Unpacking the Critical Raw Materials Act
The recently adopted Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA) is framed as a milestone for the EU Green Industrial Plan and the twin green and digital transitions. In the context of emerging green industrial policies and the resurgence of the state as an economic actor, the Act encapsulates the EU’s attempt to instrumentalise markets for public objectives. Yet, the bid to generate tailored and specific market outcomes is undercut by the Act’s primary strategy of adjusting risks and returns for ultimately volatile, profit-driven private initiative. At the same time, the Act’s focus on domestic green growth, even if read charitably, remains myopic to the global challenge of climate change and perpetuates existing patterns of core-periphery extractivism.
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A Return of Mainstream Politics?
The Greek election results of Sunday 21 May 2023 had a seismic effect, with many commentators juxtaposing them to the elections of 2015, when Syriza’s dramatic victory marked the overhaul of the pre-crisis political system. This time, the circle of crisis politics is said to be complete. Syriza’s devastating defeat with a margin just above 20% supposedly marks the end of a polarized era and the desire to return to ‘mainstream politics’. These elections made clear that there is currently no articulated, alternative vision of social ordering that could inspire and successfully challenge the current constellation of social forces.
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Quantifying ‘Better Regulation’
The EU Commission is expected to publish later this month its long-awaited proposal on Sustainable Corporate Governance, an initiative to ‘better align the interests of companies, their shareholders, managers, stakeholders and society’. Almost a year of delay and possibly some toning down of the legislative ambition can be attributed, in large part, to the double negative opinion issued by the EU Regulatory Scrutiny Board’s (RSB) on the Impact Assessment. In doing so, the RSB – a body whose absence from public debate seems largely disproportionate to its actual powers – has shown its teeth and incidentally revealed some of the shortcomings of its own mandate.
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What is Low isn’t Free
Emmanuel Macron’s proposition to raise university tuition fees in France was met with much criticism, including that it would be unconstitutional. Yet, French case law is not very clear on this point. A recent decision of the highest administrative court, the Conseil d’Etat, opens a path for the government to dramatically increase tuition fees. That decision effectively amounted to overturning a landmark preliminary ruling of the French constitutional court, the Conseil Constitutionnel.
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The Grande Synthe Saga Continues
France’s highest administrative court ruled that the French government had failed to take sufficient action to mitigate climate change and ordered it to take additional measures to redress that failure. The Grande Synthe II decision of 1 July 2021 follows the findings by the Conseil d’État in a previous decision that France’s greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets constitute legal obligations that are enforceable against the state. However, how, and when to redress France’s failure have been, to a broad extent, left to the discretion of the government. This all but ensures the Grande Synthe saga to continue.
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