Welcome to Strasbourg, where the tension is as high as the temperatures. In a few hours, MEPs will decide the fate of the Nature Restoration Law (NRL), which has now become political dynamite. The outcome of the vote is uncertain, with a few votes likely to tip the balance, according to some observers. “Plus or minus five votes”, estimates Pascal Canfin, chairman of the Environment Committee and a strong supporter of the law.
On Tuesday morning, supporters and opponents had gathered, only a few meters apart, in front of the forecourt of the Parliament: on one side the youth around Greta Thunberg, flanked by members of the Greens, Social Democrats and Left; on the other side EPP deputies and farmers with tractors, mobilized by the powerful lobby association Copa-Cogeca.
Between the two camps stands the liberal Renew group – its votes will tip the scales one way or the other. According to Renew chairman Stéphane Séjourné, his group will vote 30 percent in favor of rejecting the text and 70 percent against.
Renew has tabled amendments that take up the Council’s position. Their hope: EPP MEPs would not dare to oppose a text supported by Christian Democratic governments at home. Should MEPs still vote to reject the proposal, it would mean “game over”, Canfin said: the dossier could only be resumed after the European elections in June 2024.
EPP Group leader Manfred Weber, in turn, could show that he can also form other majorities than in an alliance with Socialists, Renew, Greens and Left. This will certainly play a role in other texts on the Green Deal. My colleague Timo Landenberger offers you a good insight with his Analysis on the role of the moors.
I wish you an exciting read.
Last chance for the EU’s Nature Restoration Law: Today at noon, the European Parliament votes on the controversial new Nature Restoration Law (NRL). The outcome is still uncertain.
In addition to preserving biodiversity, it is also a matter of protecting the climate. The rewetting of peatlands, in particular, is seen as a crucial lever for further reducing greenhouse gas emissions and also for removing CO2 from the atmosphere and storing it in the long term.
According to studies by the Greifswald Moor Centre (GMC) and Wetlands International, more than 50 percent of all moorland in Europe has been drained in order to use the soil for agriculture or forestry. In Germany, the figure is almost 100 percent. What was once celebrated as a cultural-historical feat and promoted by the state is now considered a climatological disaster.
Peatlands are particularly rich in carbon. A lot of CO2 escapes through drainage and combination with oxygen. Thus, over the decades, the areas have increasingly gone from being carbon reservoirs to emitters and, according to the GMC, currently account for about seven percent of the EU’s total greenhouse gas emissions. If water levels were raised back to ground level, these emissions could be avoided and even negative emissions achieved in the long term.
“We cannot do without this if we want to achieve our climate goals”, says Jutta Paulus, NRL shadow rapporteur for the Green Party. That applies specifically, she says, to the Land Use and Forestry Regulation (LULUCF) adopted last year. In it, the target for the sector’s natural greenhouse gas reduction performance, divided among EU states, was set at 310 million metric tons of CO2-equivalents from 2030.
Up to now, this performance has been based predominantly on forests, but their storage capacity had recently declined significantly as a result of drought, forest fires and pests, and continues to decline. “So without the peatlands, this will not be possible”, says Paulus. That also applies to the preservation of biodiversity, she adds. For example, she says, around 60 percent of all bird species in Europe depend on intact peatlands and wetlands.
The position of the Environment Council, which now also stands the best chance in today’s plenary vote, is to set the targets for the renaturation of peatlands for the years 2030, 2040 and 2050 at 30, 40 and 50 percent of the area, respectively. This is too little, Paulus criticizes, and advocates for the original commission targets of 30, 50 and 70 percent.
But even the Commission’s proposal is not ambitious enough. After all, it leaves out the peatlands used for forestry and is limited to agriculture “and thus to those areas with the greatest conflicts of use”, says Paulus.
Opponents of the proposed legislation fear a shortage of food production and thus an aggravation of the already tense situation. Affected farmers even fear for their livelihood.
Franziska Tanneberger, head of the Greifswald Moor Centre, counters: “We are talking about only three percent of the EU’s agricultural land being on drained peat soils. This compares to a quarter of the total agricultural emissions that are generated and could be avoided.”
This does not mean that the rewetted areas are to be set aside. Rather, further cultivation is not only conceivable, but also makes sense. One possibility of this so-called paludiculture: the cultivation of reeds. The plants extract CO2 from the atmosphere and are suitable as sustainable packaging material or as a building material.
There is demand, for example, for the roofing of many houses in northern Germany, she says. “The reed used in Germany is imported 85 percent of the time, largely from China“, says Tanneberger. “So in harmony with nature conservation and climate protection, a sustainable material could be produced on the moorland, in which there is great interest. We have to take advantage of this opportunity.”
However, in order to ensure planning security for all those involved, the appropriate political framework conditions must be created. The NRL is an important step in the right direction, but other areas must follow suit, the biologist demands. For example, the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) continues to support agriculture on drained peatland soils the same way as before, even after the latest reform. “To hold on to this is contrary to the Green Deal. Because this way, the incentive for conversion is not very great, but it has to happen at some point”, says Tanneberger.
However, the German Farmers’ Association (DBV) demands that this can only be done with the consent of those affected. The prerequisite is the creation of equivalent economic alternatives for the farms and their families.
In fact, even under the federal government’s peatland protection plans, rewetting is supposed to be voluntary. This poses challenges. After all, the water level cannot be raised selectively in individual fields, but only in contiguous areas. Accordingly, all owners would have to cooperate. In addition, there are bureaucratic hurdles, and a planning approval process usually takes several years.
Another problem is that rewetting produces methane, which is far more harmful to the climate than CO2, especially in the short term. In the long term, however, the cooling effect of reducing emissions is considerably higher, says Franziska Tanneberger – even without adding the additional benefit as a natural sink.
In the reform of the Rules of Procedure in the European Parliament following the bribery affair involving Vice-President Eva Kaili, who has since been removed from office, compromises capable of securing a majority are emerging. Accordingly, there could be a significant tightening of the rules on conflicts of interest, additional income and lobbying contacts. There will be no agreement on an advisory committee, including external experts, which could make decisions and impose sanctions in the event of conflicts of interest. These are the results of the work of the “working group” headed by Rainer Wieland (CDU), which Parliamentary President Roberta Metsola had appointed to implement her 14-point plan for greater transparency.
The rapporteur is Gaby Bischoff (SPD). Her report will be presented in the Constitutional Affairs Committee (AFCO) next week and voted on in committee and plenary in early September. The hurdle for the Rules of Procedure reforms to come into force is high: half of the 705 deputies must agree.
In the case of additional earnings in addition to the work as a Member of Parliament, the income previously had to be reported in five earnings thresholds up to “over €10,000” per month. In the future, income must be declared in euros and cents as soon as the deputy earns more than €500 per month in addition. The MEP must also state the name of the employer, the area of work and also what exactly their job is there.
If a deputy performs several activities, the income must be reported individually. This information is part of the new declaration of private interests that every MEP must submit when taking up office. Previously, MEPs were not allowed to hold an office in parliament or become a rapporteur if they did not submit the declaration. In the future, making the declaration will also be a prerequisite for becoming shadow rapporteurs.
Members of parliament already have to declare possible conflicts of interest. In the future, the deputy is to make a declaration that he or she has no conflict of interest before becoming vice-president, quaestor, committee chairman or vice-chairman of a committee. If the deputy himself sees a conflict of interest, the parliamentary body concerned will decide whether they can nevertheless take up the office.
In the case of rapporteurs who disclose a conflict of interest, the Committee should vote on whether the rapporteur may nevertheless accept the report. In the case of shadow rapporteurs with a conflict of interest, their own parliamentary group shall decide. The Committee can reverse the decision of the parliamentary group with two-thirds of the votes.
Rules are also being tightened on the designation of lobby contacts. Until now, committee chairs, rapporteurs and shadow rapporteurs had to declare their contacts. Now it says: MEPs are to disclose all contacts involving parliamentary matters in which they “play an active role” as MEPs. This covers activities such as:
It is assumed that the Greens, S&D and Left will still table amendments to the rules on lobby contacts.
The composition and competencies of the advisory committee responsible for infringements remain a point of contention. At the insistence of S&D and the Greens, the EPP was prepared to accept gender parity in the composition of the five members. S&D and the Greens want the advisory committee to also include three independent outside experts. The EPP would have been willing to include ex-MEPs, but not parliamentary outsiders.
Regarding the competences, it says: “The advisory Committee is to proactively monitor whether MEPs adhere to the Code of Conduct and the implementation of the measures.” In addition, the Committee is to inform the parliamentary President of any violations. Sanctions are imposed by the parliamentary President. S&D and the Greens, on the other hand, are calling for the Committee to be formally tasked with conducting its own investigations and deciding on sanctions itself.
There is also dissent on the Parliament’s position on the Commission’s proposal for the inter-institutional ethics authority: the EPP has pulled out of the negotiations on the resolution and will not vote in favor by a majority in today’s vote.
In the resolution, S&D, Renew, the Greens and the Left are very clear in their criticism of the Commission’s proposal. The last meeting of the group leaders (Conference of Presidents) planned for Thursday before the summer break was canceled. This means that the vote in the European Parliament on the coordination of negotiations with the other institutions on the ethics body will be postponed until September.
In the EU, Japan and the US, progress is being made on regulating artificial intelligence. Earlier this week, the Spanish presidency submitted a paper in preparation for the July 18 AI Act trilogue. By today, Wednesday, the Japanese are seeking opinions from G7 countries on what framework they want to jointly adopt for generative AI development (Hiroshima AI Process, HAP). Meanwhile, according to information from Brussels, the White House has decided it’s all going too slowly – and is making its own push.
The aim of both the EU and the G7 is to have concluded the respective negotiations by the end of the year. The culmination of the deliberations both on the AI Act and at the G7 will be in the fourth quarter. In the fall, the Japanese plan to organize another meeting of digital ministers. Working-level meetings on the HAP are currently taking place. Both the content and the form of a possible agreement – only guidelines or a Code of Conduct – are still open.
Brussels is thinking beyond generative AI in the HAP and wants to see Foundation Models also in the scope of a possible agreement. The EU also wants a central stakeholder consultation process. And it wants the end result to be more than a declaration by the participating countries, namely a code of conduct to which the companies themselves commit. This voluntary commitment is intended to bridge the time until legal rules come into force.
A total of 41 jurisdictions worldwide, according to informed sources, are currently holding consultations on how AI can be controlled in regulatory terms. The EU sees itself as a pioneer, having already been working on the AI Act for three years.
But now the EU has a problem. The Americans, who at the Trade and Technology Council (TTC) in Sweden wanted to be the driving force in the G7 process together with the EU, now want to do everything faster and differently. The Americans seem to have said goodbye to the joint roadmap that was still being talked about at the end of May.
President Joe Biden wants his country’s major players to voluntarily submit to a code of conduct. Apparently, the White House has recognized how much attention the issue is attracting. Now, behind the scenes in Brussels and Washington, there are intensive discussions about how this can be reconciled with the G7 process.
In parallel, preparations for the trialogue are underway. In their preparatory paper published by Contexte, the Spanish write that in the technical meetings held so far, some parts of the text have already been prepared for endorsement at the political level, such as obligations related to high-risk systems, notification and standards.
In addition, the Spanish have made further compromise proposals and are now asking the member states to communicate their position on these. This concerns the real laboratories (regulatory sandboxes) and the assessment of the fundamental rights for high-risk AI systems.
In the further course of the negotiations, the topic of generative AI will be the most difficult part. On the German side, the Ministries of Economic Affairs and Justice are in charge of the AI Act. However, the Digital Ministry is responsible for the negotiations within the Hiroshima AI Process. There is also the opinion in Berlin that it might not be a good idea to include generative AI in the AI Act now – because it does not fit in systematically.
Instead, the proposal is to work on fine-tuning an “already very good AI Act” and to solve the issue of generative AI via mandatory self-regulation within the framework of a code of conduct. The advantage of this is that it would be a mechanism with a certain degree of flexibility, which would be appropriate given the rapid development of generative AI.
She is a child of the old Bonn Republic, says Katharina Hofmann De Moura. She was born in Bonn and grew up in West Berlin in the 1980s. After studying political science and international relations at the Free University of Berlin, she completed an internship at the Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES) in Colombia.
She has worked for the SPD-affiliated political foundation since 2006. The FES sent her to Shanghai as a project assistant, she became office manager in Mozambique and Brazil. Currently, she works as a consultant in the foundation’s think tank, the Global and European Policy Unit. She monitors social democracies in Europe and around the world.
“What makes the FES special is our network of 100 offices abroad“, says Hofmann De Moura. “This gives us a different approach to analyzing the world. We work with local organizations on the ground.” She also collaborates a lot with external scholars and is the editor of the FES book “Towards a social democratic century?” Otherwise, Hofmann De Moura organizes talks between social democratic actors. The think tank aims to provide incentives for the renewal of social democracies worldwide. “Our goal, of course, is also to curb the power of right-wing parties.”
Hofmann De Moura assesses the situation of the social democratic movement in Europe as difficult. “We are in a populist moment in European history”, she says. Especially due to the “poly-crisis”, i.e. the multitude of crises, and the dismantling of the welfare state, more and more people are turning away from politics, and thus also from social democracy.
“We are in an economic order that has little government regulation in some sectors.” One example in Europe, she explains, is the housing market, which is so overheated that housing in cities is becoming unaffordable for many middle-class people. Populists gull voters into believing they have better answers. “But I don’t think they have them.”
“Social democrats need to get back to addressing the concerns of people in the lower middle class“, Hofmann De Moura says. “Europe can be an opportunity if we see it not only as a free market, but also as a social system that is unique in the world.” European companies therefore need to set social standards outside Europe as well, she adds. Hofmann De Moura also thinks the European Supply Chain Act is a good idea.
At the same time, the EU is struggling with a loss of significance. “The arrogance with which Europe presents itself to the outside world is no longer appropriate”, says Hofmann De Moura. For wealthy Asians, Europe is no longer a dream destination, but only a historical museum, she says.
Hofmann De Moura will soon be leaving the FES office in Berlin again. Like at the German Foreign Office, officers rotate between the foreign station and headquarters. She cannot yet reveal where exactly she is going next. Tom Schmidtgen
Welcome to Strasbourg, where the tension is as high as the temperatures. In a few hours, MEPs will decide the fate of the Nature Restoration Law (NRL), which has now become political dynamite. The outcome of the vote is uncertain, with a few votes likely to tip the balance, according to some observers. “Plus or minus five votes”, estimates Pascal Canfin, chairman of the Environment Committee and a strong supporter of the law.
On Tuesday morning, supporters and opponents had gathered, only a few meters apart, in front of the forecourt of the Parliament: on one side the youth around Greta Thunberg, flanked by members of the Greens, Social Democrats and Left; on the other side EPP deputies and farmers with tractors, mobilized by the powerful lobby association Copa-Cogeca.
Between the two camps stands the liberal Renew group – its votes will tip the scales one way or the other. According to Renew chairman Stéphane Séjourné, his group will vote 30 percent in favor of rejecting the text and 70 percent against.
Renew has tabled amendments that take up the Council’s position. Their hope: EPP MEPs would not dare to oppose a text supported by Christian Democratic governments at home. Should MEPs still vote to reject the proposal, it would mean “game over”, Canfin said: the dossier could only be resumed after the European elections in June 2024.
EPP Group leader Manfred Weber, in turn, could show that he can also form other majorities than in an alliance with Socialists, Renew, Greens and Left. This will certainly play a role in other texts on the Green Deal. My colleague Timo Landenberger offers you a good insight with his Analysis on the role of the moors.
I wish you an exciting read.
Last chance for the EU’s Nature Restoration Law: Today at noon, the European Parliament votes on the controversial new Nature Restoration Law (NRL). The outcome is still uncertain.
In addition to preserving biodiversity, it is also a matter of protecting the climate. The rewetting of peatlands, in particular, is seen as a crucial lever for further reducing greenhouse gas emissions and also for removing CO2 from the atmosphere and storing it in the long term.
According to studies by the Greifswald Moor Centre (GMC) and Wetlands International, more than 50 percent of all moorland in Europe has been drained in order to use the soil for agriculture or forestry. In Germany, the figure is almost 100 percent. What was once celebrated as a cultural-historical feat and promoted by the state is now considered a climatological disaster.
Peatlands are particularly rich in carbon. A lot of CO2 escapes through drainage and combination with oxygen. Thus, over the decades, the areas have increasingly gone from being carbon reservoirs to emitters and, according to the GMC, currently account for about seven percent of the EU’s total greenhouse gas emissions. If water levels were raised back to ground level, these emissions could be avoided and even negative emissions achieved in the long term.
“We cannot do without this if we want to achieve our climate goals”, says Jutta Paulus, NRL shadow rapporteur for the Green Party. That applies specifically, she says, to the Land Use and Forestry Regulation (LULUCF) adopted last year. In it, the target for the sector’s natural greenhouse gas reduction performance, divided among EU states, was set at 310 million metric tons of CO2-equivalents from 2030.
Up to now, this performance has been based predominantly on forests, but their storage capacity had recently declined significantly as a result of drought, forest fires and pests, and continues to decline. “So without the peatlands, this will not be possible”, says Paulus. That also applies to the preservation of biodiversity, she adds. For example, she says, around 60 percent of all bird species in Europe depend on intact peatlands and wetlands.
The position of the Environment Council, which now also stands the best chance in today’s plenary vote, is to set the targets for the renaturation of peatlands for the years 2030, 2040 and 2050 at 30, 40 and 50 percent of the area, respectively. This is too little, Paulus criticizes, and advocates for the original commission targets of 30, 50 and 70 percent.
But even the Commission’s proposal is not ambitious enough. After all, it leaves out the peatlands used for forestry and is limited to agriculture “and thus to those areas with the greatest conflicts of use”, says Paulus.
Opponents of the proposed legislation fear a shortage of food production and thus an aggravation of the already tense situation. Affected farmers even fear for their livelihood.
Franziska Tanneberger, head of the Greifswald Moor Centre, counters: “We are talking about only three percent of the EU’s agricultural land being on drained peat soils. This compares to a quarter of the total agricultural emissions that are generated and could be avoided.”
This does not mean that the rewetted areas are to be set aside. Rather, further cultivation is not only conceivable, but also makes sense. One possibility of this so-called paludiculture: the cultivation of reeds. The plants extract CO2 from the atmosphere and are suitable as sustainable packaging material or as a building material.
There is demand, for example, for the roofing of many houses in northern Germany, she says. “The reed used in Germany is imported 85 percent of the time, largely from China“, says Tanneberger. “So in harmony with nature conservation and climate protection, a sustainable material could be produced on the moorland, in which there is great interest. We have to take advantage of this opportunity.”
However, in order to ensure planning security for all those involved, the appropriate political framework conditions must be created. The NRL is an important step in the right direction, but other areas must follow suit, the biologist demands. For example, the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) continues to support agriculture on drained peatland soils the same way as before, even after the latest reform. “To hold on to this is contrary to the Green Deal. Because this way, the incentive for conversion is not very great, but it has to happen at some point”, says Tanneberger.
However, the German Farmers’ Association (DBV) demands that this can only be done with the consent of those affected. The prerequisite is the creation of equivalent economic alternatives for the farms and their families.
In fact, even under the federal government’s peatland protection plans, rewetting is supposed to be voluntary. This poses challenges. After all, the water level cannot be raised selectively in individual fields, but only in contiguous areas. Accordingly, all owners would have to cooperate. In addition, there are bureaucratic hurdles, and a planning approval process usually takes several years.
Another problem is that rewetting produces methane, which is far more harmful to the climate than CO2, especially in the short term. In the long term, however, the cooling effect of reducing emissions is considerably higher, says Franziska Tanneberger – even without adding the additional benefit as a natural sink.
In the reform of the Rules of Procedure in the European Parliament following the bribery affair involving Vice-President Eva Kaili, who has since been removed from office, compromises capable of securing a majority are emerging. Accordingly, there could be a significant tightening of the rules on conflicts of interest, additional income and lobbying contacts. There will be no agreement on an advisory committee, including external experts, which could make decisions and impose sanctions in the event of conflicts of interest. These are the results of the work of the “working group” headed by Rainer Wieland (CDU), which Parliamentary President Roberta Metsola had appointed to implement her 14-point plan for greater transparency.
The rapporteur is Gaby Bischoff (SPD). Her report will be presented in the Constitutional Affairs Committee (AFCO) next week and voted on in committee and plenary in early September. The hurdle for the Rules of Procedure reforms to come into force is high: half of the 705 deputies must agree.
In the case of additional earnings in addition to the work as a Member of Parliament, the income previously had to be reported in five earnings thresholds up to “over €10,000” per month. In the future, income must be declared in euros and cents as soon as the deputy earns more than €500 per month in addition. The MEP must also state the name of the employer, the area of work and also what exactly their job is there.
If a deputy performs several activities, the income must be reported individually. This information is part of the new declaration of private interests that every MEP must submit when taking up office. Previously, MEPs were not allowed to hold an office in parliament or become a rapporteur if they did not submit the declaration. In the future, making the declaration will also be a prerequisite for becoming shadow rapporteurs.
Members of parliament already have to declare possible conflicts of interest. In the future, the deputy is to make a declaration that he or she has no conflict of interest before becoming vice-president, quaestor, committee chairman or vice-chairman of a committee. If the deputy himself sees a conflict of interest, the parliamentary body concerned will decide whether they can nevertheless take up the office.
In the case of rapporteurs who disclose a conflict of interest, the Committee should vote on whether the rapporteur may nevertheless accept the report. In the case of shadow rapporteurs with a conflict of interest, their own parliamentary group shall decide. The Committee can reverse the decision of the parliamentary group with two-thirds of the votes.
Rules are also being tightened on the designation of lobby contacts. Until now, committee chairs, rapporteurs and shadow rapporteurs had to declare their contacts. Now it says: MEPs are to disclose all contacts involving parliamentary matters in which they “play an active role” as MEPs. This covers activities such as:
It is assumed that the Greens, S&D and Left will still table amendments to the rules on lobby contacts.
The composition and competencies of the advisory committee responsible for infringements remain a point of contention. At the insistence of S&D and the Greens, the EPP was prepared to accept gender parity in the composition of the five members. S&D and the Greens want the advisory committee to also include three independent outside experts. The EPP would have been willing to include ex-MEPs, but not parliamentary outsiders.
Regarding the competences, it says: “The advisory Committee is to proactively monitor whether MEPs adhere to the Code of Conduct and the implementation of the measures.” In addition, the Committee is to inform the parliamentary President of any violations. Sanctions are imposed by the parliamentary President. S&D and the Greens, on the other hand, are calling for the Committee to be formally tasked with conducting its own investigations and deciding on sanctions itself.
There is also dissent on the Parliament’s position on the Commission’s proposal for the inter-institutional ethics authority: the EPP has pulled out of the negotiations on the resolution and will not vote in favor by a majority in today’s vote.
In the resolution, S&D, Renew, the Greens and the Left are very clear in their criticism of the Commission’s proposal. The last meeting of the group leaders (Conference of Presidents) planned for Thursday before the summer break was canceled. This means that the vote in the European Parliament on the coordination of negotiations with the other institutions on the ethics body will be postponed until September.
In the EU, Japan and the US, progress is being made on regulating artificial intelligence. Earlier this week, the Spanish presidency submitted a paper in preparation for the July 18 AI Act trilogue. By today, Wednesday, the Japanese are seeking opinions from G7 countries on what framework they want to jointly adopt for generative AI development (Hiroshima AI Process, HAP). Meanwhile, according to information from Brussels, the White House has decided it’s all going too slowly – and is making its own push.
The aim of both the EU and the G7 is to have concluded the respective negotiations by the end of the year. The culmination of the deliberations both on the AI Act and at the G7 will be in the fourth quarter. In the fall, the Japanese plan to organize another meeting of digital ministers. Working-level meetings on the HAP are currently taking place. Both the content and the form of a possible agreement – only guidelines or a Code of Conduct – are still open.
Brussels is thinking beyond generative AI in the HAP and wants to see Foundation Models also in the scope of a possible agreement. The EU also wants a central stakeholder consultation process. And it wants the end result to be more than a declaration by the participating countries, namely a code of conduct to which the companies themselves commit. This voluntary commitment is intended to bridge the time until legal rules come into force.
A total of 41 jurisdictions worldwide, according to informed sources, are currently holding consultations on how AI can be controlled in regulatory terms. The EU sees itself as a pioneer, having already been working on the AI Act for three years.
But now the EU has a problem. The Americans, who at the Trade and Technology Council (TTC) in Sweden wanted to be the driving force in the G7 process together with the EU, now want to do everything faster and differently. The Americans seem to have said goodbye to the joint roadmap that was still being talked about at the end of May.
President Joe Biden wants his country’s major players to voluntarily submit to a code of conduct. Apparently, the White House has recognized how much attention the issue is attracting. Now, behind the scenes in Brussels and Washington, there are intensive discussions about how this can be reconciled with the G7 process.
In parallel, preparations for the trialogue are underway. In their preparatory paper published by Contexte, the Spanish write that in the technical meetings held so far, some parts of the text have already been prepared for endorsement at the political level, such as obligations related to high-risk systems, notification and standards.
In addition, the Spanish have made further compromise proposals and are now asking the member states to communicate their position on these. This concerns the real laboratories (regulatory sandboxes) and the assessment of the fundamental rights for high-risk AI systems.
In the further course of the negotiations, the topic of generative AI will be the most difficult part. On the German side, the Ministries of Economic Affairs and Justice are in charge of the AI Act. However, the Digital Ministry is responsible for the negotiations within the Hiroshima AI Process. There is also the opinion in Berlin that it might not be a good idea to include generative AI in the AI Act now – because it does not fit in systematically.
Instead, the proposal is to work on fine-tuning an “already very good AI Act” and to solve the issue of generative AI via mandatory self-regulation within the framework of a code of conduct. The advantage of this is that it would be a mechanism with a certain degree of flexibility, which would be appropriate given the rapid development of generative AI.
She is a child of the old Bonn Republic, says Katharina Hofmann De Moura. She was born in Bonn and grew up in West Berlin in the 1980s. After studying political science and international relations at the Free University of Berlin, she completed an internship at the Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES) in Colombia.
She has worked for the SPD-affiliated political foundation since 2006. The FES sent her to Shanghai as a project assistant, she became office manager in Mozambique and Brazil. Currently, she works as a consultant in the foundation’s think tank, the Global and European Policy Unit. She monitors social democracies in Europe and around the world.
“What makes the FES special is our network of 100 offices abroad“, says Hofmann De Moura. “This gives us a different approach to analyzing the world. We work with local organizations on the ground.” She also collaborates a lot with external scholars and is the editor of the FES book “Towards a social democratic century?” Otherwise, Hofmann De Moura organizes talks between social democratic actors. The think tank aims to provide incentives for the renewal of social democracies worldwide. “Our goal, of course, is also to curb the power of right-wing parties.”
Hofmann De Moura assesses the situation of the social democratic movement in Europe as difficult. “We are in a populist moment in European history”, she says. Especially due to the “poly-crisis”, i.e. the multitude of crises, and the dismantling of the welfare state, more and more people are turning away from politics, and thus also from social democracy.
“We are in an economic order that has little government regulation in some sectors.” One example in Europe, she explains, is the housing market, which is so overheated that housing in cities is becoming unaffordable for many middle-class people. Populists gull voters into believing they have better answers. “But I don’t think they have them.”
“Social democrats need to get back to addressing the concerns of people in the lower middle class“, Hofmann De Moura says. “Europe can be an opportunity if we see it not only as a free market, but also as a social system that is unique in the world.” European companies therefore need to set social standards outside Europe as well, she adds. Hofmann De Moura also thinks the European Supply Chain Act is a good idea.
At the same time, the EU is struggling with a loss of significance. “The arrogance with which Europe presents itself to the outside world is no longer appropriate”, says Hofmann De Moura. For wealthy Asians, Europe is no longer a dream destination, but only a historical museum, she says.
Hofmann De Moura will soon be leaving the FES office in Berlin again. Like at the German Foreign Office, officers rotate between the foreign station and headquarters. She cannot yet reveal where exactly she is going next. Tom Schmidtgen
