Talking Europe: Highlights from the 2024-2025 season
12:43
From the show
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As this political season draws to a close, we bring you a showcase of our interviews with Europe's movers and shakers. They broach the top issues that have dominated the agenda over the past year, from competitiveness and simplification to corporate responsibility; from disinformation to "Choose Europe" for research and innovation; and, of course, the big geopolitical topics such as Ukraine and the Trump presidency.
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Euronews
3 minutes ago
- Euronews
German politicians furious at von der Leyen over new EU-US trade deal
German politicians across party lines denounced European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Tuesday, calling for her resignation after she agreed to asymmetric trade terms that impose 15% US tariffs on EU exports while granting Americans duty-free access to European markets. The deal, struck under pressure from German Chancellor Friedrich Merz both in public and behind the scenes to avoid threatened 30% punitive tariffs, triggered unprecedented cross-party criticism in Germany, where lawmakers described the arrangement as a "capitulation" and "betrayal of Europe". Merz himself initially appeared satisfied. "With the agreement, we have succeeded in averting a trade conflict that would have hit the export-oriented German economy hard," the German chancellor said on Sunday. By Monday evening, however, Merz suddenly had a change of heart, expressing strong reservations. The agreed tariffs were now a "considerable burden" for the German economy, in the eyes of Merz. Under the agreement announced Sunday, EU products face 15% US tariffs while American goods enter Europe levy-free. For the EU, the US tariff rate for steel and aluminium imports will remain at 50%. The EU also committed to purchasing $750 billion in US energy and pledged $600 billion in European corporate investments in America. The deal led to an unprecedented wave of shock and outrage across all camps of German politics. Now, for the first time in a long time, all German parties are criticising the move. "Due to pressure from the German chancellor, the EU has agreed to a deal that abandons fundamental principles of rules-based global trade. Instead of long-term stability, the agreement creates uncertainty," Sandra Detzer from the Greens said, slamming the deal at the Bundestag. In fact, this agreement hits Germany particularly hard. According to the Institute for Economic Research (IfW), the deal will cost the German economy around €6.5 billion in terms of its GDP in the first year. "This is an inadequate compromise and sends a fatal signal to the closely interlinked economies on both sides of the Atlantic," warned Wolfgang Niedermark from the Federation of German Industries (BDI). A rate of 15% is set to have immense adverse effects, and the lack of an agreement for steel exports was an "additional low blow", he pointed out. 'Von der Leyen should resign for this worst deal ever' German EU politician Fabio De Masi (BSW) is also shocked. "This bad deal will do immense economic damage to Europe - it is a betrayal of Europe. Mrs von der Leyen should resign for this worst deal ever," he told Euronews. "While the US is to export duty-free to the EU, EU exporters will be subject to a 15% tariff. In addition, European companies are to make direct investments worth hundreds of billions of US dollars." "So Trump is hitting us with new punitive tariffs and, as business, we are filling his order books with purchases of dirty US fracking gas and defence equipment." EU politician Svenja Hahn (FDP) concurs. "15% tariffs are better than the threatened 30 - but the deal is not a success. At best, it is damage control," she told Euronews. The deal struck on Sunday represents "unbalanced to the detriment of the EU, contains no substantial successes" and weakens "rules-based trade". "Ursula von der Leyen has damaged the EU's reputation and economic strength with her weak conduct of negotiations, she must finally deliver: less bureaucracy, a strong internal market and real progress on free trade agreements, especially Mercosur," Hahn explained. German-Polish MEP Tomasz Froelich (AfD) told Euronews that the agreement reached is "not a deal", but "a capitulation of the EU", as there had been no serious attempt to exert pressure on the US, according to him. "This declaration of bankruptcy stands in stark contrast to the EU's otherwise grandiloquent behaviour on the international stage: confrontation in all directions, leaving hardly any options, especially in the area of energy imports," he explained. "I will work in the EU Parliament to ensure that this humiliating and ruinous agreement is prevented after all," Froelich, who serves as the first deputy head of the AfD delegation at the European Parliament, added. Governing parties lob criticism too Ruling CDU/CSU lawmaker Johannes Winkel stepped up to the plate. "This humiliation of Europe by the US must above all be a reason for self-criticism," Winkel warned on X. "Energy saving, bureaucracy, ESG instead of innovation, growth and technology. This politically motivated economic self-deprecation must end." Others representing the coalition partner SPD also dared to come forward with particularly harsh criticism. Bremen's mayor, Andreas Bovenschulte said on X: "The worst thing is how our EU leader is allowing herself to be humiliated into licking Trump's boots and flattering him as a 'tough - even fair - dealmaker'. Not a spark of honour in her body." The SPD politician later walked back on a part of his statement. "I take back the honour thing. That was a bit harsh," he said. In his hometown of Bremen, thousands of jobs at the ArcelorMittal steel plant are in jeopardy. Bavaria's Minister President Markus Söder (CSU) was honest and made it clear on Monday: things cannot go on like this. "The customs deal has prevented the worst," Söder said, "but the situation is now more difficult than before, especially for the automotive industry." "That's why it must be clear: There must be no additional taxes in Europe, as the EU is currently planning." Relief would now be needed to offset the tariffs. Söder criticised von der Leyen: "We simply need to do less of a Green Deal in Europe and more of an Economic Deal." Economic expert and longstanding German MEP Markus Ferber (CSU) also made it clear to the Bild newspaper: "If you consider that our offer was the complete elimination of all tariffs, then the deal is not a great success." "Fifteen per cent makes European products massively more expensive in the US and will hit the German economy particularly hard. Even if a non-agreement would have been even more expensive, a good deal looks different."
France 24
34 minutes ago
- France 24
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France 24
34 minutes ago
- France 24
Fossil-fuel pledge in EU-Trump deal sparks climate fears
As part of the framework agreed Sunday, the EU said its companies would buy $750 billion of liquefied natural gas, oil and nuclear fuels from the United States -- split equally over three years -- to replace Russian energy sources. Many experts believe the eye-watering figure to be unrealistic -- and point out that market dynamics rather than EU policymakers dictate companies' energy choices. Even on the supply side, Simone Tagliapietra of the Bruegel think-tank noted that the United States might not be able to build the additional export capacity within such a short time frame. Brussels insists the number was not plucked out of thin air to keep Trump happy, but was based on an analysis of energy needs as it phases out Russian imports because of the Ukraine war between now and 2027. The proposed increase would mean more than tripling annual energy imports from the United States -- about $70 billion last year -- and equate to well over half the 378 billion euros' worth of overall EU energy imports last year. 'Submission' A large part of the EU's additional billions would go to imports of LNG, which is transported in liquid state to European ports before being converted back to gaseous form and injected into the bloc's power network. The United States currently account for about half of the EU's LNG imports, ahead of Russia on 20 percent -- a figure Brussels wants to cut to zero to choke off income that helps fund the war in Ukraine. But environmental groups warn against a massive switch to American LNG extracted in part though hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which uses explosives to create cracks in rock formations to release oil and gas deposits. The highly polluting process comes with steep costs to both the climate and local environment, and is banned in a number of European countries. "The Commission risks replacing one disastrous dependency with another -- unplugging Putin's gas and plugging in Trump's," Greenpeace warned when the EU's phase-out plans were presented. Francois Gemenne, a policy expert who co-authored the UN's most recent IPCC report on climate change, in 2023, accused the EU of "submission" to Trump's pro-fossil fuel agenda. Elected on a promise to "drill, baby drill," the US leader is openly hostile to renewable energy efforts and lashed out again at windmills "ruining" the landscape before meeting with EU chief Ursula von der Leyen in Scotland last weekend. For Aymeric Kouam of the Strategic Perspectives think-tank, the energy deal with Trump is both "dangerous and counterproductive" and imperils its goal to become carbon neutral by 2050. "Tying Europe's energy future to the US as a main supplier undermines the bloc's energy security strategy, anchored in supply diversification, renewable energy development, and energy efficiency increase," he said. The EU pushed back at the charge on Tuesday. "This agreement does not contradict our medium- to long-term decarbonisation objectives or targets at all," a commission spokesperson told reporters of the three-year energy pledge. The Trump trade deal comes as the EU debates its 2040 emissions-reduction target, a key step towards its net zero goal. The commission has proposed a target of cutting emissions by 90 percent compared to 1990 levels, but with new flexibilities to win over reluctant member states. The EU says it has already cut climate-warming emissions by 37 percent relative to 1990, but its green agenda faces pushback with a rightward shift and rising climate scepticism in many European countries.
