Brussels Playbook: Energy standoff — New paths
for legal migration — The SLAPP
BY SUZANNE
LYNCH AND JAKOB HANKE VELA
April 27,
2022 7:12 am
POLITICO
Brussels Playbook
By SUZANNE
LYNCH and JAKOB HANKE VELA
with ZOYA
SHEFTALOVICH
ENERGY
STANDOFF LOOMS
CUTTING THE
GAS: Russia is poised to turn off the gas to Poland and Bulgaria from this
morning — the first tangible sign from Moscow that it’s prepared to cut the
energy supply line to Europe. Poland’s state gas company PGNiG confirmed the
move late Tuesday, with Bulgaria’s energy ministry announcing the development
shortly after.
Details:
According to PGNiG, Russia’s decision to cut off the gas to Poland was
retaliation for Warsaw refusing to pay for it in rubles, as President Vladimir
Putin demanded last month. The company said there was no “contractual basis”
for the decision, and it may claim damages. Polish Prime Minister Mateusz
Morawiecki accused Russia of trying to “punish” his country.
Don’t
panic: The Polish government insisted the development would not impact
households. “Poland has the necessary gas reserves and sources of supply that
protect our security,” Energy Minister Anna Moskwa said, noting the country’s
gas storage facilities were 76 percent full, and it had moved to diversify
supply. Bulgaria, which is much more dependent on Russian gas, said it was
working with companies to find alternative sources.
Tell that
to the traders … That didn’t stop market jitters, with European gas prices
surging Tuesday evening amid the prospect of possible further cut-offs. Earlier
in the afternoon, news that gas flows from Russia to Poland showed a
precipitous decline caused spot gas prices to spike. Month-ahead gas contracts
on the EU benchmark TTF trading hub in the Netherlands rose from €91 per
megawatt-hour to €107/MWh around 4:30 p.m., before settling back to €99/MWh,
report our energy colleagues America Hernandez and Zosia Wanat.
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Big
picture: The prospect of a major energy standoff will refocus discussion on the
EU’s energy strategy. Despite the European Commission’s big energy announcement
in March, there is little joined-up thinking when it comes to energy policy.
The EU is deeply divided on how to approach energy procurement and storage, not
to mention the long-term ideological divisions about how quickly to move away
from fossil fuels. The latest developments in Poland and Bulgaria are likely to
push the energy discussion right back up to the top of the agenda, at a time
when the EU is already struggling to agree on a sanctions package that would
hit Russian oil or gas. (Berlin said it could handle an embargo on Russian oil
imports on Tuesday.)
ARE
GERMANY’S CHEETAHS WHITE ELEPHANTS? Meanwhile, Germany on Tuesday made a major
U-turn and said it would send Gepard (Cheetah) anti-aircraft tanks to Ukraine.
But it’s unclear how much use they will be. Military experts who spoke to
POLITICO said that, of all of the German-made tanks Berlin could have shipped,
it chose the most complex — systems that require months of training, lots of
spare parts, and ammunition from Switzerland that Bern does not want to sell to
Ukraine.
Surprise:
Markus Richter, staff sergeant of the reserve in the German army who served as
a commander of a Gepard, told our colleague Hans von der Burchard he was
“surprised that the government chose to deliver such a highly complex weapon
system, instead of Marder or Leopard tanks, which are less complicated to
operate and maintain.”
So why
can’t Berlin send other tanks? “I can judge from my own experience that
training for [Gepard] takes a lot of time,” Richter said. “In the case of
Gepard systems delivered to Romania, full training took five months.” He
pointed to inconsistencies in the government’s argument, with Berlin claiming
the Marder “could not be delivered because, among other things, training would
take too much time.”
Opposition
wants more: Roderich Kiesewetter, the CDU’s coordinating lawmaker for foreign
policy, told Hans that “since the German government obviously trusts the
Ukrainian armed forces to learn complex Western systems very quickly, less
complicated systems such as the Marder infantry fighting vehicle, Leopard main
battle tank or artillery systems should also be made available.”
NOW READ
THIS — TANKS WON’T EASE GERMANY’S GUILT: Vasyl Cherepanyn, the head of the
Visual Culture Research Center in Kyiv, has an excoriating opinion piece for
POLITICO: “Despite its historical background, Germany has not only overlooked
the new fascism breeding under Russian President Vladimir Putin, it has been
feeding the aggressor from its own hands,” Cherepanyn writes.
ANOTHER
POINTLESS TRIP TO MOSCOW ENDS IN SOCIAL MEDIA AMMO FOR THE KREMLIN: The
procession of Western leaders traveling to Moscow to meet Putin and leaving
empty-handed continued on Tuesday, with U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres
the latest in town. While Guterres pressed the Russians to open humanitarian
corridors, there was little sign of any change in Putin’s stance. Instead, the
Russian foreign ministries’ Twitter pages used pictures of a smiling Putin and
Guterres shaking hands, declaring “Russia has been supporting and will continue
to support the founding principles” of the U.N.
WHAT ABOUT
THE POPE? When Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov addressed the U.N. Human
Rights Council after the invasion, around 140 diplomats walked out. One of the
few who stayed: The envoy from the Holy See. POLITICO’s Hannah Roberts has this
fascinating story on the frustration over the Vatican clinging to neutrality
over Ukraine.
WESTERN
SHOW OF STRENGTH: At a U.S. air base in Germany, western countries met on
Tuesday in a show of strength for the inaugural Ukraine Defense Consultative
Group. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the group would meet once a
month. Read more from our colleagues David Herszenhorn and Lili Bayer.
MIGRATION
PROPOSAL Share on Twitter Share on Facebook Share on Linkedin Share on Handclap
MAKING
MIGRATION SUSTAINABLE: The College of Commissioners is due to sign off on a new
migration package today, as the EU tries to get a grip on an issue that has
divided it for years. Commissioners Margaritis Schinas and Ylva Johansson will
unveil the package after the College meeting.
EXPLAINER:
The aim of the package is to refocus the EU’s policy toward legal migration
routes, particularly at a time when the Continent needs more workers. “We want
to turn away from irregular, dangerous migration routes and create more
orderly, legal possibilities,” Johansson told Playbook.
The package
has several strands: Legislative proposals and more long-term policy objectives
to make legal migration routes more attractive for migrants and more workable
for EU countries. Among the key measures …
— Making
the path to long-term residency easier. While migrants must live in an EU
country for five years before acquiring long-term residency status, the clock
resets if they move within the bloc. Under the new proposal, people will no
longer be penalized for intra-EU mobility, so they can move between countries
during the five-year period.
— Single
permit rule. Migrants will be able to obtain work and residence permits through
the same procedure. The current system under which migrants must take a labor
market test each time they move between EU countries will be changed, so one
test will suffice.
— More
protection. Workers will have the right to change employers while continuing to
reside legally in a country. The hope is this will help clamp down on
exploitation.
—
Fast-tracking the work and training ‘mobility partnerships’ previously
announced between EU members and countries like Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt.
(Don’t expect the Commission to shout about it, but this will likely involve a
tacit commitment by the partner countries to crack down on illegal migration.)
UKRAINE
ANGLE: Of course, the current package is being presented just as the EU
confronts a massive refugee influx from Ukraine. Officials say this is about
laying the ground for a more long-term approach to legal migration, particularly
at a time when many European countries are facing labor shortages. However,
some of the elements will be fast-tracked for Ukraine — for example, a new
“talent pool” that will match employers with employees, which will be rolled
out for Ukrainians this summer.
TWITTER
MUST FOLLOW EU RULES OR LEAVE: Following Elon Musk’s move to buy Twitter and
pledge to change its stance on content moderation, Playbook spoke with Thierry
Breton, the EU’s single market chief.
New sheriff
in town: “We now have extremely precise rules on digital content. If companies
such as Twitter want to benefit from the EU market, they will have to follow
these rules,” Breton said. “I don’t mind what they do outside of Europe. But
inside, if they don’t respect the rules, they face fines of 6 percent of their
turnover or, for repeat offenders, pure and simple banishment.”
Content
moderation: The EU’s new digital rules mean companies “will have to respect
free speech and have transparent algorithms,” Breton noted. “But they will also
have to moderate content, in all of the EU’s official languages, to remove
immediately hate speech and child pornography. What’s the rule offline will
also be the rule online.”
European
Twitter? Asked whether the EU should create a new Twitter, Breton argued this
was a job for entrepreneurs, not regulators. That said, “Europe will now become
extremely attractive for innovators, and we will see all sorts of new companies
emerging.” He added: “With the new harmonized rules, the EU will become the
biggest digital market in the free world, which is what was lacking. Europe
didn’t lack engineers or innovators or funds, it lacked a big attractive unified
market.”
IRAN
DEAL
NO WHITE
SMOKE: Talks to revive the Iran nuclear deal are still at a stalemate, our
colleague Stephanie Liechtenstein writes in to report from Vienna. The 27-page
document that will bring Iran and the U.S. back into the 2015 deal is mostly
agreed, except for one major sticking point: Iran’s demand that the U.S. remove
the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) from its Foreign Terrorist
Organization (FTO) list.
CALL FOR
FLEXIBILITY: In an open letter published Tuesday and addressed to the U.S. and
the Iranian leadership, 43 European former government officials, including ex
foreign and defense ministers, call on Washington to lift the FTO designation
for the branch of the Iranian armed forces. “We believe that there are ways to
provide the counter-terrorism benefits of the current designation while still
accommodating Iran’s specific request, and consider it imperative that these be
fully explored,” they write.
BACKGROUND:
The U.S. has only ever considered delisting the IRGC under specific and strict
reciprocal concessions from Iran, such as a commitment from Tehran not to
target Americans in the region, or to refrain from retaliating against former
U.S. officials deemed responsible for decisions like the killing of IRGC
commander Qassem Soleimani in January 2020. EU coordinator Enrique Mora passed
on the U.S. conditions to Iran and brought back an Iranian answer to the U.S.
during a visit to Washington last month.
Next steps:
As of now, there’s no compromise on this issue. In addition, the domestic
situation in the U.S. has increasingly turned against delisting the IRGC.
Meanwhile, the EU is considering another face-to-face meeting with Iran,
reports Stephanie.
IN OTHER
NEWS Share on Twitter Share on Facebook Share on Linkedin Share on Handclap
THE SLAPP:
Commission Vice President Věra Jourová is set to propose a new directive today
to protect journalists and human rights defenders from abusive lawsuits. The
move, coming alongside a recommendation to member countries, is part of the
Commission’s efforts to combat so-called SLAPPS — aka strategic lawsuits
against public participation — which are being increasingly used to curb
legitimate investigations by journalists and activists.
Details:
Under the new rules, “Member States shall empower courts and tribunals to adopt
an early decision to dismiss, in full or in part, court proceedings against
public participation as manifestly unfounded,” according to a draft of the
proposal seen by POLITICO’s Lili Bayer. The directive also envisions a range of
remedies against abusive proceedings, including “dissuasive penalties.”
No shopping
around: The Commission also wants to tackle “libel tourism.” The proposal says
member countries should ensure third-country judgments won’t be recognized or
enforced “if those proceedings would have been considered manifestly unfounded
or abusive if they had been brought before the courts or tribunals of the
Member State.”
HUNGARY
DECISION EXPECTED: Also today, commissioners are expected at their first
College meeting since the Easter recess to endorse sanctioning Hungary over
rule-of-law breaches and misuse of EU funds. Commission President Ursula von
der Leyen announced earlier this month that she would trigger the mechanism
against Hungary. As previously outlined by Playbook, the process will take
time, and will ultimately need a qualified majority vote in the Council. Also
up for debate is the precise scope of any sanctions, with a full suspension of
funds unlikely.
VDL LEAVES
O’REILLY ON READ: Ursula von der Leyen did not respond to questions by
Ombudsman Emily O’Reilly on her use of text messages by a Tuesday deadline. The
Ombudsman had sent a list of questions on the Commission president’s refusal to
publish her text messages with Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla. “We have asked the
Ombudsman for an extension, the answer is being finalized and we need a bit
more time,” Commission spokesman Eric Mamer said. (Backstory here.)
Parliament
not happy: “The European Commission should have responded to the Ombudsman
report by now,” MEP Sophie in ‘t Veld told Playbook. “Three months is more than
enough time. Not managing to put together a response in this much time smells
of contempt. This is a blow to democratic principles at the EU level.”
Ombudsman
tight-lipped: “We expect their response within four weeks as indicated today,”
a spokesperson for O’Reilly told Playbook.
CLIMATE
CHANGE FUELS SPAIN’S FAR RIGHT: Elections have been called for June 19 in
Spain’s Andalusia region and climate change is fueling far-right party Vox’s
rise, writes POLITICO’s Karl Mathiesen.
SCHINAS
MEETS VOX: MEPs have called out Commissioner Margaritis Schinas for meeting
with Vox politicians, saying the far-right party is using the get-together to
bolster its credentials. Ignacio Garriga, a Catalan leader of Vox, tweeted a
picture of his meeting with Schinas and proclaimed he was in Brussels to
“denounce the policies and politicians that have brought our neighborhoods to
the brink. The violence resulting from multiculturalism and suicidal
immigration measures must be stopped throughout the European Union.”
What
Schinas told Vox: Schinas defended the meeting, saying he was “always available
to discuss immigration, a very complex subject that does not lend itself to
simplistic analysis.” The commissioner told the Spanish extremists that “they
cannot denounce ‘migration chaos’ and at the same attack our migration
proposals that are designed to put an end to it,” an official told Playbook,
adding “they liked the meeting but they didn’t like the message he gave them.”
‘Incoherence’:
Schinas, who previously said he welcomed Emmanuel Macron’s victory over Marine
Le Pen as a rejection of “divisive nationalism,” opened himself up to
accusations of “incoherence,” S&D group leader Iratxe García said. “Where
has the cordon sanitaire gone?” she asked, in reference to a long-standing
principle not to deal with extremist parties.
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