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Between 6-9 July 2024, the 720 members of the European Parliament were elected across 27 Member States. While the elections have not led to a landslide shift to the right, there is a notable consolidation of far-right parties at the European level. Still, the pro-European centre is holding firm and maintains a majority. In this Policy Brief, Jannik Jansen and Thu Nguyen argue that the results likely indicate by-and-large continuity in the European Parliament, including an ongoing shift to the right on contested issues due to a perforated ‘cordon sanitaire’. But the election results had heavily disruptive consequences on the national level, which in France has triggered snap parliamentary elections. This will have pronounced impact on the balance of power in the (European) Council and on the EU as a whole.
Election campaigns are increasingly conducted online. Social media platforms in particular shape political discourse and facilitate new ways of delivering political messages. This was initially considered a boon for democracy, but opaque manipulation tactics quickly turned it into a threat to fair and transparent elections. National regulatory frameworks have often proved to be inadequate for online campaigns and the transnational nature of European elections. The EU has reacted to this with a regulation on political advertising. The initiative facilitates transnational campaigning online and aims to protect the integrity of European elections. The 2024 European elections will be the first time EU rules operate in this area, putting these to the test. This election cycle will indicate whether political actors are striking out for more cross-border campaigns and whether they suffice to protect European elections. Critical here is how online platforms implement the new rules and how transparent they are about campaign-related posts on their sites.
EU enlargement has historically fostered economic growth and political stability. In the Western Balkans, however, the process has stalled for many years due to the myriad crises afflicting the EU and failure to deliver reforms in the Western Balkans. This policy brief examines the evolution of the EU accession process, the challenges faced by candidate countries, and the need for a revitalized approach that builds reforms into the accession process rather than keep them a precondition for kickstarting it. It calls for the EU to remove bilateral disputes from the process and open accession talks with all candidate countries in all areas covered by the acquis, ensuring that all candidate countries have a fair chance based on their merits.
The first-ever European Defence Industrial Strategy and its financial leg, the European Defence Industrial Programme, saw the light of day in March 2024. The strategy seeks to ameliorate deficiencies in EU defence readiness identified in light of the Russo-Ukrainian war. It offers an ambitious agenda and tailor-made incentives designed to encourage EU member states to invest more, better, together, and European. The Jacques Delors Institute’s Associate Research Fellow Thierry Tardy and the Jacques Delors Centre’s Security Policy Fellow Sascha Ostanina argue that the strategy is a good start to motivate European countries for more action in the defence sector. However, as long as the EU fails to take on a larger defence mandate via treaty change, the strategy success will hinge upon whether the member states, and their respective industrial defence sectors, will be willing to step up to the plate.
In 2019, Ursula von der Leyen promised a geopolitical Commission. Back then, the proclamation was largely derided as empty rhetoric. However, in recent years, a dizzying number of geoeconomic initiatives have come from Brussels, revising and tweaking existing tools and measures, developing new instruments, and announcing a grand new European Economic Security Strategy. This policy brief examines the progress made and outlines the key challenges for the next Commission. While the current Commission expanded the EU‘s geoeconomic toolbox, the incoming Commission must prioritise harmonisation to prevent fragmentation, allocate substantial funds to enhance resilience, and streamline institutional processes to facilitate coherent policymaking at a European level.
Provided it is sufficiently regulated, securitisation can help to fund the economy and share risks within the monetary union. Securitisation combines the advantages of banks in lending and of financial markets in financing. However, a lack of standardisation and legal harmonisation currently prevents the EU from reaping the benefits of this instrument. Weakening the prudential framework will not create a truly European market but may pose new risks to financial stability. Instead, this Policy Brief argues that to scale up securitisation, overcoming the fragmentation in national contract and insolvency laws in the longer term will be key. In the meantime, the European Commission should cut unnecessary red tape and establish an EU-wide standardised securitisation product tailored to an asset class that shows sustainable growth potential. Renovation loans are a promising option.
The notion of a broad green backlash is set to dominate this year's European election campaign. Based on new survey data from more than 15.000 respondents in Germany, France and Poland, we show that it is largely overblown. A majority of voters still wish for a more ambitious climate policy and would support a raft of concrete measures to bring down emissions. However, supporting pivotal voters in the middle will require a stronger focus on green investment and industrial policy and offsetting measures for effective but unpopular policies like carbon pricing. Parties should not waste the coming months outbidding each other over how to cater to imagined climate fatigue but compete over concrete recipes to green the economy.
To achieve some recent EU priorities, such as boosting clean tech manufacturing, reducing energy prices, or strengthening economic resilience, policy makers are intervening more actively in the economy. Getting these types of policies right requires a thorough understanding of the respective business environment, technologies, and market developments. This policy brief argues that the EU level lacks the data and the analytic capacities that are needed to achieve this understanding. The next EU Commission should address these shortcomings by collecting more data in the narrow areas subject to vertical government intervention, by improving how data gets collected, and by dedicating more staff to data-driven analyses.
This policy brief delves into the potential of regular migration across diverse skill levels to alleviate labour shortages in the EU. It contends that the EU faces a policy dilemma by attempting to curtail certain migration forms, as seen in the recent Common European Asylum System (CEAS) reform, while concurrently encouraging others through initiatives like the EU Talent Pool. The inconsistent approach to third-country migration poses significant trade-offs, necessitating a comprehensive resolution. The brief advocates for a multi-faceted strategy encompassing (a) diversification, (b) integration, and (c) de-bureaucratization at both EU and member state levels. Addressing potential pitfalls such as brain drains and heightened competition among member states, the brief concludes by highlighting three essential criteria for enhancing talent attraction and mitigating EU labour shortages through both high- and low-skilled migration.
The 2024 European elections could mark a turning point in EU politics: The European Parliament has traditionally been a progressive force in EU policymaking, often pushing for more far-reaching, European solutions than the Council. This dynamic could fundamentally change after the 2024 elections, with the current power balance expected to shift in favour of more right-wing forces. But even without a turn towards a Eurosceptic majority, the outcome will determine the direction of policies decided by the Parliament and shape EU politics over the next five years. This policy brief offers an overview of the need-to-know for this election year. First, it details the institutional timeline until the end of the current legislative cycle. Second, it provides an overview of how European political parties are approaching the election campaign. Third, it discusses election day, possible new majorities in Parliament and inevitable institutional haggling over key positions. Finally, it describes the missed reform opportunities since the 2019 elections and how this may undermine the integrity of the June poll.
Europe’s climate and green industrial policies have faced criticism over lack of funding and coordination, but a shortage of skilled workers could be the key stumbling block for meeting the EU’s green ambitions. This policy brief shines a light on the challenges posed by this shortage. First, it provides an overview of the EU’s aspirational clean tech objectives. Second, it seeks to present a more nuanced perspective on the specific skill and labor requirements for producing and deploying key clean technologies, by providing an initial estimate for the workforce needed to meet the Union’s climate and industrial targets by 2030. Finally, it delves into the factors contributing to potential labor market bottlenecks and underscores the urgent need for targeted and coordinated policy actions.
The EU Military Assistance Mission in Support of Ukraine (EUMAM UA) is designed to support Ukraine’s army in its fight against Russia’s invasion. A two-year mission envisions training 40,000 Ukrainian soldiers on Western weapons systems and aims to maximise the utility of military assistance provided to Ukraine by its international partners. Can EUMAM UA provide Ukraine with a decisive advantage that wins the war? In this policy brief, Sascha Ostanina argues that EUMAM UA requires a longer mandate for Ukrainian troops to overcome real-life constraints. Consequently, the training mission’s cumulative impact can turn EUMAM UA into one of the key components of Ukraine’s battlefield successes. To increase its cumulative impact, the EU should also standardise the content of EUMAM UA courses and merge EUMAM UA with other EU military aid measures set up for Ukraine.
The EU's supply chains for critical raw materials are heavily concentrated in a handful of countries, notably China. This exposes the European Green Deal Agenda to the twists and turns of geopolitics and external shocks, while the net-zero transition will add to global resource requirements. To diversify the sources of its supplies, the EU intends establishing a Critical Raw Materials Club—a forum where resource-hungry and resource-rich countries collaborate in diversifying critical raw materials value chains. This policy brief outlines the challenges the EU faces in setting up such a Club and discusses options for designing an effective model. It concludes that a hybrid version, one that starts with voluntary commitments, minimal structure, and a limited number of members and becomes more ambitious over time, offers the most promising design solution. However, to succeed with this approach, the EU must make a credible upfront funding commitment at the launch of the Club and streamline its fragmented development finance model.
What Europe needs is not a regulatory pause, but better legislation. In record time, the EU has rolled out a comprehensive disclosure regime for sustainable finance. But the nascent regulatory framework is challenging to implement, remains vulnerable to abuse by those seeking to game the system and fails to provide meaningful guidance to investors. Despite detailed legislation, financial market participants differ significantly in their expectations of sustainable investment products and face the risk of greenwashing, where issuers - intentionally or unintentionally - make misleading sustainability claims. To enable private investment to finance Europe’s transition to net zero, this policy brief proposes short-term measures to combat greenwashing plus reforms that should be adopted once the next European Commission has assumed office. For the EU to uphold its status as a global benchmark for sustainable finance, lawmakers and regulators must urgently improve the rules in place and ensure that they are applied consistently across member states.
The “Franco-German Engine” currently stutters more than in the past, especially on energy topics. At times, this obstructs urgently needed policy making at the EU level. This policy brief attempts to illuminate the differences and commonalities between Germany and France on EU energy policy. First, it provides an overview of the German and French energy landscapes and their future objectives. Second, it describes the German and French positions on four controversial energy policy areas: nuclear energy, grid expansion, electricity market reform and guaranteeing low prices for energy-intensive industry. For each area, it identifies the key Franco-German pain-points and opportunities for the way forward.
Europe's green transition is expected to generate a substantial increase in demand for critical raw materials (the same holds true for the digital transformation that lies outside this inquiry). European firms heavily rely on imports for these minerals, with a significant amount coming from China. This geospatial concentration of supply chains exposes Europe's climate and green industrial policies to significant geopolitical risks. This complex of issues prompted the European Commission to introduce the Critical Raw Material Act in March 2023. Albeit a valuable addition to Europe’s strategic autonomy agenda, the Act does not rise to the scale of the challenge. Internally, it aims to develop a European value chain for critical raw materials by streamlining permitting processes without committing any new funds. Externally, it reframes existing trade instruments and partnership initiatives without providing a step-by-step schedule for tapping into new sources of supply. If the EU is intent on reducing its vulnerabilities it must recognize that resilience comes with a price tag. It needs to marshal meaningful European funding and administrative support provisions, set realistic diversification requirements for European companies via regulation, and back its external trade and partnership strategies with convincing resources.
Ukraine’s post-war reconstruction represents a mammoth task. Its successful implementation will depend, inter alia, on Ukraine’s ability to attract private sector support for its reconstruction projects. To enhance the country’s investment attractiveness, the European Commission put forward a €50bn Ukraine Facility proposal for 2024-2027. Will this initiative suffice to uncover Ukraine’s investment potential? In this policy brief, Sascha Ostanina maps proposed EU investment incentives for Ukraine and analyses shortcomings in the current approach. Fine-tuning its assistance mechanisms requires the EU to help Ukraine set-up insurance mechanisms, expand sector-specific SME financing mechanisms, and to prioritise Ukraine’s access to the EU single market. Getting this right could not only mobilise private investment for Ukraine’s reconstruction, but also streamline Ukraine’s accession to the EU.
Recent economic crises have disproportionately impacted the least advantaged in society. As Europe approaches the upcoming European Parliament elections in 2024, there are renewed concerns about an erosion of trust in democratic institutions in Europe. This policy brief looks back to the Great Recession in 2008, which led to a decline in trust and an increase in support for populist parties. Contrary to optimistic assessments, it shows that the apparent rebound of political trust at the country level masks heterogenous developments within European societies. Disadvantaged groups, particularly those with lower income and education levels, experienced a more pronounced drop in trust in the European Parliament in the aftermath of the Great Recession. Alarmingly, those groups’ trust levels have not bounced back to pre-crisis levels yet. To avoid that this gap in political trust widens even further, EU policymakers need to focus more on targeted support measures to cushion the blow of recent crises on already disadvantaged groups.
Funding remains the Achilles heel of the EU Green Deal. Europe needs to spend an additional €350 billion on climate action every year until the end of this decade. The bulk of sustainable investment is expected to come from the private sector and the InvestEU programme has been established to leverage private investment through the European Investment Bank (EIB) Group and other public financial institutions. However, overly ambitious target volumes backed by only limited public financial support, and the resultant high levels of leverage, prevent InvestEU from delivering its full potential for achieving the green transition. To plug the green investment gap, InvestEU needs to reduce its leverage, increase its transparency on intermediated operations and be complemented by fresh public spending at EU level to finance transformative investments that fall outside the scope of what public de-risking of private investments can achieve.
Labour shortages are a common challenge for EU member states. Shortages in sectors vital to the green and digital transition risk attaining common objectives of the EU’s industrial strategy. But as much as the need to attract skilled workers is a shared concern, the EU lacks a common labour migration policy that lives up to the challenge. In this Policy Brief, Lucas Rasche argues that the EU’s current labour migration acquis is highly fragmented, underused, and largely detached from other policy areas. Hence the EU needs to structurally re-think its approach to labour migration for it to truly compete in the global race for talent.