Welcome to Better Europe’s weekly update on EU Affairs.
SUMMIT SEASON KICKS OFF
This Sunday, G7 leaders will gather in Alberta, Canada, where newly elected Prime Minister Mark Carney will host his first summit. He will not be the only G7 newbie – Shigeru Ishiba and Friedrich Merz are in the same boat. Trump will be there too, along with Zelensky, who will be discussing Ukraine, trade disputes, climate goals and the digital race. However, the summit is just the beginning of this diplomatic marathon. NATO leaders will meet in The Hague from 24 to 25 June, and the EU Council will meet from 26 to 27 June. The timing is unfortunate: Member States won’t have had a chance to agree on common EU positions before chatting with NATO and the G7. Instead of shaping the agenda, the EU may end up rubber-stamping decisions made elsewhere, in particular on defence spending. With smaller EU states sidelined at G7 and NATO talks, the EU’s collective voice can sometimes sound a bit muted. Meanwhile, trade tensions with the U.S. are boiling over, and €18 billion worth of retaliatory tariffs won’t help the situation. So, can the EU really speak with one voice?
CAN THE EU PROTECT OUR OCEANS?
The United Nations kicked off its weeklong Ocean Conference in Nice, France. The event aims to provide a platform for transformative action and solutions for the ocean, supported by ocean science and funding for SDG 14. And talk about tactical timing, for, the Commission unveiled its Ocean Pact just a week before the UNOC3. The EU’s Pact, coined “one ocean, one strategy,” says no to deep-sea mining, but brings on a weak funding commitment and no action to ban bottom trawling in marine protected areas. Wind pollution, E-fuel risks, and price barriers lack clear regulation as well. Still, von der Leyen pompously presented the pact at the conference and talked a big game on the EU’s behalf, but in reality, little action was taken by individual Member States. Notably, António Costa did call for a moratorium on deep-sea mining. But only Portugal made a genuine stride when vowing to protect 30% of its seas by 2030. Spain’s fisheries minister, rather oppositely and in a bold move at a conference dedicated to ocean protection, chose to question science and defend the detrimental activity of bottom trawling.
COMMISSION STARTS MOVING ON SAVINGS UNION
As the Retail Investment Strategy negotiations are stuck in trilogues and seven countries last week launched their own “Finance Europe” investment label, the Commission is feeling the pressure to take ownership and come up with its first proposals as part of the Savings and Investment Union strategy. Insisting that her flagship initiative is more than a rehash of the Capital Markets Union proposed by Jonathan Hill a decade ago, Commissioner Maria Luís Albuquerque vigorously defended her ideas on removing barriers to cross-border trading, improve fund distribution, and review financial supervision, all topics covered by a consultation that closed earlier this week. What else can we expect? Beyond technical proposals to get securitisation out of the “penalty box” as one asset manager called it at a conference this week, the Commission will also attempt to revamp the market for private pensions, with a “reality check” with stakeholders planned for next week and a proposal due by the end of the year. It’s a long shot, because consumers continue to distrust investments due to fees paid to asset managers or long lock-ups of pensions money with no uncertainty about future tax treatment – the road to SIU is paved with good intentions.