Spain takes over the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU from Sweden in the second half of the year. The current schedule of the government in Madrid includes informal environment and energy councils on July 11, 12 and 13, according to a calendar published by Contexte. An informal meeting of competitiveness ministers is […]
The political groups in the European Parliament have divided the responsibilities for important legislative projects. According to information from EP circles, the Socialist S&D group secured the report on the electricity market reform at a meeting of the coordinators in the Committee on Industry, Research, and Energy (ITRE). The Net-Zero Industry Act will go to […]
Germany and the Netherlands want to cooperate in building a hydrogen economy. The Netherlands would like to participate in the German H2Gobal procurement initiative, for example, according to the joint statement issued after the government consultations in Rotterdam. In addition, new connections such as the Delta Rhine Corridor are to transport hydrogen from the port […]
The heads of state and government would like to avoid one contentious issue as far as possible: Negotiations on the phasing out of internal combustion engines should be concluded before the EU summit starting this morning, if possible, or at least left to the two previous opponents, German Minister for Transport Volker Wissing and EU […]
Christian Lindner only informed his colleagues from the other EU countries shortly before the start of the Euro Group meeting last Monday: Germany would not support the joint declaration on the reform of fiscal rules as it stood, the German finance minister sent out. Most of the other ministers were caught off guard; after all, […]
Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has advocated shifting extensive competences from the EU level back to the member states. “Let’s reduce the number of areas for which the EU is responsible”, he said Monday during a speech at the University of Heidelberg. The Union should concentrate on the areas for which it is responsible under […]
A dispute over the treatment of the nuclear industry almost blew up the schedule. Several commissioners objected to including certain technologies, such as for small modular reactors, in the Net-Zero Industrial Act (NZIA). In the end, Austrian representative Johannes Hahn, among others, was content to put his objections on record.The Commission could hardly afford to […]
In December, the heads of state and government had instructed the EU Commission to hurriedly come up with a response to the Inflation Reduction Act. The Biden administration’s subsidy program for climate-friendly industries, combined with high energy prices, had stoked fears among policymakers that Europe could lose out on the expected boom in green industries. […]
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen holds out the prospect of less red tape for companies. “We will present concrete proposals by the fall to simplify reporting requirements and reduce them by 25 percent“, she told the European Parliament. Medium-sized companies in particular usually suffered not from individual reporting requirements, but from the “huge […]
The meeting of EU finance ministers actually promised to be an unagitated discussion, after all, the member states had already agreed on the joint declaration on the reform of the Stability and Growth Pact in advance. However, German Finance Minister Christian Lindner ensured that things turned out differently: In Brussels, the head of the FDP […]