Am 6. Juni 2023 hat das Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Klimaschutz (BMWK) das vorbereitende Verfahren für das milliardenschwere Förderprogramm „Klimaschutzverträge“ eingeleitet (Bekanntmachung im BAnz AT 06.06.2023 B1). Diese sog. Klimaschutzverträge – und die daraus resultierende Förderung – haben das Ziel, Unternehmen bei der Umstellung auf eine klimafreundlichere Produktion zu unterstützen und diese somit attraktiver zu machen. Das Programm ist ein wesentlicher Baustein auf dem Weg in Richtung der angestrebten Klimaneutralität Deutschlands. Eine Teilnahme am vorbereitenden Verfahren ist zwingende Grundvoraussetzung für eine Teilnahme am anschließenden Gebotsverfahren sowie eine Bewerbung für die staatliche Förderung. Die Frist für die Teilnahme am vorbereitenden Verfahren endet am 7. August 2023.

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.

Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI), which can be prompted to create wholly novel content, is a hot topic all around, from news and social media to policymakers and businesses. Image-generating AI models that create (digital) paintings inspired by van Gogh or other famous artists in seconds, or text-generating AI models like ChatGPT that pass university exams with ease are fascinating the internet community. Fact is that many generative AI-based applications have been made available to the public in the last months, from machine translations to image recognition and music generation. Yet, this is just the beginning of a ground-breaking technology, which will sooner than later be deployed in a wide spectrum of activities and become a critical infrastructure for many businesses.

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.

On 6 February, the European Commission (Commission) published a draft Implementing Regulation on detailed arrangements for the conduct of proceedings pursuant to the Foreign Subsidies Regulation (FSR) including relevant notification forms. Interested parties have the possibility to provide the Commission with feedback on the draft regulation until 6 March 2023 via an online portal.

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.

After the Digital Markets Act (DMA) entered into force in November 2022, the European Commission is now hosting a series of workshops to consult stakeholders on specific questions regarding the DMA’s implementation. The first workshop dealt with the prohibition on self-preferencing in Article 6(5) DMA and focused on the interpretation of the provision as well as possible solutions to ensure compliance with it in practice.