Mr. Goldthau, in our last interview, you said that we were not dealing with an energy crisis but with a price crisis. That was before the Russian attack on Ukraine. Now there has been a war for nine months. How do you assess the situation today?We are now in a fundamentally different situation compared to […]
“We can do it and we will do it,” said EU Commissioner Margaritas Schinas yesterday in the European Parliament. He was referring to the implementation of the asylum and migration package, which was once again the subject of a parliamentary debate yesterday.Since the so-called migration crisis in 2015, the Commission has been working on a […]
The EU lacks the mandate to agree to modernize the controversial International Investment Treaties at today’s Energy Charter Conference in Mongolia. So has the reform failed? “The modernization process is over,” is how one EU diplomat puts it, anyway. Christian Ehler (CDU/CSU), a member of the EPP, takes a similar view. The German government had […]
The Energy Charter Treaty was actually on the agenda of the Permanent Representatives Committee yesterday. This was to agree on whether the EU will support the reform of the controversial treaty next Tuesday. But at the last moment, the Czech Council Presidency took the Energy Charter Treaty off the agenda of items that will be […]
The coalition delayed its decision for a long time. Since Friday, it has become clear: Germany will withdraw from the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT). The agreement, which dates back to the 1990s, allows investors to sue states in private arbitration courts if their plants and investments are at risk, for example, because of stricter climate […]
Lara Wolters (S&D) was already rapporteur for the parliamentary own-initiative report on the supply chain law, on which the European Parliament voted in March 2021. Wolters has already spoken out in favor of an ambitious law. It should therefore come as no surprise that her report on due diligence for companies is significantly more ambitious […]
Despite all the criticism of the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT), the EU states in the Council are expected to approve the reform. The discussion is “constructive,” several diplomats reported in an interview with Europe.Table. A blocking minority is not to expect, they said. “No one has an interest in staying with the old treaty,” said […]
After a delay of almost two years, the Commission presented its supply chain legislation yesterday. As Europe.Table reported, Commissioners Thierry Breton and Didier Reynders were ultimately able to agree on a compromise. SMEs are not directly covered by the directive, but the rules apply to the entire supply chain. Reynders spoke of an “ambitious and […]
So now it hit him. Luxembourg’s Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn has tested positive for COVID-19 and must therefore stay at home when heads of state and government discuss further action in the Russia-Ukraine crisis. It took long enough. Asselborn’s mask style is considered discreet-alternative: The mouth is covered, but the nose needs its freedom to […]
Actually, Bernd Lange should not even be aware of the paper. The opinion of the Commission’s internal Regulatory Scrutiny Committee on the EU Supply Chain Act will, as usual, only be made publicly available once the Commission has adopted the corresponding legislative proposal. But Lange, the chairman of the European Parliament’s Trade Committee, has obtained […]