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Robert Habeck made his inaugural visit to Brussels yesterday to meet with Ursula von der Leyen and half a dozen of her commissioners. The Green politician said that Germany should vote against the supplementary legal act on taxonomy in its current form, although this was his “personal-political opinion”.
The statement says a lot about the state of coordination on European policy in the traffic light government shortly after it took office. The coalition partners had promised more stringent coordination processes. But at least after the first endurance test, there is little to suggest that the SPD, the Greens, and the FDP will succeed in positioning themselves jointly in Brussels any better than their predecessors. Till Hoppe has the details and also names the key players in the government from an EU perspective.
Habeck also held talks in Brussels on how to ensure security of supply should the conflict with Russia actually escalate. The EU and US are working to finalize negotiations on the sanctions package in the event of a Russian attack on Ukraine. There is great concern that Moscow will, in return, curb energy supplies to Europe and exacerbate the turbulence on the markets.
The dispute over Huawei in 5G networks is now also occupying international arbitration, as the company has sued Sweden. Nico Beckert and Falk Steiner explain what the Chinese network supplier is trying to achieve and why this could set a precedent in Europe.
Eugenie Ankowitsch
Feature
Traffic light government: EU coordination still stalled
Robert Habeck’s agenda for his first trip to Brussels as a minister was plenty full – the list of interlocutors included Ursula von der Leyen and half a dozen of her commissioners. But the Green Party politician was asked almost exclusively about one topic during his visit: the German government’s position on the supplementary legal act on taxonomy. “My personal-political opinion is that if nuclear energy stays in it, as it is now, Germany should vote no,” Habeck replied.
Until shortly before the deadline last Friday evening, the German government had struggled to find wording for its statement on the Commission’s draft that would do justice to the differing views within the traffic light coalition. It was the first test of the commitment set out in the coalition agreement to act as a united federal government in Brussels and to “take a clear and early position on European Commission projects through more stringent coordination“. The SPD, Greens, and FDP did not really pass this test.
Habeck’s statement shows that the coalition partners are still at odds. The dispute over Germany’s position on taxonomy indicates “that not everything is running smoothly in the German government when it comes to EU coordination,” states Linn Selle, President of the European Movement Germany. In Berlin, as in other EU capitals, there is still a danger “that if one fails, ‘Brussels’ will be blamed at the flick of a switch”.
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