Aktuelles > EM Germany Newsletter CW 43/2021 | Results of EM Germany’s General Assembly 2021

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EM Germany Newsletter CW 43/2021 | Results of EM Germany’s General Assembly 2021

Climate issues, the pandemic, migration, digitalization: we need the European view and reflex. As our President pointed out at EM Germany’s General Assembly, the Bundestag election campaign was disappointingly „national-provincial“. The beginning negotiations for a coalition of the Social Democrats (SPD), the Free Democrats (FDP) and the Green Party (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen) must not carry this mistake into future government work.

After years of reactive, rather unplanned European policy, a new German government must finally set a proactive European agenda that takes strategic account of all policy areas and European partners. A continuation of the age-old coordination structures in German European policy would be regressively fatal. 

Based on around 100 conversations with political decision-makers and intimate connoisseurs of German European policy, we are proposing a reorganization of the German government’s European coordination. Because as the capital briefing „ThePioneer“ succinctly put it on Friday morning, there is not one coordinating body in German European policy, let alone one person in charge. As a result, coordination is slow and incoherent, so that Germany is sometimes only an observer rather than a creator in the Council, or the internal dispute – as in the well-known coordination chaos between agriculture and environment ministries on glyphosate – is fought out publicly. 

In our non-paper, we propose adapting the decades-old bifurcation of German European coordination between the Federal Foreign Office and the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy to the realities of European politics. In essence, this means bundling the expertise from the federal ministries in a central coordinating body that acts as a neutral broker within the federal government. The departmental principle will be preserved, because we do not want centralization à la francaise. We need a unit that bundles and further develops the expertise from the specialized ministries, the Permanent Representation in Brussels as well as the diplomatic representations in the member states and, last but not least, the social forces, jointly in Berlin and Brussels. 

The possible coalition of SPD, FPD and Bündnis90/Die Grünen, in which there are no more small parties, raises expectations of profound change and new courage to finally tackle Germany’s tasks for the future. But the courage for change must not stop at the structures of German European policy. Otherwise, error-prone hardware will threaten to destroy the best programs. 

Yours

Bernd Hüttemann
Secretary-General
European Movement Germany

#EBDGrafik of the week

In addition to policy and work priorities, EM Germany’s General Assembly approved the priorities of EM Germany’s political work for 2021/22. An updated #EBDGrafik gives an overview over the priorities.

EM Germany News

Germany’s future lies in a Modern German EU Policy | Secretary-General publishes Memorandum for Coalition Negotiations: The negotiations of the socalled traffic light coaltion have begun – but what role will be assigned to European solutions and the necessary redesign of the German EU policy? A fundamental memorandum, elaborated by the network’s head, and above all else EM Germany Secretary-General Bernd Hüttemann, based on more than 60 distinct conversations with experts shows in its first part the deficits of the current German EU policy coordination. | More (in German)

EM Germanys General Secretary comments on EU-Row with Poland in Phoenix-Round: The theme of the phoenix-Round on thursday was „Row with Poland – Stress Test for the EU“. EM Germany Secretary-Generalparticipated in the debate and emphasised: „The Polish government is not Poland! We have to support the demand of all Poles who demand to have a rule of law in their country.“ | More (in German)

There you Go! Democracy in Diversity is back! | Op-Ed by Bernd Hüttemann in Eurac Research Blog: What are the consequences of the German Federal Elections and the ongoing coalition talks on German EU policy? EM Germany Secretary-General analyses this question in an op-ed for the Eurac Research Blog. | More

With European courage into the new German government | EM Germany’s General Assembly 2021: A critical review of the German parliamentary election campaign, a parliamentary look at the Conference on the Future of Europe and a European policy appeal to the next German government marked the General Assembly of EM Germany on October 15, 2021. The most important event of Europe’s largest pro-European network brings together the network’s diverse voices annually to engage in multi-layered debates for a better Europe and to adopt the new EM Germany Political Demands as a compass for its work. | More (in German)

Migration and Asylum Policy is a New EM Germany Priority | General Assembly Decision: The Migration and Asylum Package was supposed to pave a new start for EU refugee policy, but progress has been slow since the Commission’s September 2020 proposal. To increase political pressure on the next German government, EM Germany’s General Assembly unanimously decided to set the reform of the Common European Asylum System as a new priority of the network as part of the adoption of EM Germany’s Political Demands 2021/22. | More (in German)

Putting German European Policy & the Conference on the Future of Europe in the Focus of Coalition Negotiations | Panels at EM Germany’s General Assembly: What are the expectations held by social actors of the new German government in terms of content and structure? And what role should the Conference on the Future of Europe play from a parliamentary perspective? Just in time for the conclusion of the exploratory talks on October 15, 2021, which cleared the way for the traffic light coalition negotiations of SPD, Bündnis 90/Die Grünen and FDP, two panel discussions at the EBD General Assembly provided an opportunity to discuss these questions. | More (in German)

Focus on Children’s Rights and Migration | EM Germany De-Briefing Justice and Home Affairs: The situation of the EU asylum policy on the Eastern and Southern external borders, EU children’s rights strategy, as well as the European anti-terrorism coordinator count among the dominant topics at the meeting of the Council for Justice and Home Affairs in early October. EM Germany invited to a De-Briefing of the meetings in association with the Federal Ministry of the Interior, Building and Community as well as the Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection on 13 October. | More (in German)

Upcoming Events

All EM Germany events take place via videoconference. Participation is free, but registration required. Conference language is German unless indicated otherwise. +++ 29.10.2021: Virtual meeting of the EU Careers Ambassadors +++ 01.11.2021: College of Europe – digital consultation on the application process +++ 03.11.2021: EBD De-Briefing on the Plenary of the Conference on the Future of Europe +++ 09.11.2021: EESC in focus with Peter Clever and Christian Moos +++ 10.11.2021: EBD De-Briefing ECOFIN and eurogroup +++ 29.11.2021: EBD De-Briefing COMPET +++

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