Your contact for new licenses
The 15th package of sanctions against Moscow is on the home straight, an agreement today in the circle of EU ambassadors is very possible. Rarely has the discussion about new punitive measures against Russia been so quiet.
In fact, the package is not very controversial, as no new sectors are being targeted this time. The focus is on the shadow fleets with which Moscow is trying to circumvent the G7 countries’ price cap for Russian oil. Oil is the lifeblood of the Putin regime and the shadow fleet of tankers is keeping it alive, warns President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
The poorly maintained tankers without insurance also pose a serious risk to safety at sea and the environment, especially in the Baltic Sea. Surprisingly, the USA has so far sanctioned significantly more ships than the Europeans. The EU wants to follow suit and add 48 tankers to the sanctions list, which should significantly increase the cost of transporting oil for Russia.
The package also includes additional listings: A further 29 entities and 54 individuals are subject to account freezes or entry bans. For the first time, punitive measures were also taken against Chinese companies and citizens who supplied Russia with dual-use products for the arms industry. These include companies that are said to support Russia in the production of combat drones.
Following an agreement by EU ambassadors, the sanctions package could be formally adopted and put into force at the General Council in ten days. A next and more ambitious package with further punitive measures is to follow by the second anniversary of the Russian attack in February at the latest.
The Commission President traveled to the Mercosur summit in Montevideo on Thursday to conclude negotiations on the free trade agreement. The finish line is “in sight“, she wrote on X. Von der Leyen thus disregarded Macron’s explicit rejection. The Élysée Palace also reacted immediately via X and said that the French President had once again pointed out yesterday that the agreement was unacceptable in its current state.
But it’s not just the Élysée: The entire political spectrum in France rejects the Mercosur agreement, citing “unfair competition” from meat producers from Brazil and Argentina who are not subject to the EU’s environmental and health standards.
At the end of October, the CDU politician had already put Chancellor Olaf Scholz in his place when she implemented tariffs on EVs from China against his opposition. Von der Leyen is filling the gap left by the domestic political paralysis of the two traditional leading powers in the EU. At the same time, however, she is taking a considerable risk. In Paris, the impression is that the Commission President is taking advantage of the power vacuum following the fall of Prime Minister Michel Barnier. This is likely to be grist to the mill for EU critic Marine Le Pen.
Brussels and Berlin are trying to counteract this impression. According to Berlin, the Mercosur summit at the beginning of December had long been targeted as the target date for the conclusion of the agreement before the government crisis in Paris came to a head. The German government is one of the biggest supporters of the free trade agreement, which would open up access to previously heavily protected markets in South America for Germany’s export-oriented industry.
Nevertheless, von der Leyen risks shipwreck with her initiative in the Council of the EU states. “Ultimately, the member states will decide on this agreement,” an EU diplomat told Table.Briefings. In several countries, both right-wing and left-wing political forces are campaigning against the free trade deal. The issue is a good way to mobilize. The domestic political instability plays into their hands.
The arguments of the proponents are difficult to get through there: The agreement would bind the Latin American states, which are heavily courted by China, more closely to Europe in geopolitical terms. Only recently, the Chinese state-owned company Cosco opened the deep-water port of Chancay on the Peruvian Pacific coast. The agreement would be a welcome boost for the sluggish European industry and, measured by the volume of tariffs abolished (four billion euros), is by far the EU’s most important deal to date.
An additional uncertainty factor is the long wait until the Mercosur agreement will be voted on in the Council. According to the Commission, the process of “legal scrubbing” and translating the text of the agreement is likely to take up to six months. The member states will only vote once the text is available in its final and translated form. It is quite possible that the Council will not deal with the text until the second half of the year under the Danish Council Presidency.
However, diplomatic circles are also sending out positive signals regarding the agreement with Mercosur. Yesterday, Thursday morning, the Commission’s trade chief, Sabine Weyand, informed the member states in the Council’s Trade Policy Committee about the current status of the negotiations. According to reports, there is a broad majority in the Council that supports the agreement in principle. However, the necessary qualified majority requires 15 member states representing at least 65 percent of the EU population.
In addition to France, Ireland, Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Poland have so far spoken out more or less clearly against the agreement. No support can be expected from the Netherlands either, given the strong farmers’ movement in the government. Another shaky candidate is Italy, whose agriculture minister and foreign minister have expressed different views on the agreement. If all these governments oppose the agreement, a blocking minority would be reached.
However, diplomatic circles suggest that not all governments that are publicly skeptical are fundamentally opposed to the agreement. Poland’s resistance may also be linked to the presidential elections due to take place in May. As the first MFF negotiations are also due in 2025, some governments may also want to have their support for the Mercosur agreement bought in the budget negotiations.
If the Council approves the agreement, it must also be ratified by Parliament. In a reaction to von der Leyen’s announcement, the chairman of the trade committee, Bernd Lange (SPD), and the parliamentary rapporteur for Mercosur, Gabriel Matto (EPP), were extremely positive. “The abolition of 91% of tariffs would open up unprecedented opportunities for European companies,” said the Spaniard.
However, as this issue tends to polarize along national rather than party political lines, the statements made by the German Social Democrat and the Spanish Christian Democrat are unlikely to be very representative of the Parliament as a whole. During an appearance at the Trade Committee last Tuesday, Weyand had to listen to harsh criticism from French, Irish, and Belgian MEPs of all party affiliations.
Lange assumes that the vote in parliament will not take place for around a year if it comes to that. However, he told journalists on Tuesday that it is not yet clear whether parliament will approve the agreement.
The list is long, very long: The German Chemical Industry Association (VCI) has compiled almost 900 implementing acts in a table that the EU Commission still has to present in the coming years. These include around 650 delegated acts and implementing acts, as well as studies and reports by the authority. Most of them resulted from the Green Deal laws of the last legislative period.
“This wave of legislation is now turning into an implementation tsunami,” warns Pierre Gröning, head of the VCI office in Brussels. In recent months, many companies and trade associations have already criticized excessive regulation from Brussels and called for some relief. According to the Draghi report, the EU adopted around 13,000 pieces of legislation between 2019 and 2024. The number of ordinary laws, delegated acts, and implementing acts has increased significantly compared to the previous legislative period.
The Commission itself is still struggling for guidance. When asked, the authority was unable to provide its own list. A spokeswoman merely referred to the existing register. An examination of the VCI list on the basis of random samples of individual dossiers essentially confirmed the accuracy of the information.
The chemical association’s list is already circulating in the European Parliament and is fueling the debate on how the burden of this secondary regulation can be reduced. It is “truly shocking” that not even the Commission knows the exact number of outstanding secondary legislation, criticizes Christian Ehler, EPP spokesperson on the Industry Committee. In order to penetrate this “jungle”, the European Parliament will use all opportunities for parliamentary scrutiny and not simply wave through impractical proposals.
The Christian Democrats are working on their own concepts to combat the growing bureaucratic burden, but these are not yet fully developed. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has announced that she will present a so-called omnibus act. This is intended to reduce the burden of a series of different laws in one go. The exact content is still open but is aimed in particular at simplifying the reporting obligations arising from sustainability reporting. Sven Giegold, Green Party Vice-President and former State Secretary for Economic Affairs, warns against spreading the responsibilities for the omnibus act across several committees and Council formations. “If the Commission gets the omnibus legislation wrong, it will become non-negotiable.”
The wave of delegated acts and implementing acts cannot simply be stopped: The laws adopted oblige the Commission to submit the subordinate acts.
Gröning is therefore calling for the competitiveness of the companies concerned and ease of implementation to be given priority when drafting subordinate legislation. “This would require an internal directive from the head of the Commission to all departments.” In addition, the Commission should create a kind of “Implementation Office” to coordinate the measures with an overall view, said the VCI representative. If the Commission itself does not have an overview, there is a risk of a lack of coherence.
The sheer volume of outstanding delegated acts and implementing acts is not the only problem. The details regulated therein in turn have a significant influence on the investment decisions of companies. This “technocratization of political decisions” is problematic, criticizes Ehler.
He cites the Commission’s draft legislation on the carbon footprint of batteries as an example. In the summer, the chemical industry was part of a broad alliance that sent an urgent letter to Minister for Economic Affairs Robert Habeck. The companies are particularly opposed to the Commission’s plan to calculate the CO2 footprint of batteries based on the CO2 intensity of the national electricity mix.
The delegated act for low-carbon hydrogen from natural gas or nuclear power is also about the future of the industry. “The methodology is crucial for all aspects of hydrogen: availability and production,” writes the VCI in its list. With the levers for calculating the CO2 intensity, the Commission can influence how many countries low-carbon hydrogen can come to Europe from, which influences prices. The Commission may not present the final version until August 2025, as was recently reported in Brussels. “There is still plenty of time for lobbying,” says one consultant.
In addition, the European Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) is of particular concern to the industry. Many details on the implementation of the controversial instrument are still outstanding, including regulations on the:
In this legislative period, the Commission also wants to review whether the CBAM is suitable as protection against carbon leakage and how the mechanism affects export industries that no longer receive free emission allowances as a result of the introduction of the CBAM. The issue was already part of the legislative negotiations two years ago. However, the issue of “compensation for export products, an essential concern for the many export-dependent sectors, was simply pushed into the new legislative period”, criticizes the VCI.
According to the VCI, the main reason for the delayed legislation was the fast pace of the legislative machine in the previous mandate. “There was hardly any time to clarify the numerous detailed issues and resolve the enormous complexity of many projects.” These were therefore “pushed into an indefinite future”.
Finally, she made her way home by car. On Nov. 30, Margrethe Vestager drove from Brussels to Copenhagen after ten years as Europe’s top competition watchdog. There may not be much of her style of competition policy left in Brussels in the coming years. Vestager insisted on healthy competition between companies. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, on the other hand, is likely to focus more on dirigisme and active industrial policy in the future.
However, one of Vestager’s legacies will remain at the headquarters of the EU Commission: knitted elephants. According to Vestager herself, she has made over 200 of them over the years. She started because she found knitting socks boring. By chance, she found a pattern for the four-legged friends, which she stuck to. Only the colors varied, depending on the wool. It takes Vestager eight to nine hours to complete an animal with its large ears.
The Dane knew how to cleverly market her hobby over the years, occasionally showing off a freshly knitted item on social media. She also gave journalists her knitting when they asked her about her hobby. Knitting is good for concentration, Vestager told them. And of course, she had a narrative ready as to why she knits elephants of all things. They are very social creatures and the females are in charge of their herds.
Vestager presented her closest employees with a woolen elephant when they got married, had a child, or changed jobs. Von der Leyen’s grandchildren also received a homemade gift from her. Even more interesting, however, is who didn’t get an elephant: Thierry Breton, the French digital commissioner who, before his abrupt departure in September, never missed an opportunity to show that he considered himself the most important contact for US tech companies in Brussels. Breton simply never asked for an elephant, says Vestager. Like elephants, she has a very good memory. Silke Wettach
The 15th package of sanctions against Moscow is on the home straight, an agreement today in the circle of EU ambassadors is very possible. Rarely has the discussion about new punitive measures against Russia been so quiet.
In fact, the package is not very controversial, as no new sectors are being targeted this time. The focus is on the shadow fleets with which Moscow is trying to circumvent the G7 countries’ price cap for Russian oil. Oil is the lifeblood of the Putin regime and the shadow fleet of tankers is keeping it alive, warns President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
The poorly maintained tankers without insurance also pose a serious risk to safety at sea and the environment, especially in the Baltic Sea. Surprisingly, the USA has so far sanctioned significantly more ships than the Europeans. The EU wants to follow suit and add 48 tankers to the sanctions list, which should significantly increase the cost of transporting oil for Russia.
The package also includes additional listings: A further 29 entities and 54 individuals are subject to account freezes or entry bans. For the first time, punitive measures were also taken against Chinese companies and citizens who supplied Russia with dual-use products for the arms industry. These include companies that are said to support Russia in the production of combat drones.
Following an agreement by EU ambassadors, the sanctions package could be formally adopted and put into force at the General Council in ten days. A next and more ambitious package with further punitive measures is to follow by the second anniversary of the Russian attack in February at the latest.
The Commission President traveled to the Mercosur summit in Montevideo on Thursday to conclude negotiations on the free trade agreement. The finish line is “in sight“, she wrote on X. Von der Leyen thus disregarded Macron’s explicit rejection. The Élysée Palace also reacted immediately via X and said that the French President had once again pointed out yesterday that the agreement was unacceptable in its current state.
But it’s not just the Élysée: The entire political spectrum in France rejects the Mercosur agreement, citing “unfair competition” from meat producers from Brazil and Argentina who are not subject to the EU’s environmental and health standards.
At the end of October, the CDU politician had already put Chancellor Olaf Scholz in his place when she implemented tariffs on EVs from China against his opposition. Von der Leyen is filling the gap left by the domestic political paralysis of the two traditional leading powers in the EU. At the same time, however, she is taking a considerable risk. In Paris, the impression is that the Commission President is taking advantage of the power vacuum following the fall of Prime Minister Michel Barnier. This is likely to be grist to the mill for EU critic Marine Le Pen.
Brussels and Berlin are trying to counteract this impression. According to Berlin, the Mercosur summit at the beginning of December had long been targeted as the target date for the conclusion of the agreement before the government crisis in Paris came to a head. The German government is one of the biggest supporters of the free trade agreement, which would open up access to previously heavily protected markets in South America for Germany’s export-oriented industry.
Nevertheless, von der Leyen risks shipwreck with her initiative in the Council of the EU states. “Ultimately, the member states will decide on this agreement,” an EU diplomat told Table.Briefings. In several countries, both right-wing and left-wing political forces are campaigning against the free trade deal. The issue is a good way to mobilize. The domestic political instability plays into their hands.
The arguments of the proponents are difficult to get through there: The agreement would bind the Latin American states, which are heavily courted by China, more closely to Europe in geopolitical terms. Only recently, the Chinese state-owned company Cosco opened the deep-water port of Chancay on the Peruvian Pacific coast. The agreement would be a welcome boost for the sluggish European industry and, measured by the volume of tariffs abolished (four billion euros), is by far the EU’s most important deal to date.
An additional uncertainty factor is the long wait until the Mercosur agreement will be voted on in the Council. According to the Commission, the process of “legal scrubbing” and translating the text of the agreement is likely to take up to six months. The member states will only vote once the text is available in its final and translated form. It is quite possible that the Council will not deal with the text until the second half of the year under the Danish Council Presidency.
However, diplomatic circles are also sending out positive signals regarding the agreement with Mercosur. Yesterday, Thursday morning, the Commission’s trade chief, Sabine Weyand, informed the member states in the Council’s Trade Policy Committee about the current status of the negotiations. According to reports, there is a broad majority in the Council that supports the agreement in principle. However, the necessary qualified majority requires 15 member states representing at least 65 percent of the EU population.
In addition to France, Ireland, Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Poland have so far spoken out more or less clearly against the agreement. No support can be expected from the Netherlands either, given the strong farmers’ movement in the government. Another shaky candidate is Italy, whose agriculture minister and foreign minister have expressed different views on the agreement. If all these governments oppose the agreement, a blocking minority would be reached.
However, diplomatic circles suggest that not all governments that are publicly skeptical are fundamentally opposed to the agreement. Poland’s resistance may also be linked to the presidential elections due to take place in May. As the first MFF negotiations are also due in 2025, some governments may also want to have their support for the Mercosur agreement bought in the budget negotiations.
If the Council approves the agreement, it must also be ratified by Parliament. In a reaction to von der Leyen’s announcement, the chairman of the trade committee, Bernd Lange (SPD), and the parliamentary rapporteur for Mercosur, Gabriel Matto (EPP), were extremely positive. “The abolition of 91% of tariffs would open up unprecedented opportunities for European companies,” said the Spaniard.
However, as this issue tends to polarize along national rather than party political lines, the statements made by the German Social Democrat and the Spanish Christian Democrat are unlikely to be very representative of the Parliament as a whole. During an appearance at the Trade Committee last Tuesday, Weyand had to listen to harsh criticism from French, Irish, and Belgian MEPs of all party affiliations.
Lange assumes that the vote in parliament will not take place for around a year if it comes to that. However, he told journalists on Tuesday that it is not yet clear whether parliament will approve the agreement.
The list is long, very long: The German Chemical Industry Association (VCI) has compiled almost 900 implementing acts in a table that the EU Commission still has to present in the coming years. These include around 650 delegated acts and implementing acts, as well as studies and reports by the authority. Most of them resulted from the Green Deal laws of the last legislative period.
“This wave of legislation is now turning into an implementation tsunami,” warns Pierre Gröning, head of the VCI office in Brussels. In recent months, many companies and trade associations have already criticized excessive regulation from Brussels and called for some relief. According to the Draghi report, the EU adopted around 13,000 pieces of legislation between 2019 and 2024. The number of ordinary laws, delegated acts, and implementing acts has increased significantly compared to the previous legislative period.
The Commission itself is still struggling for guidance. When asked, the authority was unable to provide its own list. A spokeswoman merely referred to the existing register. An examination of the VCI list on the basis of random samples of individual dossiers essentially confirmed the accuracy of the information.
The chemical association’s list is already circulating in the European Parliament and is fueling the debate on how the burden of this secondary regulation can be reduced. It is “truly shocking” that not even the Commission knows the exact number of outstanding secondary legislation, criticizes Christian Ehler, EPP spokesperson on the Industry Committee. In order to penetrate this “jungle”, the European Parliament will use all opportunities for parliamentary scrutiny and not simply wave through impractical proposals.
The Christian Democrats are working on their own concepts to combat the growing bureaucratic burden, but these are not yet fully developed. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has announced that she will present a so-called omnibus act. This is intended to reduce the burden of a series of different laws in one go. The exact content is still open but is aimed in particular at simplifying the reporting obligations arising from sustainability reporting. Sven Giegold, Green Party Vice-President and former State Secretary for Economic Affairs, warns against spreading the responsibilities for the omnibus act across several committees and Council formations. “If the Commission gets the omnibus legislation wrong, it will become non-negotiable.”
The wave of delegated acts and implementing acts cannot simply be stopped: The laws adopted oblige the Commission to submit the subordinate acts.
Gröning is therefore calling for the competitiveness of the companies concerned and ease of implementation to be given priority when drafting subordinate legislation. “This would require an internal directive from the head of the Commission to all departments.” In addition, the Commission should create a kind of “Implementation Office” to coordinate the measures with an overall view, said the VCI representative. If the Commission itself does not have an overview, there is a risk of a lack of coherence.
The sheer volume of outstanding delegated acts and implementing acts is not the only problem. The details regulated therein in turn have a significant influence on the investment decisions of companies. This “technocratization of political decisions” is problematic, criticizes Ehler.
He cites the Commission’s draft legislation on the carbon footprint of batteries as an example. In the summer, the chemical industry was part of a broad alliance that sent an urgent letter to Minister for Economic Affairs Robert Habeck. The companies are particularly opposed to the Commission’s plan to calculate the CO2 footprint of batteries based on the CO2 intensity of the national electricity mix.
The delegated act for low-carbon hydrogen from natural gas or nuclear power is also about the future of the industry. “The methodology is crucial for all aspects of hydrogen: availability and production,” writes the VCI in its list. With the levers for calculating the CO2 intensity, the Commission can influence how many countries low-carbon hydrogen can come to Europe from, which influences prices. The Commission may not present the final version until August 2025, as was recently reported in Brussels. “There is still plenty of time for lobbying,” says one consultant.
In addition, the European Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) is of particular concern to the industry. Many details on the implementation of the controversial instrument are still outstanding, including regulations on the:
In this legislative period, the Commission also wants to review whether the CBAM is suitable as protection against carbon leakage and how the mechanism affects export industries that no longer receive free emission allowances as a result of the introduction of the CBAM. The issue was already part of the legislative negotiations two years ago. However, the issue of “compensation for export products, an essential concern for the many export-dependent sectors, was simply pushed into the new legislative period”, criticizes the VCI.
According to the VCI, the main reason for the delayed legislation was the fast pace of the legislative machine in the previous mandate. “There was hardly any time to clarify the numerous detailed issues and resolve the enormous complexity of many projects.” These were therefore “pushed into an indefinite future”.
Finally, she made her way home by car. On Nov. 30, Margrethe Vestager drove from Brussels to Copenhagen after ten years as Europe’s top competition watchdog. There may not be much of her style of competition policy left in Brussels in the coming years. Vestager insisted on healthy competition between companies. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, on the other hand, is likely to focus more on dirigisme and active industrial policy in the future.
However, one of Vestager’s legacies will remain at the headquarters of the EU Commission: knitted elephants. According to Vestager herself, she has made over 200 of them over the years. She started because she found knitting socks boring. By chance, she found a pattern for the four-legged friends, which she stuck to. Only the colors varied, depending on the wool. It takes Vestager eight to nine hours to complete an animal with its large ears.
The Dane knew how to cleverly market her hobby over the years, occasionally showing off a freshly knitted item on social media. She also gave journalists her knitting when they asked her about her hobby. Knitting is good for concentration, Vestager told them. And of course, she had a narrative ready as to why she knits elephants of all things. They are very social creatures and the females are in charge of their herds.
Vestager presented her closest employees with a woolen elephant when they got married, had a child, or changed jobs. Von der Leyen’s grandchildren also received a homemade gift from her. Even more interesting, however, is who didn’t get an elephant: Thierry Breton, the French digital commissioner who, before his abrupt departure in September, never missed an opportunity to show that he considered himself the most important contact for US tech companies in Brussels. Breton simply never asked for an elephant, says Vestager. Like elephants, she has a very good memory. Silke Wettach