Dark patterns + Artificial Intelligence + Tesla + Taxonomy + Batteries

Summits keep Brussels and capitals busy. An EU summit Thursday and Friday, an extraordinary NATO summit on Thursday, both attended by US President Joe Biden and, in part, with the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy joining in.

In the morning, Chancellor Scholz will introduce the Chancellery budget in the Bundestag during the budget debate. Some announcements for the summit are also expected in this general debate. In the afternoon, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Council President Charles Michel are expected in the European Parliament.

Draft Council conclusions in circulation show how the EU member states intend to set priorities in the future. While Ukraine is to be assured of support and a reconstruction fund for the country is to be adopted, and efforts to establish a European defense authority are to be further intensified, the chapter on energy has not yet been finalized.

According to the draft, the EU wants to become independent of Russian gas, coal, and oil as soon as possible, but uranium is not mentioned. Skimming undue profits from the crisis would be a “useful funding source”. Perhaps most importantly, in terms of energy policy, the EU plans to jointly purchase energy – gas, liquefied natural gas, and hydrogen. This is intended to prevent EU member states from driving up each other’s prices on the now smaller world market. The document does not explain exactly what this European purchasing community is supposed to look like. In December, the Commission proposed a similar instrument for joint strategic gas purchasing (Europe.Table reported).

But even beyond the summits, things are far from boring:

The European Data Protection Board has published guidelines for dark patterns in social media platforms. With the help of the guidelines, authorities throughout Europe should now be able to take uniform action against dark patterns, i.e. against the unfair tactics used by some website operators to obtain users’ data. At the same time, the guidelines specify how complaints can be avoided. Torsten Kleinz has the details.

Beyond the published guidelines, Brussels is currently working on the Digital Services Act (DSA) to create new, mandatory rules for online platforms. Julian Jaursch, project director at the German think tank Stiftung Neue Verantwortung, argues that the DSA should contain a separate article on platform design with clear definitions and transparency rules that apply to all online platforms and prevent misleading design – the dark patterns mentioned above.

In Grünheide yesterday, a good-humored, dancing Elon Musk opened the Tesla plant with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, from which 500,000 EVs, Model Y, are now expected to roll out annually. Read more about it in the News.

Next Thursday, the EU Parliament’s rapporteur for the revision of CO2 fleet limits for cars and vans, Jan Huitema (Renew), will present his compromise text for an agreement in the ENVI committee to the shadow rapporteurs. In the compromise, among other things, he sticks with the combustion engine phase-out. Read what else is in it in the News.

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Falk Steiner