen and its derived products, strengthen European import partnerships and quickly implement the IPCEI Hydrogen.
In addition, the future government is backing a strengthening of EU emissions trading and wants to push for an ETS minimum price of 60 euros. This is roughly equivalent to the current price level. “I will push in the EU Parliament for us to actually get that,” says Michael Bloss, ETS shadow rapporteur for the Greens.
However, since energy prices have already been very high for several weeks, the traffic light wants to stick to the current price path of the Fuel Emissions Trading Act for the time being and not increase it additionally. The Greens had demanded this, but could not prevail here.
In addition, the financing of the EEG surcharge via the electricity price is to end on 1 January 2023. With the completion of the coal phase-out, the promotion of renewables is to be phased out completely. At the same time, however, tax concessions for the economic use of electricity are to be dismantled.
To protect industry, the traffic light coalition also wants to advocate effective carbon leakage protection and is committed to the EU’s Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM). When amending the European climate, environment, and energy aid guidelines and other regulations, the coalition wants to “ensure that the competitiveness of companies is maintained”. With the “right framework conditions”, companies are to be supported on their way to climate neutrality. These include, in particular, climate protection differential contracts, competitive energy prices, a transformation fund at KfW, and incentives for lead markets and for climate-neutral products.
Global climate and energy foreign policy are to be shaped by international climate clubs, based on the initiative of Germany and the EU. During the German G7 presidency in 2022, the traffic light coalition wants to work towards the medium-term establishment of a global emissions trading system with a uniform CO2 price and joint CO2 border adjustment. Lukas Scheid
Thinking about European and national projects together is a firm declaration of intent in the coalition agreement: “A digital awakening that safeguards our values, digital sovereignty, and a strong technology location can only succeed within a progressive European framework,” it says on page 15. The focus will now also be on the Federal Ministry of Transport, Building, and Urban Affairs: With Volker Wissing (FDP) at the helm, the building on Invalidenstraße is set to become a key driver ministry for digital as well. But there are relevant digital projects in almost every department.
However, digital progress depends on two aspects: In which environment should something happen – and with which political and regulatory tool can it be addressed? At the same time, European regulations always bring about changes to primarily national projects.
In national digital policy, of course, the expansion of infrastructure with fiber optics and mobile telephones plays a key role, and here the coalition partners are primarily steering the course with procedural changes such as the gigabit land register. In the case of administrative modernization, too, it is less a case of reinventing the wheel and more a case of following the path that has already been taken.
Digitization is to become the standard in the healthcare system, and citizens are to have to actively opt out of the electronic patient file, which is in line with the DSGVO. In the future, it should be possible to provide all medical services digitally, up to and including “tele-emergency medical care” – the coalition partners do not reveal how these plans are to be compatible across Europe, at least not in the text of the agreement.
A digital legislative portal is also planned, which will contain the current status, including synopses, and will test public comment options. This could be closely linked to the planned amendment to the Lobby Register Act, which is intended to record contacts at speaker level in the future, and the plan to include the “legislative footprint“, i.e. input from outside, in draft legislation. Here, too, there is regrettably no indication of any conceivable interoperability with European systems and projects.
Conflict potential arises in the question of the regulatory handling of data: The coalition agreement envisages, among other things, a Data Act to create “standardized and machine-readable access to self-generated data”. However, this could also be part of the regulations of the proposal for a Data Act at the European level planned for the end of 2021. The same applies to the coalition’s plans for data in agriculture: here, too, the targets of the traffic light and the EU level would have to be reconciled.
Concerning data protection, the GDPR is to remain untouched, but the cooperation of the supervisory authorities is to be strengthened both nationally and at the European level. The traffic light coalition could have a special effect on the e-privacy regulation, which has been stuck for years: Here, the SPD, Greens, and FDP want an “ambitious” regulation to be passed quickly, without going into further detail.
Closely related to both areas is the position of the upcoming federal government on data retention: here the negotiators have omitted a political assessment and simply referred to the pending rulings of the European Court of Justice as justification. Nevertheless: the VDS is to be history. What the coalition agreement now envisages corresponds to the “quick freeze” concept, i.e. storage on an ad hoc basis.
The coalition is committed to the Digital Services Act. Based on this act, they want to revise the Telemedia Act and the Network Enforcement Act, among other things. However, the explanations on the DSA are rather slim – for example, which authority is to become the German Digital Services Coordinator is not specified further.
However, elsewhere the Bundeskartellamt has been given a strong role in dealing with platforms. This also refers to the negotiations on the Digital Markets Act. The DMA is supported in principle – but with the proviso that it should not be weaker than national law.
This refers to the amendments to the Act against Restraints of Competition (GWB) still implemented under the black-red government, in particular, the Section 19a introduced with it, which the Bundeskartellamt is currently examining for its effectiveness in various proceedings. The coalition wants to further develop the GWB. Merger control is also to be further sharpened at the European level and killer acquisitions banned.
The European effects of the projects in the area of IT security are not exactly foreseeable. For example, the traffic light coalition wants to introduce a right to encryption as well as security-by-design/default as a requirement. This is partly in conflict with plans of the EU Commission, for example on the subject of chat surveillance. Elsewhere in the coalition agreement, too, “measures to scan private communications” are rejected.
The effects are likely to be more far-reaching elsewhere: The future federal government wants to prohibit the purchase of vulnerabilities by government agencies and establish a reporting system via the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) so that security vulnerabilities that become known are closed by manufacturers as quickly as possible. This is flanked, among other things, by the announcement of an “ambitious cyber security policy”, which is intended to empower the Bundeswehr. At the same time, cyberspace is to be peaceful – in terms of foreign policy, the focus is on international legal norms and an arms control regime.
The change from a black-red coalition to a traffic light coalition has led to significant differences, particularly in the areas of data protection and IT security.
Here, too, the coalition partners have not forgotten Europe: AI, in particular, is to be promoted. AI regulation is considered good if liability is clarified and a multi-level risk approach is included. The fact that biometric recognition in public spaces is categorically ruled out by the coalition corresponds to the other change from the previous German government line in the security sector and is likely to mean negotiation work at the European level – or an opening clause for national legislators.
In the case of key technologies, on the other hand, this also corresponds to the previous German line: the EU Chips Act is to be supported, the IPCEIs strengthened. For the FDP, the Greens, and the SPD, quantum communication, distributed ledger technologies (the word blockchain was so elegantly avoided), robotics, and cyber security continue to be among the key technologies that matter.
The positioning on “strategic sovereignty”, which the coalition partners want to increase, also stands for continuity with the policy of the grand coalition. The aim is to “establish our capacity to act in the global context and to be less dependent and vulnerable in important strategic areas such as energy supply, health, raw materials imports, and digital technology”, they say. Of course, without sealing off Europe.
This means better protection of critical technology and infrastructure, as well as strategic consideration of the formulation of standards and public procurement. A concrete example of this reading can be found in the coalition agreement: in the case of critical infrastructures, “non-trustworthy companies” are not to be considered in the expansion. In keeping with this, the coalition partners want to initiate a European open source 5/6G consortium.
Hardly anything currently causes such heated debates in Brussels as the question about whether investments in nuclear power and natural gas should be classified as sustainable. There is not a word about the taxonomy in the coalition agreement. Which does not mean that the three parties have not discussed and argued about it.
The Greens’ negotiator Sven Giegold, for example, had explicitly warned that neither investments in gas nor nuclear energy should be “greenwashed by inclusion in the taxonomy”. The SPD and FDP, on the other hand, are relying on gas as a bridging technology and blocked a clear positioning.
The Greens finally complied and justified this with higher goals: The dispute over nuclear power should not jeopardize the relationship with French President Emmanuel Macron and the desired departure, says Giegold. “That would be a serious mistake in European policy.” Therefore, in the coming weeks, they want to try and get it in the can – in other words, to find a practicable compromise.
Regarding environmental and social standards for supply chains, the struggle between the three parties resulted in very little. “We support an effective EU supply chain law, based on the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, that does not overburden small and medium-sized enterprises,” it says. Green trade politician Anna Cavazzini, an advocate of far-reaching standards for companies, points to the word “effective”. She said details would be discussed when the Commission presented its draft due diligence law, which had been scheduled for December.
The sections on trade policy, on the other hand, clearly bear the signature of the Greens and those in the SPD who are critical of all trade agreements signed so far. A quick ratification of the still pending agreements with Canada, Mercosur, and China can hardly be expected from the traffic light.
The agreement states that the coalition will decide on the ratification of the CETA agreement with Canada after the Federal Constitutional Court has finished its review. A constitutional complaint by the NGOs Foodwatch, Campact, and Mehr Demokratie is still pending. Even if the judges in Karlsruhe reject this appeal, this does not automatically pave the way for ratification of the agreement, which is provisionally in force. Cavazzini sees this as a “great success”: It will give them time to renegotiate with the Canadian government, especially on the investment protection section of the agreement.
The Greens and SPD pushed through that the traffic light will also work beyond CETA to limit the scope of investors for lawsuits. For example, the agreements should “focus investment protection for companies abroad on direct expropriation and discrimination”. Cavazzini hopes this will fuel discussion in Brussels on the issue and lead to a new model chapter on investment protection that will be included in future agreements.
The traffic light also wants to renegotiate the agreement with the Mercosur states. Before ratification, the coalition agreement states that partner countries must make legally binding commitments to environmental, social, and human rights protection, as well as additional practically implementable agreements to protect and preserve existing woodlands.
In addition, they want to ensure that future trade agreements, for example with Chile, New Zealand, or Australia, are “provided with effective sustainability standards using a dispute settlement mechanism”. Here, too, the sticking point is likely to be what the three partners mean by “effective” – sanctions or dialogue formats.
New jobs are to be created in battery production. European battery IPCEIs are to be continued and German cell production expanded. However, automotive expert Ferdinand Dudenhoeffer criticizes that there are no specifics to be found anywhere, “neither in the financing nor in the measures, such as taxation of fossil fuels.” But: Germany is to become the “lead market for electromobility” and put 15 million fully electric cars on the road by 2030.
The traffic light parties also refer to the EU Commission’s proposal to allow only CO2-neutral vehicles from 2035. Germany is supposed to achieve this even sooner. However, no specific date has been set.
Things get a bit more concrete when it comes to the EU fleet limits: the traffic lights generally support these. For Stef Cornelis, Director Germany at the NGO Transport & Environment, this represents a breakthrough. However, he would have preferred more ambitious targets within the framework of fleet regulation. Cornelis demands: The new German government should work to cut emissions of the car fleet by 25 percent from 2025 instead of the proposed 15 percent. Emissions reductions from 2030 on should be raised from 50 to 80 percent
In the upcoming renewal of pollutant standards for vehicles, the traffic light wants to promote an “ambitious” Euro 7 standard. However, it is also emphasized at this point that this standard must take into account added value and jobs. Which environmental criteria it is to meet is not specified. This means that the focus of Euro 7 for the traffic lights is not on more climate protection, but on a lighter burden for the automotive industry.
In any case, there is no explicit mention of phasing out the combustion engine. The formulation on e-fuels found in the exploratory paper has also made it into the coalition agreement: Outside the EU fleet limits, the traffic lights want to continue to approve internal combustion vehicles that can be refueled exclusively with e-fuels. However, the EU fleet regulation does not provide for such an exception. E-fuels are thus only part of the traffic light’s decarbonization strategy on paper. In practice, they are still unlikely to play any role in traffic.
The situation is quite different for aviation. The traffic light supports the “research and market ramp-up of synthetic fuels that enable climate-neutral flying“. “Ambitious quotas” are to serve as an incentive for the market ramp-up. These quotas are not quantified in the coalition agreement. However, the wording of the paper clearly indicates that the aviation sector, in general, is to be held more accountable. Cheap tickets are to be prevented and an aviation levy – if not a kerosene tax – is to be introduced throughout Europe.
When it comes to the decarbonization of shipping, on the other hand, the coalition partners remain rather vague. Quotas for synthetic fuels are to be introduced here as well, but when it comes to the “fit for 55” package, there is only a hollow phrase of “keeping an eye on the overall burden on shipping”. This sounds as if the shipping industry needs to be protected from too tough a line from Brussels. In any case, there are no concrete decarbonization plans for the maritime industry.
