TAG: Competition and Industrial Policy
EU steps up bid to curb China’s green tech market lead
BRUSSELS — On paper, the EU sees China as a partner in the fight against climate change.But the trade reality tells a different story. As Beijing responds to weak domestic demand with heavy state subsidies, it’s a perfect recipe for overcapacity — from el...
6 months ago
A new inconvenient truth: Europe’s global plans all require money no one has
BRUSSELS — EU leaders are on a grandiloquent streak, even by their standards.The EU can stay relevant in a world of resurgent big power politics. Europe won’t drown in the sea of public cash the U.S. and China are throwing at futuristic industries. We can...
5 months ago
EU’s biggest losers hold Ursula von der Leyen’s fate in their hands
PARIS — The fate of Ursula von der Leyen hangs in the balance — and the EU election’s biggest losers are the unlikely kingmakers. Every vote will count when the European Commission president attempts to convince just over half of the European Parliament’s...
2 months ago
The European Commission hopefuls with one thing on their mind
BRUSSELS ― It’s as if the European Commission is a trendy nightclub with a long line of eager party animals desperate to be admitted.Only a handful will get the chance to strut their stuff the way they crave. And that means a place in the Commission for t...
1 month agoDraghi says EU must spend twice as much as it did after WWII
BRUSSELS ― Europe must invest twice as much as it did rebuilding after World War II, Mario Draghi said, as he published a long-awaited blueprint to stem the continent’s economic decline.“This is an existential challenge,” the former European Central Bank...
1 month ago
EPP plots to limit Socialist Ribera’s economic powers
EU conservatives are scheming to keep a socialist's hand off the rudder of Europe’s economy as they anxiously eye Teresa Ribera’s march toward power in Brussels.Ribera, Spain’s vice president and ecological transition minister representing the Socialist W...
1 month ago
Europe’s new normal: High energy bills, fading industry and one chance to fix it
ZIMMERN OB ROTTWEIL, Germany — You’ve never heard of Hans Keim Kunststoffe, but you’ve almost certainly come across one of its products.They’re protecting museum paintings, covering MRI machines during a hospital visit, forming a mobile caravan’s sunroof...
1 month ago
You’re on your own implementing Draghi report, Lagarde tells governments
European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde strongly endorsed her predecessor Mario Draghi’s multibillion-euro plan to fix Europe’s stagnant economy, but said that governments would have to figure out how to afford it on their own.“Structural reform...
1 month ago
France mourns its loss of influence in von der Leyen’s new Commission
BRUSSELS — Emmanuel Macron's clout on the European stage just isn't what it used to be.One day after now-former French Commissioner Thierry Breton resigned in a huff, five French officials bemoaned a loss of influence for Paris in Brussels after Ursula vo...
4 weeks ago
Germany’s rude economic awakening
BERLIN — Germany is finally emerging from the first stage of economic grief: denial.After years of turning a blind eye to what the rest of the world could plainly see, Germans are slowly coming to terms with the reality that they are in deep trouble as th...
3 weeks ago
The EU was built on red tape. Now it wants to slash it.
BRUSSELS ― For decades, the European Union loved to regulate. Now, it wants to do the opposite.Where once, the "Brussels Effect" saw the EU set laws and standards the rest of the world couldn't help but follow, soon there will be a European commissioner f...
3 weeks ago
Defense commissioner nominee floats turning EU into war-weapons storehouse to deter Putin
BRUSSELS — The European Union could become an arsenal of democracy and create its own stores of weapons that could be used by member countries in case of a military emergency, Andrius Kubilius, the defense commissioner nominee, told POLITICO.“We can look...
2 weeks ago
You could kill the EU, says France. No, you could, Germany replies.
Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz lead the EU’s two biggest economies, sharing a 280-mile border. But when it comes to protecting Europe from global threats, these neighbors may as well be on different planets.At an event in Berlin this week, the French pre...
1 week ago
Germany’s economy goes from bad to worse
BERLIN — German Economy Minister Robert Habeck confirmed on Wednesday that the country's gross domestic product is set to shrink for the second year in a row, and blamed the economy’s deepening weakness on “failures of recent decades.”The German governmen...
6 days ago