welcome back Regarding my look at the most important topics of the past week: And with that straight to Brussels, where the travel bug broke out. A few days ago, EU Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton was in Congo, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is in Washington and Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager is flying to South America next week.
Travel is just as lively in Berlin. Economics Minister Robert Habeck will also be heading to South America in the next few days. And after Chancellor Olaf Scholz was just in India, he is flying to Japan next week. I can’t remember a federal government ever traveling that much.
These trips cover many topics, but the flight paths also paint a picture of a new world – a divided world: here the friendly democracies intensifying their connection and there the systemic rivals. In between the many undecided who have not yet decided on a camp. The efforts of traveling Europeans are particularly concentrated on these swing states.
(Photo: Bloomberg/Getty Images)
The EU is presenting for this Therefore, in the coming week, the Raw Materials Act, a law with which she wants to ensure Europe’s supply of critical raw materials, most of which still come from China. My colleague Moritz Koch, who heads the Handelsblatt office in Brussels, had all the details exclusively in advance this week.
It becomes clear: The supply of critical raw materials now has a similarly high priority as national defence. And the raw material partnerships that are just emerging are forming alongside traditional military alliances. The first experts are already calling for a “raw material NATO”.
What else kept us busy this week:
1. It was the technology story of the week, and this confirms some Handelsblatt reports from the past few months: The federal government is planning to significantly restrict the use of Chinese technology in German mobile networks. Of course, the telecom companies are not interested in the topic at all, because according to the current status, they not only have to remove the already installed components from the Chinese manufacturers Huawei and ZTE from their systems – they should also bear the costs for this.
2. There are interviews that a journalist waits months for. Sometimes even years. And then suddenly everything happens very quickly. This is what my colleague Felix Holtermann experienced with the controversial tech investor Peter Thiel, who not only co-founded Paypal and invested in Facebook very early on. Thiel also supported ex-US President Donald Trump. My colleague had almost given up hope when the invitation to Miami suddenly came. There Holtermann was greeted by Thiel in his socks in his $18 million property on one of the artificial “Venetian Islands” in the Gulf of Miami, and the billionaire’s daughters were playing at the dining table in the next room. Thiel, who came to the US as the son of German immigrants, greeted in German – but then switched to English for the rest of the interview. The conversation touched on the sluggish Silicon Valley, Germany’s vulnerable economy, its highly controversial political views and connections, the revolutionary power of artificial intelligence and ChatGPT, the bot that Thiel says is causing Google to panic. You don’t have to follow your theses. But you should listen to him. That’s why we made this very revealing interview the title of our weekend edition.
Peter Thiel: The tech investor is considered a pioneer, but is also controversial because of his political commitment.
3. Whenever you think the story is over, the cum-ex scandal is enriched by an absurdity. Now the clarification of the gigantic tax scandal is also being shaken by an unprecedented judicial scandal. As the Handelsblatt learned, the former North Rhine-Westphalia Minister of Justice Peter Biesenbach has filed a complaint against the head of the Cologne public prosecutor’s office and his deputy. Our cum-ex professionals Sönke Iwersen and Volker Votsmeier trace how it came to this in a captivating report: it’s about wasted millions, failure of the judiciary – and a courageous public prosecutor who, despite everything, stuck to the point.
4. Now to a topic that sounds awkward at first, but of all the greater importance: It is about a new instrument of foreign trade policy that is intended to curb an unwanted transfer of technology to China: “outbound investment control”. Behind this, you guessed it, is the control of investments by European companies abroad. And of course it’s all about China. The EU is working on such an instrument, the federal government is showing sympathy – and these investment controls could also be an issue during von der Leyen’s visit to Washington at the weekend. Because the Americans are pursuing very similar plans. Read all the details in this exciting report from Berlin, Brussels and Washington.
5. There are few people in the world who can speak as knowledgeable and informed about technology trends as futurologist Amy Webb. She presents her tech trends report at the South by Southwest (SXSW) technology festival in Austin every year, and when she speaks, thousands listen. This year she talks in advance about the five most important trends of the year in my podcast Handelsblatt Disrupt. And she explains how the bot ChatGPT can cover all areas of knowledge work within the next 24 months and how it can become a digital co-pilot of everyday life. By the way, I’m really looking forward to it.
6. Because Europe can’t think big: Emission-free electricity and green hydrogen are to be produced in the middle of the North Sea. Companies such as Equinor, RWE, Gasunie and Gascade are also working on setting up a hydrogen network infrastructure in the North Sea. With an investment of around 20 billion euros, as the latest figures show, a 4,200-kilometer hydrogen network could be built there. Together with the corresponding offshore wind power capacities, 450 terawatt hours of electricity could be covered by 2050 – more than a quarter of the expected hydrogen demand in Europe. Now the only thing left to do is to turn the plans into wind turbines. That’s where things get stuck in Europe from time to time.
7. Olaf Scholz conjures up old times. Thanks to climate investments, Germany will grow as strongly as in the 1950s and 1960s, he promises. Sounds great, but is that even possible? Our Berlin office investigated the question together with economists. The result was an analysis of opportunities, risks and unrealistic ideas.
8. It came as a shock to the financial markets: The massive capital requirements of the large US start-up financier Silicon Valley Bank shook markets worldwide. Within 24 hours, the bank lost around 80 percent of its stock market value – it was the biggest slide in the bank’s history. This had consequences for the entire industry: US banks experienced the biggest slide in prices in three years. Prices in Asia and Australia also came under pressure on Friday. Our banking team is therefore investigating how dangerous the crash really is for the financial system – and why start-ups of all things should be particularly worried.
9. It’s a fight that’s dragged on for years: Forsa boss Manfred Güllner has been covering the young market research company Civey with legal proceedings for years: it used to be about the marketing promises made by Civey co-founder Janina Mütze, recently even about Mütze’s suggestion that Güllner was already retired – mail came from Güllner’s lawyer. If she claims that again, she has to pay 10,000 euros. This shows that if you don’t have anything in your hand but still want to argue, you use such trifles yourself. I actually only know such behavior from my boys. They are five and seven years old. Güllner is 81. My colleague Michael Scheppe describes the bizarre argument.
I wish you all a peaceful weekend.
sincerely
Her
Sebastian Mathes
Editor-in-Chief of the Handelsblatt
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