Policy Positions
Implementing the EU Green Deal requires annual investments of about €620 billion, most of which will have to be shouldered by the private sector. However, businesses and households are not investing enough as of now. An important lever for greater green investment is reducing uncertainty around such investment. At the start of the next institutional cycle, the EU should hence improve regulatory certainty for green investments, which should be palatable to most parties likely to form a majority in the Parliament. In addition, the EU should adopt concrete tools that reduce cost uncertainty for companies and households in a pragmatic manner. To this end, this policy position recommends using green lead markets and proposes moves to explore two novel mechanisms that cost taxpayers little to nothing but should boost green investments.
The Net Zero Industry Act (NZIA) was touted as the EU‘s big response to the US Inflation Reduction Act. After a year of negotiations, it will finally hit the legislative books. In his policy position, Nils Redeker analyses what has become of the EU‘s green industrial policy ambitions, what the NZIA teaches us about Europe‘s role in the clean tech race, and what the next Commission needs to do to formulate a constructive answer to the global return of industrial policy.
The EU is discussing better regulation. The issue is urgent. Nothing less than the competitiveness of European companies and the acceptance of the EU are at stake. But beware – neither symbolic politics nor broad deregulation will help. Instead: here are four concrete measures that could substantially improve the quality of EU regulation.
A European Green Deal that can withstand external shocks and navigate the twists and turns of geo-politics rests on diversified sources of critical imports. However, diversification is a matter for corporate decisions on where to find supplies and place investment and European firms, grappling with cost-push inflation, are reluctant to bear the costs these entail. In this policy position, Francesco Findeisen makes three suggestions about how the EU can help its firms achieve economic resilience through conditional industrial policy support and public procurement.
Current security guarantees for Ukraine range from unavailable to ineffective, writes Sascha Ostanina. She proposes a middle-ground solution to provide collective security for Ukraine through a binding self-defence agreement between the EU and Ukraine. Such an agreement would provide Ukraine with access to weapons and ammunition in the event of Russian aggression.
Die Europäische Union muss sich erweitern, möchte sie ihre unmittelbare Nachbarschaft stabilisieren und dem Einfluss Russlands in der Region vorbeugen. In dieser Policy Position argumentiert Thu Nguyen, dass jedoch sowohl künftige Mitgliedstaaten als auch die EU für die Erweiterung bereit sein müssen. Dazu braucht es Reformen, vor allem in drei Bereichen: Rechtsstaatlichkeit, Handlungsfähigkeit und EU-Haushalt.
The EU struggles to remain internationally competitive, with pressures intensifying since the Russian war in Ukraine. Many factors, most of them long-standing, determine EU competitiveness, such as lack of skilled labour, digitalisation, or quality of infrastructure. A vast literature exists on how to address these issues. This paper takes a narrower approach by focusing on three more recent levers for the EU to ensure its future competitiveness: devising an EU industrial policy, adapting to the changing energy landscape, and positioning the EU in a geopolitically tense environment.
Green growth requires strategy and coordination. The green transition entails important costs and will fail politically if we do not address socio-economic inequalities. In this Policy Position, Cornelia Woll proposes three pathways to a net-zero economy by 2050 that ideally should be combined: (i) correcting market signals through taxonomies and taxation; (ii) developing a European industrial policy that supports green innovation but also rewards successful transition plans; (iii) facilitating the funding for companies and financial institutions lending to those invested in green technology.
Germany Needs a Europe Pact
(2023)
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz recently presented a new “Germany-Pact” to advance the country, following media reporting that has portrayed Germany as the “sick man of Europe” due to its waning economy. However, as Johannes Lindner and Nils Redeker observe, Europe does not play a big role in this pact. In this op-ed, originally published in Handelsblatt, they explain why Germany should refocus on the EU single market and develop an overall strategy for modernising the country and Europe.