Sustainability and competition law has been one of the hottest topics among competition authorities and regulators in recent years. The German Federal Cartel Office (FCO) has always stressed that it is open to give informal guidance on sustainability initiatives. Yesterday, it has proven that it takes this approach seriously and does not stand in the way of sustainability initiatives. It has published a press release that it currently sees no reason for a more detailed examination of the German Initiative on Sustainable Cocoa “Forum Nachhaltiger Kakao e.V.” (Kakaoforum). According to the FCO, there have been no indications that the initiative would incur a clear risk of a restraint of competition. The Kakaoforum is a joint initiative made up of representatives of the public sector, companies in the cocoa and chocolate industry, a large part of the German food retail trade and international NGOs.

It has long been recognised that financial support in favour of football clubs can distort fair competition. A widespread concern is that investors behind the big European clubs like Manchester City, Paris Saint Germain, or Chelsea FC reign over professional football with their money at will. In light of this, the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) established the Financial Fair Play (FFP) rules. With the Foreign Subsidies Regulation, which entered into force in January 2023, there may be another instrument to address financial advantages to football clubs perceived as unfair if the investment is attributable to a government outside the EU.

On 1 June 2023, the European Commission finally adopted its revised Horizontal Block Exemption Regulations on Research and Development (R&D) and Specialisation agreements, which are accompanied by the revised Horizontal Guidelines (2023 Horizontal Guidelines).

Finding the right balance between strengthening cooperation pursuing sustainability goals on the one side and ensuring compliance with competition law on the other has been a major topic of competition authorities and regulators in recent years (see our briefings of 26 January 2022 and 7 February 2021). The competition community is eagerly awaiting the European Commission’s second draft of the horizontal guidelines. Meanwhile, the German FCO announced on Thursday that the animal welfare initiative “Initiative Tierwohl” will abolish the compulsory premium because of competition law concerns.

On 18 April, the European Parliament adopted the CBAM, an unprecedented carbon border adjustment charge, which takes into account the greenhouse gas emissions embedded in imported goods of emissions-intensive sectors with a high risk of so-called “carbon leakage”. Carbon leakage takes place when, for reasons of costs related to climate policies in the EU, businesses transfer their production plants to other countries outside the bloc with less costly climate policies (see our briefing from July 2021). The initiative is part of the 2030 Climate and Energy “Fit for 55” legislative package under the European Green Deal, an ambitious plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% until 2030 compared to the levels of 1990.

On 19 April, the European Parliament approved the Regulation on deforestation-free products, which prohibits the placement of a number of agricultural and livestock products originating from deforested or degraded forest areas on the EU market (text will be available here). The Regulation aims to block imports associated with deforestation, particularly cattle (whether live, meat or leather), cocoa, coffee, palm oil, soy, timber and rubber (read our briefing from November 2021).

At the beginning of February, the European Commission (Commission) presented its Green Deal Industrial Plan, a package of measures designed to help the EU industry to make progress in the transition to climate neutrality and strengthen its position in global competition.

After 6 years of a loud silence, Germany has re-established its relationship with Brazil. Chancellor Olaf Scholz paid an official visit to Brazil on 30 January 2023 with a bag of 200 million euros in investments on environmental / sustainability initiatives in Brazil, and a clear interest on fostering sustainable agriculture, the production of green hydrogen and to advance trade agreement between the Southern Common Market (Mercosur) and EU.

Germany is moving forward with its tender structure for purchasing Green Hydrogen (GH2) subproducts, such as ammonia, methanol, and aviation fuel from countries outside the EU. It is the first time that this unique scheme is being implemented, aiming to foster the international market of GH2. Although the deadline is approaching, there is still time to take part of it. Nevertheless, these are the first tenders of a recurrent and regular purchase procedure, in order to bring the necessary security on the demand side, so that the new projects on the supplier side can be structured.

When the President of the European Commission (Commission), Ursula von der Leyen, announced the adoption of the European Green Deal – a roadmap to a sustainable economy – in 2019, she called it Europe’s “man on the moon moment”. The achievement of the multidisciplinary objectives gathered under the Green Deal is a priority on the EU agenda and the Commission has taken yet another step on lunar soil yesterday in a steady commitment to firm its grip and gain some traction on this new planet.