19 July 2024 – Ursula von der Leyen has been re-elected as EU Commission President for five years with her ‘business as usual’ approach. And the Commission loses in the proceedings concerning the publication of data on vaccine contracts. ECJ rules in favour of plaintiffs on important points.
Von der Leyen re-elected as EU Commission President with a ‘business as usual’ approach
The re-election of Ms von der Leyen as EU Commission President yesterday (Thursday) is likely to leave small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Europe particularly disillusioned. Ms von der Leyen’s political guidelines for the next European Commission 2024 – 2029 did not offer any real innovations for SMEs, even if her team had endeavoured to distract from the lack of content with significantly more words.
Von der Leyen had already announced a reduction in bureaucracy, better financing options and an SME strategy in 2019. Apart from broken promises and even more bureaucracy and costs, little of this has reached SMEs.
Who monitors the bureaucracy reduction watchdogs?
Giving the individual commissions the additional task of scrutinising their own regulations for possible bureaucracy reduction should quickly lead to further disillusionment. Because then the commissioners would have to admit that they had previously made mistakes and allowed too much bureaucracy.
How the various commissions have dealt with mistakes in the past can easily be seen from the EU Carbon Border Tax CBAM, which is based on completely false assumptions with regard to SMEs. The Commission simply ignored all the evidence and references to this.
EU elections have shown that ‘business as usual’ is not wanted
The clear vote of European citizens in the elections showed that Ursula von der Leyen and her Commission should not have been allowed to continue as before. How so little attention could be paid to this democratic vote, especially on the part of the European People’s Party (EPP), is revealing. Instead of reflecting, Brussels is once again only concerned with retaining power.
EU Commission must disclose information on vaccine contracts
Transparency has not been the EU Commission’s greatest strength in the past. Even though the re-elected Commission President has once again promised more transparency, the Commission suffered a defeat before the European Court of Justice on 17 July 2024 for its own lack of transparency. The ECJ had partially upheld a complaint by the EU Parliament and private individuals that the Commission was obliged to disclose data relating to vaccine purchase contracts during the pandemic.
Latest news
- European steel’s fear of its own age
- Dow Jones continues record chase on Tuesday
- Positive development in the US reporting season: broad-based earnings growth
We at the Gerber Group have been trading in stainless steel worldwide for over 20 years. We are your experts when it comes to purchasing, import, logistics and services. Information is a vital part of this. Because only then can you and we make the right decisions. Do you have any questions? Contact us now.
Disclaimer: Many things here represent our opinion. Others are information from the Internet. We can therefore never claim to be correct or complete. And never base a business decision solely on the news you receive from us.
