Philipp Jäger
@ph-jaeg.bsky.social
550 followers 290 following 220 posts
Policy Fellow @DelorsBerlin, covering EU econ & climate policy || previously at EU Commission, working on Germany's recovery || Econ at LSE
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ph-jaeg.bsky.social
This shows, again, that clean competitiveness is not pursued with the urgency that the challenges demand (at a high level; not blaming the COM policy officer obviously).

For GPP, it also means the policy landing zone is still quite open - i.e. a really worthwhile area for policy analyses. (3/3)
ph-jaeg.bsky.social
And, COM, because of lack of data, finds it even "difficult to assess where we are with public procurement".

Of course GPP must be done carefully. But speed is really important now, to decarbonise & provide perspective for industry (as I argued recently here:
www.delorscentre.eu/en/publicati...
Lost in Implementation? The Clean Industrial Deal demands urgent and bold delivery
The EU’s Clean Industrial Deal (CID) finally offers a coherent strategy to make clean-tech manufacturing and energy-intensive industries competitive while cutting emissions. But being a high-level doc...
www.delorscentre.eu
ph-jaeg.bsky.social
Green Public Procurement (GPP) is supposed to be one of the pillars of the EU's new clean industry strategy - but it's not exactly progressing quickly.

Today, a COM representative said “it is difficult to say now in which direction we will go and even what options we will assess" (1/3)
Towards a Green Procurement Union: trade-offs and strategic choices
Is it possible to go green through procurement without compromising on cost or control?
www.bruegel.org
ph-jaeg.bsky.social
Great new big-picture OpEd by my colleagues @onethuthree.bsky.social and @jannikjansen.bsky.social on the “European way”, and how the EU can maintain its political agency.
jannikjansen.bsky.social
Europe cannot afford to treat its values as expendable. Each concession to the far right corrodes democracy at home and erodes its credibility abroad. By reducing principles to luxuries, Europe risks losing not just its dignity but political agency.

New op-ed with @onethuthree.bsky.social
theguardian.com
If Europe keeps placating its own far right, how can it possibly stand up to Trump? | Thu Nguyen and Jannik Jansen
ph-jaeg.bsky.social
The Bruegel Clean Tech Tracker has a facelift and some additional data - great work by @bmcwilliams.bsky.social and others at @bruegel.org
bmcwilliams.bsky.social
v2 of our @bruegel.org European Clean Tech Tracker is live with:
📽️ A fresh new website
🙋‍♀️ More interactivity
📊 Additional data

✅The latest economic information concerning clean technology trends across Europe.

Explore for yourself below (any feedback is much appreciated)

buff.ly/HjhZay5
buff.ly
Reposted by Philipp Jäger
ph-jaeg.bsky.social
The German scientific advisory board for economics published its take on EU industrial policy.
Unfortunately, its conclusions are off the mark on three important issues: the appropriate role of the EU-level, the self-sufficiency of ETS, and declaring sectors as 'strategic'.
Thread 🧵 (1/n)
ph-jaeg.bsky.social
Conclusion: The German government should help advance common EU industrial policy, instead of taking two steps back by following the scientific board's advise on these three critical issues.
Given the board's obvious expertise, perhaps its next report can show how to operationalise this. (end).
ph-jaeg.bsky.social
... doing industrial policy without strategic prioritization won't work: the EU must play to its strengths and be mindful of its weaknesses vis-a-vis China&US. And if this prioritization is not done explicitly, it's still done implicitly, revealed by government focus & allocation of subsidies.(15/n)
ph-jaeg.bsky.social
Third, the report argues against declaring certain industries as strategic priorities, since 'strategic' is hard to define and causes all industry to lobby.
These are indeed risks, but they can be mitigated with good policy design. More importantly, though,...(14/n)
ph-jaeg.bsky.social
But, as argued convincingly by Draghi, EU policies with common financing are the only way for the EU to do industrial policy at the needed scale! (I have argued myself that, given lack of EU funds, coordinating member state action is needed - but only as temporary fix tinyurl.com/JDC-Jaeger) (13/n)
Utilising national subsidies for EU industrial policy
Achieving the EU’s industrial policy objectives requires large-scale public financial support. Since EU-level funds are scarce at least in the short term, national state aid must be relied on.
www.delorscentre.eu
ph-jaeg.bsky.social
The report correctly points out that industrial policies at EU level can have heterogeneous distributional effects, i.e. subsidies at EU-level might be concentrated on some countries. But from that, they jump to the conclusion that the EU should not do vertical policy at all, just coordinate. (12/n)
ph-jaeg.bsky.social
It's, frankly, quite surprising to me that the scientific board doesn't acknowledge this relatively obvious fact of the political economy around the EU's climate policy architecture.

The second problematic recommendation concerns the role of the EU level. (11/n)
ph-jaeg.bsky.social
Other policy recommendations one can argue at lengths about, like whether buy-EU clauses in lead markets make sense (the report opposes them). But three of the recommendations are, in my view, simply mistaken, and acting on them would be highly destructive for EU growth & decarbonisation: (9/n)
ph-jaeg.bsky.social
After this descriptive part, the authors derive recommendations. Most of them should be followed, such as not overusing a fluffy concept of 'resilience' to subsidize whoever is calling loudest. And it's true that the EU's 40% NZIA objectives shouldn't have treated all technologies the same. (8/n)
ph-jaeg.bsky.social
... risks (e.g. subsidy races, distortions to competition, insufficient government knowledge, not letting losers go, etc.). Their intermediate conclusion: any industrial policy needs very strong justification, which is no doubt correct (and we have argued for e.g. here: (7/n)
tinyurl.com/dragi-IP)
ph-jaeg.bsky.social
... and highlights insights from research. It also describes justifications for industrial policy (e.g. climate (negative externalities), innovation spillovers (positive externalities), coordination-failures, foreign subsidies, supply chain resilience,...), as well as... (6/n)
ph-jaeg.bsky.social
With the industrial policy report, the first half is good. It's a differentiated, analytically crisp description of what industrial policy actually is; it delineates horizontal and vertical policies, discusses different levers (like subsidies, regulation, trade measures)... (5/n)
ph-jaeg.bsky.social
The board (Wissenschaftlicher Beirat) consists of >35 distinguished economics professors, and since members aren't replaced by new governments, they span the political spectrum. The quality of their assessments is typically very high (e.g. see the assessment on green lead markets from 2024). (4/n)
ph-jaeg.bsky.social
In other worlds, what role will the ministry assign to tools like CCfDs (Klimaschutzverträge), lead markets, green standards, tax credits for clean tech, etc?

In this context, the assessment of the scientific advisory board is potentially quite crucial in shaping the ministry's position. (3/n)
ph-jaeg.bsky.social
Since taking office, DE economics minister Katharina Reiche has strongly criticized industrial policies - but often she argued merely against caricatures of modern EU industrial policy. → Question is: will DE substantially move away from clean industrial policies, or is this just rhetoric? (2/n)
ph-jaeg.bsky.social
The German scientific advisory board for economics published its take on EU industrial policy.
Unfortunately, its conclusions are off the mark on three important issues: the appropriate role of the EU-level, the self-sufficiency of ETS, and declaring sectors as 'strategic'.
Thread 🧵 (1/n)