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Following the surprising withdrawal of Markus Pieper (CDU) as the Commission’s SME Envoy, there will be no high-ranking expert for the time being to insist on the reduction of harmful bureaucracy and reporting obligations. Much to the regret of the business community, the Commission has announced that it will not restart the appointment procedure until after the European elections. This means that the SME Envoy will probably not take up his job this year.
Ursula von der Leyen still tried to retain Markus Pieper. He is a proven expert on the situation of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises. The campaign launched by Industry Commissioner Thierry Breton and Green MEP Daniel Freund against von der Leyen’s personnel decision had already caused damage to the election campaign of the EPP lead candidate, which had just begun. Breton had been extremely unfriendly during the appeal proceedings, after the decision in favor of Pieper and even after Pieper’s exasperated withdrawal.
The Frenchman has left no doubt in the past that he would also be capable of running for president. However, he was not even included in the team of top candidates from his liberal party family. And it is highly doubtful whether he could be placed in the Berlaymont again as a French candidate for a Commission post given this history. Have a good day!
According to diplomats, the EU will condemn Iran’s unprecedented attack on Israel at the special summit in Brussels and at the same time call on all players to avoid further escalation. Possible new sanctions against Tehran are also on the agenda of the two-day meeting, which begins today, Wednesday.
The foreign ministers already held an initial discussion on Tuesday at a virtual meeting arranged at short notice, as EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell explained in the evening. The idea was to extend the existing drone sanctions that were imposed last year in connection with Iran’s deliveries to Russia. Borrell emphasized that the sanctions regime could be expanded to include missiles and at the same time be extended geographically.
Specifically, not only deliveries to Russia but also to Iran’s governor in the Middle East could be subject to restrictive penalties. The European External Action Service is to draw up a corresponding proposal by the regular meeting of foreign ministers next Monday. Loopholes through which Iran still obtains components for the construction of drones are also to be plugged.
Some foreign ministers had also once again called for the Revolutionary Guards to be placed on the list of terrorist organizations, said Borrell. The Foreign Affairs Commissioner reiterated the Council’s legal position that this would first require a terrorism trial or a judgment in a member state for terrorist activities by the Revolutionary Guards. So far, this requirement has not been met.
The special summit follows a rather unusual choreography and is not due to start until late afternoon on Wednesday. Iran and the situation in the Middle East will be the topic of discussion at dinner. Before that, the topics will be Ukraine and Turkey. For the first time since the Russian invasion more than two years ago, Ukraine almost did not attend. Following an intervention by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the heads of state and government now want to discuss how the country could be helped with additional air defense capacities.
The discussion about Turkey is based on a communication that Borrell presented last year in order to revive relations with Ankara. The modernization of the aging customs union with Turkey is on the table for Volodymyr Zelenskiy. The European Investment Bank (EIB) could also resume its activities in the important neighboring country.
The foreign policy crises are overshadowing the actual main topic of the special summit: the competitiveness of the EU. The heads of state and government want to discuss this on Thursday morning in light of a report on the future of the single market, which they commissioned from former Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta.
However, by Tuesday afternoon, Letta had only sent a rather cloudy “political introduction” to the capitals, which left diplomats rather puzzled. It was not until Tuesday evening that the entire 150-page report, which is available to Table.Briefings, followed.
Despite Letta’s delay, Council President Charles Michel had already formulated a fairly extensive list of points for the draft summit conclusions, which are to be combined into a “European Competitiveness Deal“. However, there is basically only one really concrete point: the Capital Markets Union. EU diplomats are expecting a lively discussion here, which could set the direction and pace for further work.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron, together with Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and the Netherlands’ Mark Rutte, are pushing for rapid progress to better link national capital markets. They hope that this will mobilize more private investment for the restructuring of national economies. According to Letta, Europeans have saved €33 trillion, but this could only be insufficiently tapped into for domestic investments.
Other member states are slowing down, and Minister Christian Lindner is also warning against too much speed. The ambitions have been toned down: In the draft conclusions, the heads of state and government no longer call on the Council and Commission to harmonize insolvency law and corporate taxation, but only relevant aspects of it.
The idea: A reform that is too broad could meet with fierce resistance in the member states. According to a high-ranking EU diplomat, national justice ministries would have legitimate objections if they wanted to retain their tried and tested insolvency laws. At the same time, however, the heads of state and government see the importance of progress. “A push from the leaders can be helpful here”, he says. Another EU diplomat said that the finance ministries often had a reflex to insist on their national competences, while the heads of government were somewhat less strict about this.
The situation is similar when it comes to the supervision of the capital markets. Macron and Rutte in particular believe that centralizing supervision makes sense. This would create a level playing field and reduce the bureaucratic burden on national supervisory authorities, argue the proponents.
Other governments, however, do not want to cede national sovereignty over supervision to EU institutions such as the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA). The EU supervisory authorities are no longer mentioned in the latest draft of the conclusions. Luxembourg, Belgium and Ireland in particular are strongly opposed to the centralization of market supervision.
Even if the European Council will not agree on centralized market supervision, a high-ranking EU diplomat hopes that the Commission will recognize the “majority dynamics” among the heads of government and make proposals on this basis. Letta writes in his report that the EU should gradually move towards centralized supervision, initially limited to the largest market players.
The transparency register of the EU institutions offers loopholes for non-governmental organizations (NGOs). NGOs that receive their funding from third-party donors could use the rules of the Transparency Register to avoid disclosing financial information. For example, they can claim to represent only their own interests or the common interests of their members. The European Court of Auditors‘ special report on the transparency register, which will be published today, Wednesday, criticizes this.
According to the report, around a third of the organizations audited, which classified themselves as “non-governmental organizations, platforms, networks or similar”, stated that they only represented their own interests and the common interests of their members. They were therefore not required to disclose the financial support and funding they received. The Court of Auditors was unable to see that the “self-declarations” of NGOs were “systematically checked for the interests they represent”, “which is decisive for what financial information they disclose”.
A total of 3529 lobby organizations identified themselves as NGOs. A third, i.e. 1207 organizations, did not disclose their sources of funding, while only 66 percent, 2322 organizations, were willing to provide information. The Court of Audit is calling for this loophole to be closed by the end of 2025. The completeness and accuracy of financial data must be systematically checked.
The special report examined the transparency register of the Parliament, Commission and Council based on the 2021 interinstitutional agreement. The audit was completed before the corruption scandal in the European Parliament surrounding the then Vice-President Eva Kaili. NGOs that had access to the European Parliament also played a role in this.
After the scandal came to light, the European Parliament tightened the transparency rules in several steps. Lobbyists with access to the European Parliament are now subject to stricter controls. In addition, information about meetings must be published. The tightening of the lobbying rules, some of which have led to a change in the Rules of Procedure, is not yet the subject of the audit report.
The report also criticizes the fact that the Parliament, Commission and Council apply the transparency rules in different ways. For example, the member states in the Council were only prepared to make meetings between EU ambassadors and their deputies and lobbyists dependent on registration in the transparency register. And only in the six months in which a member state holds the six-month Council presidency or in the six months before that.
Likewise, only “high-level decision-makers of the Council and the Commission” were subject to the rules. In the Council, they therefore only applied to the Secretary-General and the Directors-General. In the Commission, the rule that lobbyists must be entered in the register applies to meetings of Commissioners, Cabinet members, the Secretary-General and the Directors-General.
In Parliament, on the other hand, MEPs and their assistants are advised to make meetings with lobbyists public. However, even after the tightening of the rules in Parliament, there is no rule that staff in Parliament may only meet with registered lobbyists. The bottom line is that meetings between low-ranking staff in all three institutions are exempt from the rules.
The Court of Auditors also criticizes the fact that there are no sanctions for violations of the transparency rules by lobbyists. The inter-institutional agreement is not a legal act. If violations were found, the organizations could at best be removed from the transparency register. Depending on the severity of the violation, the responsible secretariat could only refuse the lobbying association’s re-registration. The ban can last between 20 working days and two years.
The Court of Audit found that between 2019 and 2022, almost a thousand lobbyists were removed from the register each year. However, in almost all cases, the reason was that the lobby organization did not renew its registration in time. Only in six cases was a lobby organization removed from the register due to complaints and investigations. And in only one case was the organization prohibited from re-registering.
Not everyone would claim to be able to devote themselves to their passion in their professional life. Sabine Verheyen can do just that: “In Brussels, I do many things that are close to my heart and that I enjoy”, she says. In her current work as a Member of the European Parliament, she combines the many interests she has pursued since her student days.
The 59-year-old from Aachen studied architecture in her home city and was active in local politics there as a member of the CDU from 1990. Her political career began in Aachen’s city district. Even back then, she liked to take problems into her own hands instead of letting them happen to her. “My motto has always been: if something bothers you, you can’t just sit on the sofa and complain, you have to go where you can make a difference“, says Verheyen.
Her work on the city council in her hometown was followed by a term as mayor of Aachen in 1999. From 2003, she was also active on the WDR Broadcasting Council. Due to her proximity to various neighboring European countries, Verheyen was involved in various cross-border committees such as the Euregio during her ten years in office as mayor. “I was able to experience European work in practice back then”, she says. In her position as a local politician, she has often noticed in her cooperation with the EU that “the European competence of the municipalities, but also the municipal competence of Europe, must be improved“.
For Verheyen, this was motivation enough to venture into European territory herself. She was first elected to the European Parliament for the CDU in 2009. From the very beginning, she has been a strong advocate for education, culture and media policy. Since 2019, she has been Chair of the Committee on Culture and Education (CULT) in the European Parliament.
In this position, she played a decisive role in the negotiations with the Council on Erasmus funding. At the beginning of the current legislative period, the EU budget was doubled. The EU provided the Creative Europe program in particular with significantly more money.
Verheyen sees this step as a great success because a well-funded Erasmus program can “convey to future generations what Europe is actually there for“. At the same time, she would have liked even more financial support.
In any case, her work is not yet done; she hopes that an Erasmus stay will be open to all interested parties in the future. She would also like to reduce the bureaucracy involved in the application process. The barriers are currently too high, for example when applicants have to fill out a 90-page form for a school exchange program. “As long as I haven’t achieved these goals, I won’t be satisfied”, she says.
Sabine Verheyen also has a clear position on other education issues. There is still room for improvement in the European Education Area, which aims to achieve equivalent school-leaving qualifications between the member states. She would like to see more commitment from the member states. After all, they agreed to complete the European Education Area by 2025 at the Gothenburg summit in 2017.
In any case, she would like to see the EU itself take on a more coordinating role. All to secure a supply of skilled workers. “I don’t want to interfere in every curriculum, but we need a certain degree of qualitative comparability to create mobility and flexibility in the European education and labor market,” she says.
In addition to the primarily education policy issues, Verheyen coordinated the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA) as rapporteur in the CULT Committee, which the Parliament agreed on in trilogue with the Commission and Council in December 2023. The European Parliament then adopted the EMFA in March. “We have ensured that media supervision is politically independent, that transparency is created regarding the ownership structure of media companies and that minimum standards are set for the free work of journalists and public broadcasting”, she summarizes.
Although Verheyen was not able to push through all of Parliament’s demands, she is satisfied with the agreed legal basis. “When I look at the basic attitude of the member states at the start of the negotiations, we really have achieved a lot as a parliament,” says Verheyen. Her previous work, specifically as a member of the Broadcasting Council, has once again helped her in these debates.
Sabine Verheyen would like to continue her work in the European Parliament in the upcoming mandate. The prerequisites are good, as she has the best chance with second place on the CDU state list in North Rhine-Westphalia. Jasper Bennink
Following the surprising withdrawal of Markus Pieper (CDU) as the Commission’s SME Envoy, there will be no high-ranking expert for the time being to insist on the reduction of harmful bureaucracy and reporting obligations. Much to the regret of the business community, the Commission has announced that it will not restart the appointment procedure until after the European elections. This means that the SME Envoy will probably not take up his job this year.
Ursula von der Leyen still tried to retain Markus Pieper. He is a proven expert on the situation of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises. The campaign launched by Industry Commissioner Thierry Breton and Green MEP Daniel Freund against von der Leyen’s personnel decision had already caused damage to the election campaign of the EPP lead candidate, which had just begun. Breton had been extremely unfriendly during the appeal proceedings, after the decision in favor of Pieper and even after Pieper’s exasperated withdrawal.
The Frenchman has left no doubt in the past that he would also be capable of running for president. However, he was not even included in the team of top candidates from his liberal party family. And it is highly doubtful whether he could be placed in the Berlaymont again as a French candidate for a Commission post given this history. Have a good day!
According to diplomats, the EU will condemn Iran’s unprecedented attack on Israel at the special summit in Brussels and at the same time call on all players to avoid further escalation. Possible new sanctions against Tehran are also on the agenda of the two-day meeting, which begins today, Wednesday.
The foreign ministers already held an initial discussion on Tuesday at a virtual meeting arranged at short notice, as EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell explained in the evening. The idea was to extend the existing drone sanctions that were imposed last year in connection with Iran’s deliveries to Russia. Borrell emphasized that the sanctions regime could be expanded to include missiles and at the same time be extended geographically.
Specifically, not only deliveries to Russia but also to Iran’s governor in the Middle East could be subject to restrictive penalties. The European External Action Service is to draw up a corresponding proposal by the regular meeting of foreign ministers next Monday. Loopholes through which Iran still obtains components for the construction of drones are also to be plugged.
Some foreign ministers had also once again called for the Revolutionary Guards to be placed on the list of terrorist organizations, said Borrell. The Foreign Affairs Commissioner reiterated the Council’s legal position that this would first require a terrorism trial or a judgment in a member state for terrorist activities by the Revolutionary Guards. So far, this requirement has not been met.
The special summit follows a rather unusual choreography and is not due to start until late afternoon on Wednesday. Iran and the situation in the Middle East will be the topic of discussion at dinner. Before that, the topics will be Ukraine and Turkey. For the first time since the Russian invasion more than two years ago, Ukraine almost did not attend. Following an intervention by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the heads of state and government now want to discuss how the country could be helped with additional air defense capacities.
The discussion about Turkey is based on a communication that Borrell presented last year in order to revive relations with Ankara. The modernization of the aging customs union with Turkey is on the table for Volodymyr Zelenskiy. The European Investment Bank (EIB) could also resume its activities in the important neighboring country.
The foreign policy crises are overshadowing the actual main topic of the special summit: the competitiveness of the EU. The heads of state and government want to discuss this on Thursday morning in light of a report on the future of the single market, which they commissioned from former Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta.
However, by Tuesday afternoon, Letta had only sent a rather cloudy “political introduction” to the capitals, which left diplomats rather puzzled. It was not until Tuesday evening that the entire 150-page report, which is available to Table.Briefings, followed.
Despite Letta’s delay, Council President Charles Michel had already formulated a fairly extensive list of points for the draft summit conclusions, which are to be combined into a “European Competitiveness Deal“. However, there is basically only one really concrete point: the Capital Markets Union. EU diplomats are expecting a lively discussion here, which could set the direction and pace for further work.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron, together with Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and the Netherlands’ Mark Rutte, are pushing for rapid progress to better link national capital markets. They hope that this will mobilize more private investment for the restructuring of national economies. According to Letta, Europeans have saved €33 trillion, but this could only be insufficiently tapped into for domestic investments.
Other member states are slowing down, and Minister Christian Lindner is also warning against too much speed. The ambitions have been toned down: In the draft conclusions, the heads of state and government no longer call on the Council and Commission to harmonize insolvency law and corporate taxation, but only relevant aspects of it.
The idea: A reform that is too broad could meet with fierce resistance in the member states. According to a high-ranking EU diplomat, national justice ministries would have legitimate objections if they wanted to retain their tried and tested insolvency laws. At the same time, however, the heads of state and government see the importance of progress. “A push from the leaders can be helpful here”, he says. Another EU diplomat said that the finance ministries often had a reflex to insist on their national competences, while the heads of government were somewhat less strict about this.
The situation is similar when it comes to the supervision of the capital markets. Macron and Rutte in particular believe that centralizing supervision makes sense. This would create a level playing field and reduce the bureaucratic burden on national supervisory authorities, argue the proponents.
Other governments, however, do not want to cede national sovereignty over supervision to EU institutions such as the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA). The EU supervisory authorities are no longer mentioned in the latest draft of the conclusions. Luxembourg, Belgium and Ireland in particular are strongly opposed to the centralization of market supervision.
Even if the European Council will not agree on centralized market supervision, a high-ranking EU diplomat hopes that the Commission will recognize the “majority dynamics” among the heads of government and make proposals on this basis. Letta writes in his report that the EU should gradually move towards centralized supervision, initially limited to the largest market players.
The transparency register of the EU institutions offers loopholes for non-governmental organizations (NGOs). NGOs that receive their funding from third-party donors could use the rules of the Transparency Register to avoid disclosing financial information. For example, they can claim to represent only their own interests or the common interests of their members. The European Court of Auditors‘ special report on the transparency register, which will be published today, Wednesday, criticizes this.
According to the report, around a third of the organizations audited, which classified themselves as “non-governmental organizations, platforms, networks or similar”, stated that they only represented their own interests and the common interests of their members. They were therefore not required to disclose the financial support and funding they received. The Court of Auditors was unable to see that the “self-declarations” of NGOs were “systematically checked for the interests they represent”, “which is decisive for what financial information they disclose”.
A total of 3529 lobby organizations identified themselves as NGOs. A third, i.e. 1207 organizations, did not disclose their sources of funding, while only 66 percent, 2322 organizations, were willing to provide information. The Court of Audit is calling for this loophole to be closed by the end of 2025. The completeness and accuracy of financial data must be systematically checked.
The special report examined the transparency register of the Parliament, Commission and Council based on the 2021 interinstitutional agreement. The audit was completed before the corruption scandal in the European Parliament surrounding the then Vice-President Eva Kaili. NGOs that had access to the European Parliament also played a role in this.
After the scandal came to light, the European Parliament tightened the transparency rules in several steps. Lobbyists with access to the European Parliament are now subject to stricter controls. In addition, information about meetings must be published. The tightening of the lobbying rules, some of which have led to a change in the Rules of Procedure, is not yet the subject of the audit report.
The report also criticizes the fact that the Parliament, Commission and Council apply the transparency rules in different ways. For example, the member states in the Council were only prepared to make meetings between EU ambassadors and their deputies and lobbyists dependent on registration in the transparency register. And only in the six months in which a member state holds the six-month Council presidency or in the six months before that.
Likewise, only “high-level decision-makers of the Council and the Commission” were subject to the rules. In the Council, they therefore only applied to the Secretary-General and the Directors-General. In the Commission, the rule that lobbyists must be entered in the register applies to meetings of Commissioners, Cabinet members, the Secretary-General and the Directors-General.
In Parliament, on the other hand, MEPs and their assistants are advised to make meetings with lobbyists public. However, even after the tightening of the rules in Parliament, there is no rule that staff in Parliament may only meet with registered lobbyists. The bottom line is that meetings between low-ranking staff in all three institutions are exempt from the rules.
The Court of Auditors also criticizes the fact that there are no sanctions for violations of the transparency rules by lobbyists. The inter-institutional agreement is not a legal act. If violations were found, the organizations could at best be removed from the transparency register. Depending on the severity of the violation, the responsible secretariat could only refuse the lobbying association’s re-registration. The ban can last between 20 working days and two years.
The Court of Audit found that between 2019 and 2022, almost a thousand lobbyists were removed from the register each year. However, in almost all cases, the reason was that the lobby organization did not renew its registration in time. Only in six cases was a lobby organization removed from the register due to complaints and investigations. And in only one case was the organization prohibited from re-registering.
Not everyone would claim to be able to devote themselves to their passion in their professional life. Sabine Verheyen can do just that: “In Brussels, I do many things that are close to my heart and that I enjoy”, she says. In her current work as a Member of the European Parliament, she combines the many interests she has pursued since her student days.
The 59-year-old from Aachen studied architecture in her home city and was active in local politics there as a member of the CDU from 1990. Her political career began in Aachen’s city district. Even back then, she liked to take problems into her own hands instead of letting them happen to her. “My motto has always been: if something bothers you, you can’t just sit on the sofa and complain, you have to go where you can make a difference“, says Verheyen.
Her work on the city council in her hometown was followed by a term as mayor of Aachen in 1999. From 2003, she was also active on the WDR Broadcasting Council. Due to her proximity to various neighboring European countries, Verheyen was involved in various cross-border committees such as the Euregio during her ten years in office as mayor. “I was able to experience European work in practice back then”, she says. In her position as a local politician, she has often noticed in her cooperation with the EU that “the European competence of the municipalities, but also the municipal competence of Europe, must be improved“.
For Verheyen, this was motivation enough to venture into European territory herself. She was first elected to the European Parliament for the CDU in 2009. From the very beginning, she has been a strong advocate for education, culture and media policy. Since 2019, she has been Chair of the Committee on Culture and Education (CULT) in the European Parliament.
In this position, she played a decisive role in the negotiations with the Council on Erasmus funding. At the beginning of the current legislative period, the EU budget was doubled. The EU provided the Creative Europe program in particular with significantly more money.
Verheyen sees this step as a great success because a well-funded Erasmus program can “convey to future generations what Europe is actually there for“. At the same time, she would have liked even more financial support.
In any case, her work is not yet done; she hopes that an Erasmus stay will be open to all interested parties in the future. She would also like to reduce the bureaucracy involved in the application process. The barriers are currently too high, for example when applicants have to fill out a 90-page form for a school exchange program. “As long as I haven’t achieved these goals, I won’t be satisfied”, she says.
Sabine Verheyen also has a clear position on other education issues. There is still room for improvement in the European Education Area, which aims to achieve equivalent school-leaving qualifications between the member states. She would like to see more commitment from the member states. After all, they agreed to complete the European Education Area by 2025 at the Gothenburg summit in 2017.
In any case, she would like to see the EU itself take on a more coordinating role. All to secure a supply of skilled workers. “I don’t want to interfere in every curriculum, but we need a certain degree of qualitative comparability to create mobility and flexibility in the European education and labor market,” she says.
In addition to the primarily education policy issues, Verheyen coordinated the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA) as rapporteur in the CULT Committee, which the Parliament agreed on in trilogue with the Commission and Council in December 2023. The European Parliament then adopted the EMFA in March. “We have ensured that media supervision is politically independent, that transparency is created regarding the ownership structure of media companies and that minimum standards are set for the free work of journalists and public broadcasting”, she summarizes.
Although Verheyen was not able to push through all of Parliament’s demands, she is satisfied with the agreed legal basis. “When I look at the basic attitude of the member states at the start of the negotiations, we really have achieved a lot as a parliament,” says Verheyen. Her previous work, specifically as a member of the Broadcasting Council, has once again helped her in these debates.
Sabine Verheyen would like to continue her work in the European Parliament in the upcoming mandate. The prerequisites are good, as she has the best chance with second place on the CDU state list in North Rhine-Westphalia. Jasper Bennink