- EU data policy
- Hydrogen: not all that glitters is not green
- Anna Lührmann to be new Minister of State for Europe
- Commission wants to make joint gas reserves possible
- CDU/CSU parliamentary group criticises traffic light coalition’s plans for Europe
- EU chemicals strategy: industry calls for support for “massive investments
- Privacy Shield: Jourová hopes for proposal by end of the year
- ECB ruling in Karlsruhe: EU Commission drops proceedings against Germany
- Consumer advocates may sue Facebook, says EU attorney general
- FTC takes action against ARM takeover
- France: Pécresse likely conservative candidate
- Opinion: EU states are stonewalling on energy crisis solution
With all the farewell interviews, political obituaries, and reviews of the “Merkel years” that could be read, seen, and heard in recent months, one could almost feel that the Chancellor’s long-announced departure was permanent. But now Angela Merkel is really leaving. Yesterday, the German Armed Forces said goodbye with a Great Taps. At the Chancellor’s request, the staff music corps played, among others, the Nina Hagen song “Du hast den Farbfilm vergessen” and “Für mich soll’s rote Rosen regnen” by Hildegard Knef. Merkel followed the ceremony visibly moved.
There were also political farewells in Germany’s southern neighbor. In Austria, however, things were less thoughtful: after former chancellor and ÖVP party leader Sebastian Kurz announced in the morning that he was turning his back on politics, his fellow campaigners followed suit. First, acting Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg announced his resignation, a short time later Finance Minister Gernot Blümel followed suit. “I have decided to leave politics,” said Blümel, who is considered a close confidant of Kurz. The Kurz system was considered extremely stable until recently, but now it is crumbling. According to media reports citing government circles, Interior Minister Karl Nehammer (ÖVP) is to take over the post of chancellor.
The process by which the Data Governance Act passed was rather peaceful. Now the next project is on the agenda. With the Data Act, the EU wants to promote the exchange of data and at the same time create clearer rules for data use. The potential for conflict is greater, writes Falk Steiner, capturing reactions from the business community.
In mid-December, the legislative texts with which the EU Commission wants to orient the European gas market towards hydrogen are to be presented. First drafts are already circulating and show that the focus is clearly on low-carbon fuels – such as blue hydrogen. But this is only supposedly climate-friendly, as Timo Landenberger analyses. One critic wants to recognize the “signature of the gas lobby” in the drafts.
Sarah Schaefer
Feature
EU data policy: the major construction site is yet to come
Europe’s data rights strategy must meet several requirements at once: On the one hand, it must guarantee the protection of European values, on the other hand, it must ensure the functioning of the markets, and thirdly, it is a geopolitical lever. The protection of personal data, primarily known under the heading of the General Data Protection Regulation, has set the style: The EU can obviously set standards so that the rest of the world has to follow them.
But since the debate about whether data is the new oil, two other aspects have also come increasingly into focus: Data as the basis of power, especially market power, and data as the raw material for economic prosperity.
With the Data Governance Act, the EU has now given itself a legal framework to promote this prosperity: It lays down the essential rules on how supply and demand are to be brought together via intermediary institutions, the data exchanges of the future – and, if possible, without encouraging the formation of new monopolies.
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