Tuesday, 28 December 2021

POLITICO

POLITICO

EU’s Šefčovič warns of Brexit deal ‘collapse’ if UK exits Northern Ireland Protocol

Posted: 28 Dec 2021 04:28 AM PST

Continuous British threats to exit post-Brexit trade rules for Northern Ireland are “enormously disruptive,” European Commission Vice President Maroš Šefčovič said, warning the entire deal with the U.K. would collapse if such rules were canceled.

In an interview published Tuesday, Šefčovič, the European Commissioner overseeing talks with the U.K. and Switzerland, warned that a British decision to activate Article 16 of the Northern Ireland Protocol would have “serious consequences” for Northern Ireland’s economy, endanger peace in the region and constitute an “enormous setback” for EU-U.K. relations.

Article 16 allows either party to the deal to take unilateral “safeguard” measures like the suspension of trade checks between Britain and Northern Ireland if they conclude the protocol is leading to "serious economic, societal or environmental difficulties.” It doesn’t allow for the suspension of the whole Brexit Withdrawal Agreement.

The U.K. government’s repeated threats to pull the trigger on the safeguard measure “are an enormously disruptive element in negotiations,” Šefčovič told German news outlet Spiegel. “You try to achieve something together, and — boom — there’s the threat of Article 16 again. That goes to the heart of our relationship.”

He argued that the Northern Ireland Protocol “was the most complicated part of the Brexit negotiations and is the foundation of the whole deal,” adding: “Without the protocol, the system collapses. We must prevent that at all costs.”

The Commission last month drafted a sanctions package that could be used to retaliate against Britain should Article 16 be triggered, including options such as punitive tariffs that could be imposed on British exports to the EU within one month or a suspension of the entire post-Brexit trade deal within nine months.

Asked whether he expected the atmosphere of talks between Brussels and London to improve after U.K. Foreign Secretary Liz Truss was appointed Britain’s chief negotiator following the resignation of David Frost, Šefčovič said he was “pragmatic” about the change. “A successful joint solution with our British partners is more important to me than a great atmosphere,” he said.

He argued that existing problems with the Northern Ireland Protocol “should have been solved by now” when it comes to the supply of medicines, or will be addressed soon when it comes to customs and food safety checks. “Overall, we are on the right track,” he said, pointing that a regular poll by Queen’s University in Belfast found that as of the end of October, for the first time a majority of voters in Northern Ireland viewed the Protocol as positive.

Swiss miss

Asked about his other big negotiation, with Switzerland, Šefčovič stressed that after the Swiss decided in May to ditch a previously negotiated agreement, it was now up to Bern to make the next move.

“First of all, we needed a political commitment from the Swiss government that it is serious about talking to us” about issues such as state aid and social rules or a dispute settlement mechanism, he said. “We would also need a clear timetable, a roadmap. We need to know when we want to talk about what — so that it is clear that the discussion will not take another 20 or 30 years.”

Šefčovič said the EU would not punish Switzerland with “negative measures” if Bern decided not to resume talks, but he warned that bilateral relations would inevitably suffer.

The EU and Switzerland are connected via a patchwork of bilateral deals, some of which are decades old and which companies on both sides say are no longer fit for modern challenges. One agreement on the mutual recognition of medical devices expired in May, meaning it will be more complicated for manufacturers to trade such devices between the EU and Switzerland.

“The EU’s relationship with Switzerland is in danger of disintegrating if the bilateral treaties gradually expire and are not renewed,” Šefčovič warned, adding that such a development would “eventually make our relationship obsolete.”

Germany must protect people with disabilities in COVID triage, top court rules

Posted: 28 Dec 2021 04:17 AM PST

The German parliament must immediately establish rules to protect people with disabilities from losing out in triage decisions made by doctors due to the coronavirus pandemic, the country’s top court ruled on Tuesday.

The Federal Constitutional Court said that lawmakers had failed to take precautionary measures “so that no one is disadvantaged because of a disability in the allocation of vital intensive care resources not available to all.”

Upholding a complaint from nine people with disabilities, the court concluded lawmakers had not acted in accordance with Germany’s constitution, which states that “no person shall be disfavoured because of disability.”

The court also said that guidelines drawn up by the association for German intensive care and emergency medicine doctors did not offer sufficient protection as they were not explicit enough or legally binding.

Uwe Janssens, the president of the association, defended the guidelines on German radio on Tuesday and insisted people with disabilities were not at a disadvantage when doctors made triage decisions.

Currently, more than 19 percent of German Intensive Care Unit beds are occupied by COVID-19 patients, according to data compiled by the Robert Koch Institute, the country’s leading public health body.

What one idea will define 2022?

Posted: 27 Dec 2021 07:01 PM PST

Over the years, POLITICO’s annual list of the most powerful names in Europe has featured a diverse array of influential leaders. This year, we asked a handful of POLITICO 28 alumni — the dreamers, doers and disrupters — to briefly share their predictions and tell us what they believe will be the one idea that will define 2022.

Sovereignty

Illustrations by Liam Eisenberg

Ivan Krastev is chairman of the Centre for Liberal Strategies in Sofia and permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna, POLITICO 28 Class of 2019

In the words of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, "sovereignty is not given, it is taken," and it is this issue that will undoubtedly shape 2022. In the coming year, Poland and Hungary will weaponize the notion of national sovereignty in their war against the European Union, while the bloc focuses on strategic autonomy — both internally and in foreign policy.

Brussels and Paris will try to define the EU's sovereignty in their relations with the United States, China and Russia. And at the same time, some of the new libertarian voices on both the left and the right will use the concept as a rallying call in their resistance to Europe's new normal. Sovereignty will be everybody's battle cry.

Climate action

Jens Stoltenberg is the secretary general of NATO, Class of 2021

Climate change is a threat we cannot ignore. It destroys resources, devastates communities and fuels conflict. From the Sahel in Africa, where a harsh climate drives extremism and migration, to the Arctic, where melting ice caps provoke geopolitical competition, climate change is making our world more dangerous.

This is an issue that directly affects NATO as well. Some naval bases suffer from regular flooding, and NATO troops in Iraq face temperatures of over 50 degrees. But we are adapting. For the first time, NATO is developing a way to map military emissions, so that we can start cutting them. Allies are investing in sustainable solutions, including biofuels for jet aircraft and solar panels to power equipment.

We must reduce the impact of climate on our militaries and reduce the impact of our militaries on climate. A changing climate affects us all, and we must all take action to be part of the solution.

Freedom

Svetlana Tikhanovskaya is the leader of democratic Belarus, Class of 2021

Freedom is what Belarusians are fighting for, and it is this word that will best define the upcoming year.

From August 9, 2020 until today, the people of Belarus have continued to believe and have done everything possible to ensure that their rights and freedoms as citizens exist not just on paper. They have done this so that Belarusians don’t have to leave their country to find that there is freedom in the world; so that the 800-plus political prisoners can finally spend the night in their homes and hug their loved ones. And we are not alone in this.

Solidarity and support around the world, the actions and the desire to help in the struggle for freedom is what really matters. We ask that you be there for us, and be assured that we will do the same for you in the future.

Technology governance

Marietje Schaake is the international policy director at the Cyber Policy Center at Stanford University, Class of 2017

For years, the United States governments' long-preferred hands-off approach to technology governance has had a high price. The erosion of democracy, the trampling of the public interest, a lack of fairness in the economy and a deepening social divide — all these have links to the growing role that technology companies play in governance.

This systemic issue goes far beyond the latest scandal about Facebook, YouTube or Amazon. And the overreliance on corporate business models and the escalation of cyberattacks, all while accountability remains lacking, only add to the loss of trust and justice.

In 2022, I believe technology governance will improve. It will be messy, fragmented and frustrating. But as long as decisions are anchored in a democratic mandate, and overseen independently, we can finally expect improvements compared to the status quo.

Authenticity

Rokhaya Diallo is a French writer, journalist, filmmaker and activist, Class of 2021

The last decade has seen established politicians increasingly fail to maintain the trust of their people. As social media has given the greater majority of people the power to build their own public image behind calculated filters, traditional campaigns using the obvious tools of marketing and political communication have become far less exceptional than they used to be.

More and more voters now seem willing to give their mandate to those who do not appear to use coded language designed to convince them. The more authentic and true politicians appear, the more appealing they become. Exposing oneself as a vulnerable person who can experience failure, who does not pretend to be above the masses, will be an appreciated quality in 2022. For better . . . or for worse.

Leveling what? Britons mystified by Boris Johnson’s flagship policy

Posted: 27 Dec 2021 07:00 PM PST

LONDON — Boris Johnson rarely misses a chance to promise to "level up Britain" — but most voters don't know what he's talking about, according to a new poll.

The promise to “level up” opportunities for people living in regions of the United Kingdom long forgotten by Westminster has been a central plank of the British prime minister’s pitch to voters. While the phrase is generally understood to refer to addressing regional inequalities, Johnson has struggled to define its parameters beyond that.

One in four Britons have never heard of the strategy, a YouGov survey shared exclusively with POLITICO suggests, while 50 percent have heard the term but either have no idea what it means or are unsure. That leaves just a quarter of people who say they know exactly what leveling up means.

Johnson recently sought to turbocharge the relevant ministry by renaming it the Department for Leveling Up and placing senior Cabinet minister Michael Gove in charge. Gove is set to produce a more detailed blueprint for the strategy in the form of a white paper, expected early in the new year.

YouGov's findings indicate he may have his work cut out to get these policies to resonate with voters, however.

One of the key strategic calculations for Johnson’s ruling Conservatives is how to hold onto the seats in the North and Midlands that they won in the landslide election victory of 2019. These so-called “red wall” constituencies were traditionally held by the opposition Labour party and voters there long complained of underinvestment and neglect by Westminster. Newly elected Tory MPs in those constituencies argue it is vital for Johnson to come good on his commitments to “level up” to make sure that their seats don’t flip back to Labour in the next election.

Despite this, public understanding of the concept appeared to have declined over the last year. Compared with a similar poll carried out in December 2020, the proportion of those who said they knew the slogan’s meaning had dropped by seven percentage points and those who said they did not know what it meant had risen by 14 percentage points.

Despite their shaky grasp of the finer points of Johnson’s plan, expectations among voters are high. Half of the British public think that the current amount of money the government spends in their local area is too low, YouGov's research found. 

In the North East and the North West of England, two-thirds of residents (66 percent and 65 percent respectively) think the government is not spending enough money in their local area, the highest proportion of any region in Great Britain. 

This compares with just over a third (36 percent) of Londoners who feel the same way.

People tend to think leveling up will make little difference in their local area, with only 7 percent believing that it will lead to more money being spent in their communities.

While optimism for more local spending is low across all regions of the U.K., it is lowest in the South East of England (3 percent think leveling up will bring in more money where they live) and London (5 percent), and highest in the North East and North West of England (12 percent).

Labour’s Shadow Leveling Up Secretary Lisa Nandy said: "It's no surprise people don't know what leveling up means — after two years the government can't even agree what it means.”

She called on ministers to “stop tinkering” and “trust local areas to drive investment” in better jobs, transport and opportunities.

A Department of Levelling Up spokesperson said: "Our ambitious plans for levelling up will transform the economic geography of every corner of the U.K., and our White Paper will set out how we will achieve this."

The spokesperson specified that leveling up "means boosting living standards, improving public services, enhancing civic pride and strengthening local leadership."

France sets stricter COVID-19 rules, UK holds fire

Posted: 27 Dec 2021 11:51 AM PST

France on Monday mapped out a series of harder measures to try to stem the spread of the Omicron variant of coronavirus from the new year, while Britain held back from announcing any new restrictions.

French Prime Minister Jean Castex told a press conference that home working would be “mandatory” from early January and that large gatherings would be restricted.

The government made a legislative proposal which will, from January 15, limit access to places such as bars, restaurants and trains for unvaccinated people. This is a marked toughening of the current rules, under which unvaccinated people can show a negative PCR or antigen test to gain admission.

The French aim is to push people to get jabbed. Not being vaccinated “is a deliberate act of endangering others, no personal conviction can justify this,” Castex said, adding that he wanted the authorities to “penalize more severely” those using fake COVID-19 passes.

More than 500,000 people signed a petition ahead of Monday’s cabinet meeting protesting against this government’s proposal to harden the rules for the COVID-19 pass.

Castex also said that “from tomorrow morning, following the recommendation of the National Authority for Health, you will only need to wait three months before getting a booster shot.”

In contrast to the French position, U.K. Health Minister Sajid Javid urged caution but ruled out announcing more measures until 2022. “When we get into the new year, of course we will see then whether we do need to take any further measures but nothing more until then at least,” he said in remarks carried by British broadcasters.

In France, the government decided that from next Monday large gatherings will be limited to 2,000 people indoors and 5,000 outdoors, and that concerts where people are standing up will be banned in an attempt to slow the spread of COVID-19 infections, which have surged in the past weeks.

Castex added that the consumption of food and drinks in sporting and cultural venues, like cinemas, will be prohibited; and will only be possible in bars and restaurants if people remain seated.

From January 3, “and for a period of three weeks,” working from home will be made mandatory, Castex said, adding that that meant “a minimum of three days or four days, if possible.”

The government also proposed reinstating wearing masks outdoors in city centers. However, it did not put in place a curfew for New Year’s Eve nor did it postpone the return to school, which is scheduled on January 3.

The Omicron variant “will lead us to adjust the rules on the duration of the quarantine,” Castex said, adding that those rule revisions will be announced on Friday.

The number of positive COVID-19 cases has never been so high in France since the start of the pandemic last year, reaching 1,037 new cases per million on Sunday. A total of 72.7 percent of the French population is fully vaccinated, as of December 23.

The draft legislation setting the new rules, which is subject to change, will be discussed by France's lower parliamentary chamber — the National Assembly — next week and is expected to enter into force on January 15.

This article is part of POLITICO's premium policy service: Pro Health Care. From drug pricing, EMA, vaccines, pharma and more, our specialized journalists keep you on top of the topics driving the health care policy agenda. Email pro@politico.eu for a complimentary trial.

Poland’s Duda looks to avert US clash by vetoing media law

Posted: 27 Dec 2021 06:17 AM PST

WARSAW — Polish President Andrzej Duda intervened to head off a clash with Washington on Monday by vetoing a controversial media law that was widely seen as targeting independent broadcaster TVN, owned by the U.S. media giant Discovery. 

On December 17, Poland’s ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) unexpectedly rushed through legislation that would have forced Discovery out by insisting that broadcasters operating in Poland must be majority owned by entities from the European Economic Area.

That hasty move amplified fears about democratic backsliding in Warsaw, drew instant criticism from the U.S. and triggered nationwide street protests. TVN is the country’s biggest independent network and consistently infuriates the government with its critical reporting.

Already locked in a deteriorating rule of law dispute with Brussels, Duda insisted Poland did not need to open another front.

“I share the opinion of most of my fellow countrymen whom I spoke to that we don’t need another disturbing or troubling issue [and] we do not need more disputes,” he said, on delivering his veto.

Duda also cautioned that arbitration over TVN’s rights could lead to Poland being sued for "billions of dollars."

Under the proposed law, Discovery would have had just six months to sell its controlling stake in TVN.

"One could consider whether this is fair to the company," Duda said, adding that TVN had its broadcasting concession extended only recently.

The U.S. — a crucial NATO ally — has long called on Duda to veto the proposed legislation.

Bix Aliu, acting U.S. ambassador in Warsaw, said on December 17 that Washington was "extremely disappointed" with the developments and urged Poland's president to reject the law.  

"Pressure makes sense," former Polish Prime Minister and former President of the European Council Donald Tusk tweeted in reaction to Duda's decision.

The law, proposed by the ruling majority led by the PiS party, aimed at banning even indirect control of the media in Poland by entities from outside the EEA. That meant TVN would have been excluded even though it is owned by a Discovery-owned company registered in the Netherlands.

The broadcaster is fiercely critical of the government and acts as a significant counterbalance to the public network TVP, which PiS has turned into an unadulterated propaganda channel.

The PiS-led government does not have anything close to a majority to reject Duda's veto. Overturning the president's decision requires a majority of three-fifths with at least half of 460 MPs present. Given that the opposition would mobilize for the potential vote, the government would need 276 votes, but currently it can only count on 228.

Still, the president suggested that ownership structures similar to the ones contained in the rejected law would make sense in the future.

"Limiting ownership in media by non-EEA entities makes sense but they should cover entities entering the market, not the ones already operating on it," Duda said.

There was no immediate reaction from the government. TVN said: “We accept with appreciation and joy the decision of the president of the Republic of Poland, Andrzej Duda, who acted in favor of the freedom of the media and viewers’ right to choose. By vetoing Lex TVN [as the law was known], the president defended good relations with the United States.”

PiS Chairman Jarosław Kaczyński, who is Poland’s most powerful politician, referred to Duda's decision in an interview with the news portal Interia.

"We are concerned only with putting things in order and not with any attack on the free media. I know perfectly well that TVN will remain anti-government," Kaczyński said.

The new rules of Monopoly

Posted: 27 Dec 2021 03:49 AM PST

The United States invented the concept of antitrust in the 1890s: laws designed to keep corporate titans from squashing their competition and saddling consumers with inflated prices.

But the realities of U.S. antitrust enforcement have evolved a lot in the past 40 years — and the modern world of monopoly is much different from the board game that has taught generations of Americans about concentrated wealth. Huge tech companies like Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon occupy many of the squares, leaving their rivals scrambling for a foothold. For consumers, the price is often $0 —except forthe hidden costs, like a loss of choice or privacy.

Now a new breed of antitrust activists say it's time to rewrite the rules again. And some are questioning the whole premise of the game.

Unlike many of the hottest issues embroiling Washington, the antitrust debate doesn't break down along neat partisan or ideological lines. Supporters of sweeping change include progressive Democrats like Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan, as well as conservative Republicans like Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley and Colorado Rep. Ken Buck, all of them facing resistance within their own parties.

If you thought you understood how Monopoly is played — and how the government and political players think about it — it's time to take a stroll down the modern-day Mediterranean Avenue and Park Place.

What’s a monopoly anyway?

The U.S. passed its first major antitrust law, the Sherman Antitrust Act, in 1890. Thirteen years later, the progressive feminist Lizzie Magie invented a board game to explain the economic concept of a monopoly, where players who corner a market have the power to impoverish their rivals and customers.

Parker Brothers later bought and popularized the game, adding iconic graphics such as Rich Uncle Pennybags, aka the Monopoly Man — whose tuxedo, monocle and top hat were modeled after Standard Oil's John D. Rockefeller.

In the same era, the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission played an aggressive real-life version of Monopoly. They brought major antitrust cases that broke up Standard Oil in 1911 and the movie studio and theater owner Paramount Pictures in 1948. Later they broke up AT&T's Bell System monopoly in 1983, while waging less successful suits against IBM and Microsoft.

Despite more than 130 years of history, however, the U.S. has no clear definition of what a monopoly is, or when a monopolist crosses the line from vigorously competing for business to breaking the law.

Since the 1970s, the game in Washington has shifted: Federal courts have adopted a conservative strain of thought that questions the original idea that big equals bad, or that the aim of antitrust laws is to stop big players from getting bigger. That has solidified into a new antitrust orthodoxy — one that's now facing increasing attacks in Washington.

The result is "a crucial intellectual divide that has to do with what you think the point of the law is," said former Republican FTC Chair William Kovacic. The 2008 financial crisis "was a formative influence and still is. The vaunted genius of the capitalist system was shown to be a fiction. That creates an environment in which people are willing to rethink long-held beliefs."

Add in the Covid-19 pandemic and its resulting supply chain problems, and the U.S. has the perfect environment for reconsidering the conventional approach to antitrust, said Kovacic, now an antitrust professor at George Washington University Law School.

Why this game is different

Monopolies have changed, along with what the biggest companies are buying. Google and Facebook don't charge consumers money for their most popular services but instead collect vast reams of data on their users that they then use to help target online advertising. Amazon charges low prices, sometimes below what the goods cost to manufacture, but boasts of its top-notch customer service.

And by the time new contestants make their way to the game board, they often find that the big players already occupy the most lucrative squares.

The companies' approaches have made them among the wealthiest corporations on Earth, with market values exceeding many nations' economies, as well as a stranglehold on the consumer data that drives much of modern-day commerce.

Who’s playing the game now

The Traditionalists: "IT AIN'T BROKE"

This school of post-1970s thought was once the young upstart on the antitrust scene. Today it's the ruling establishment. And its main yardstick for measuring a company's effect on the markets is whether consumers pay high prices.

This idea, known as the consumer welfare standard, was created by Robert Bork, the conservative D.C. Circuit judge best known for his unsuccessful Supreme Court nomination battle during the Reagan administration.

Under this standard, the government should block corporate mergers that would lead to higher prices. But it should bless business deals that aim to increase efficiency, promote innovation or take other steps that would drive prices lower.

Based on this logic, federal enforcers and judges have OK'd mergers and buyouts that have shrunk the number of competitors in markets ranging from airlines and cellphone companies to cat food and caskets.

Under this view of the law, monopolies aren't necessarily bad. Achieving a monopoly legally — and getting to charge high prices — is an important element of the free market because it encourages businesses to improve their products. While that might seem inconsistent with their intense focus on consumer prices, the Traditionalistsalmost always oppose government intervention in pricing decisions, preferring to let the market decide.

The law "seeks merely to prevent unlawful monopolization," Justice Antonin Scalia said in a key 2004 court decision. "To safeguard the incentive to innovate, the possession of monopoly power will not be found unlawful unless it is accompanied by an element of anticompetitive conduct."

Scalia's admonition has translated into an oft-repeated motto: "Big isn't bad. Big behaving badly is bad."

For these Traditionalists, monopolies are often a sign of ingenuity and consumer preference. Antitrust enforcers and courts should avoid challenging businesses except in the most clear and egregious cases lest they stifle innovation.

People
— Christine Wilson, commissioner, Federal Trade Commission (R)
— Noah Phillips, commissioner, Federal Trade Commission (R)
— Robert Bork, former solicitor general of the United States
— The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board

Groups
— Chamber of Commerce
— Heritage Foundation
— George Mason University Law School
— Tech trade group NetChoice
— Computer and Communications Industry Association

Companies
— Google
— Apple
— Amazon
— Facebook

The Reformers: "MEND IT, DON'T END IT"

Policymakers and lawmakers in the Reform school believe the system has become too tilted in favor of big companies. They want to change the antitrust laws to make it easier once again to challenge monopolies — though without radical changes to the existing order.

"Our enforcement tools are getting rusty," Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) wrote in abook published this year on the need for antitrust reform.

Klobuchar, the Senate's top Democrat on antitrust, has introduced bills to change how courts interpret the law. Her Republican counterpart, Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, has likewise made the case for tightening the standards for government reviews of mergers and making it harder for monopolists to excuse their problematic conduct.

The antitrust debate needs to focus less single-mindedly on prices,they argue.

"Modern antitrust enforcement, and judicial decision making has become obsessed with … [an] economic extravaganza," Lee said at a September speech before the Federalist Society. But economists "will measure what is susceptible to measurement and will tend to forget what is not."

Most people in the Reform camp, including Lee,still embrace the consumer welfare standard. But they say the courts should broaden it to look at how mergers or business conduct affect values like choice, product quality or privacy — arguing that the Traditionalists’approach helped lead to the growth of the mammoth tech companies.

"The whole business model in Silicon Valley is built on the idea that this is untouchable by the competition laws," said Rebecca Allensworth, an antitrust professor at Vanderbilt Law School who focuses on technology and competition.

The Reformersalso advocate for keeping the enforcement-based antitrust system in which the Justice Department and FTC go to court against alleged monopolists — though they want tweaks to the laws to make it easier for the government to win.

"The tools aren't broken," Allensworth said. "We just haven't been using them correctly."

People
— Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa)
— Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah)
— Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.)
— Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.)
— Gene Kimmelman, senior counselor, Department of Justice

Groups
— Public Knowledge
— Equitable Growth
— American Antitrust Institute

Companies
— Spotify
— Match
— Yelp
— DuckDuckGo

The Anti-Monopolists: "BREAK THEM UP"

An even more aggressive Anti-Monopolist school of antitrust law has gained prominence under President Joe Biden, who picked two of its founders — Khan and new White House adviser Tim Wu — for top roles in the executive branch.

Admirers sometimes call these people the New Brandeis School, after former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis. Critics have derided them as "Hipster Antitrust." Unlike both the Traditionalists and Reformers, this crowd argues that antitrust laws were enacted not solely to ensure fair markets but to prevent the consolidation of corporate power and protect democracy.

The Anti-Monopoly school grew as a reaction to the 2008 financial crisis and concerns about "too big to fail" banks. In their view, concentrated corporate power is always bad and the government should seek to break it up.

"Fair dealing in the marketplace is a political right," said Matt Stoller, director of research for the advocacy group American Economic Liberties Project. The Anti-Monopoly movement seeks to "make sure that people have rights in the marketplace, that they can enter lines of trade and have fair dealings with buyers and sellers."

The Anti-Monopolists argue that the U.S. should return to the earlier trust-busting approach it took before Bork's ideas gained sway — essentially, to the tradition that existed before the Traditionalists. Some, like Sandeep Vaheesan of the anti-monopoly advocacy group Open Markets Institute, want to reinstate merger rules from 1968 that explicitly called for blocking deals if they would lead to market shares above a certain size.

Unlike the other two groups, the Anti-Monopoly school believes antitrust law should focus less on economics and adopt more bright-line rules that make clear what conduct and mergers are allowed. The use of economics is theAnti-Monopolists’ biggest area of divergencefrom the Reform approach, which Stoller referred to as "diet-Bork."

The Reformersstill "want to have economists run everything. They just want different economists," said Stoller. But economics is "an elitist language to exclude normal people from politics."

This group also supports moving beyond reliance on suits against individual monopolists. Instead, it favors having federal and state agencies write new rules to limit problematic behaviors — a priority that Khan has identifiedin her role as FTC chair.

"If we have monopolies, it's a sign we don't have effective competition," Democratic FTC Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter said. "I think there's a big problem that needs big solutions."

The Anti-Monopolistschool isn't solely made up of Democrats, though — it also includes support from some Republicans in Congress, who often allege that tech giants use their control of the market to censor conservatives. But that support tends to be idiosyncratic, said GW's Kovacic, who falls into the Reformercamp. (Other prominent Republicans, including House Judiciary Committee ranking member Jim Jordan of Ohio, condemn the proposed antitrust changesmoving through Congress as big-government meddling in the economy.)

"The Republican support is somewhat brittle in that it is exclusively focused on Big Tech,"Kovacic said. "It's hard to see them voting for a sweeping transformation of the whole system."

People
— Lina Khan, chair, Federal Trade Commission
— Tim Wu, White House National Economic Council
— Jonathan Kanter, assistant attorney general for antitrust
— Rohit Chopra, director, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
— Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.)
— Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)
— Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.)
— Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, commissioner, Federal Trade Commission

Groups
— Open Markets
— American Economic Liberties Project

Big Tech’s next monopoly game: Building the car of the future

Posted: 27 Dec 2021 03:18 AM PST

When Ford announced that starting in 2023 its cars and trucks would come with Google Maps, Assistant and Play Store preinstalled, CEO Jim Farley called the partnership between his iconic U.S. automaker and the search giant a chance to "reinvent" the automobile — making it an office-on-wheels, with more connectivity than any phone or laptop.

"We were spending hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of millions every year, keeping up with basically a generic experience that was not competitive to your cellphone," Farley crowed on CNBC, announcing the six-year deal with the tech giant.

The deal gave Ford some much-needed cachet and Google a chance to showcase its products for millions of drivers and their passengers. But many tech-industry watchdogs looked at the Ford-Google car of the future with different eyes. They fear that tech companies will soon be doing to cars what they did to phones: Tying their exclusive operating systems to specific products to force out competitors and dominate a huge swath of the global economy.

Indeed, the smartphone wars are over, and Google and Apple won. Now they — and Amazon — are battling to control how you operate within your car. All three see autos as the next great opportunity to reach American consumers, who spend more time in the driver's seat than anywhere outside their home or workplace. And automakers, after years of floundering to incorporate cutting-edge technologies into cars on their own, are increasingly eager for Silicon Valley's help — hoping to adopt both its tech and its lucrative business models where consumers pay monthly for ongoing services instead of shelling out for a product just once.

Now, having missed the boat as the tech giants cornered the market on smartphones, some policymakers and regulators believe the battle over connected cars represents a chance to block potential monopolies before they form.

State attorneys general who sued Google in 2020 for monopolizing online search highlighted concerns about the company's move into autonomous cars in their federal antitrust complaint. Meanwhile, in Europe, the EU's competition authority has opened a probe into Google's contracts related to connected cars.

"It's really hard to remedy anticompetitive conduct five or 10 years down the line," said Charlotte Slaiman, competition policy director for Public Knowledge. "For many consumers, buying a car is a long-term decision. If a consumer is going to be locked into services with a certain company because they bought a car that they are going to use for five to 10 years, that can make competition more difficult."

The stakes are enormous. Tech companies and the automakers envision a future where riders can seamlessly blend work, play and chores, easily ordering groceries, scheduling work meetings or watching TV from the comfort of their cars. The data coming off those vehicles also could automatically update maps, notify city workers about potholes and tell brick-and-mortar retailers where customers travel from.

"The ride is no longer the point," said Jim Heffner, a vice president at Cox Automotive Mobility who specializes in autonomous and connected vehicles. "Data is the cornerstone. … Apple and Google and others want to be at the epicenter of that."

A search for the cutting edge


Automakers design cars three to five years before the vehicles ever hit the road, lagging well behind the pace of tech innovation. The technology in a new car today is already years out of date when it arrives at the dealer's lot, said James Hodgson, an autonomous vehicles analyst with ABI Research, while the pace of connectivity — and consumers' desires for favorite devices — moves much faster.

That dynamic led car manufacturers to outsource the dashboard's entertainment functions to smartphones, he said, enabling customers to use their favored phone technology while driving. Nearly all of today's cars today support Apple's CarPlay or Google's Android Auto, which connect a smartphone to the vehicle's system. Apple first announced CarPlay in 2014, with Google following suit with Android Auto the next year. A driver can make phone calls, listen to music or stream Netflix, but all of the work happens on the phone and is mirrored onto the car's speakers and screens.

Now, the tech companies are looking to eliminate any choice of technology, building the software for the car itself.

Back in 2015, Google and Ford first began discussing a partnership to pair Google's software and self-driving car unit Waymo with Ford's auto manufacturing expertise. But the deal fell apart over Ford's insistence that the technology be exclusive to its products; Google wanted to be able to sell its self-driving technology to other automakers. The deal's failure led to the ouster of Ford's then-CEO Mark Fields amid concerns about the Michigan carmaker's lack of progress in the self-driving space.

Meanwhile, Google continued to expand its Android offerings for cars. Volvo, Stellantis — the parent company of Chrysler, RAM, Jeep and Plymouth — and General Motors all struck deals with Google.

Like on the smartphone, manufacturers can simply use the Android operating system as the basic software for their entertainment unit. But if they want some of Google's more popular products — like Google Maps or Google's voice assistant — they must sign a contract with the search giant.

The company offers automakers a package known as Google Automotive Services, or GAS, as an all-or-nothing deal. In order to get access to Google Maps, for example, a carmaker must also agree to use Google's Play Store and voice assistant.

Honda, Volvo and the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance have all agreed to the package, while Chrysler, Jeep and Plymouth only use the Android operating system but selected Amazon's Alexa as the primary voice assistant and TomTom for navigation.

General Motors, too, split the difference. Beginning with the 2022 models, its cars will use Google. In earlier models, the company has offered its own navigation system called Maps+ based on Mapbox, one of the few remaining mapping competitors to Google.

And, finally, Ford — under its new CEO, Farley — tried to do them all one better, inking a deal to have the carmaker's engineers work directly with Google software designers to embed technology into the vehicle while also creating a self-driving car. They dubbed the collaboration "Team Upshift."

"One of the most important parts of our strategy is to partner," Farley said on CNBC. "That means that we have to get out of the business of doing generic things that we do not add value, like navigation systems and a lot of the in-car entertainment experience."

Under the deal, Google would provide all that and more.

Setting standards


Google's involvement in the auto ecosystem is becoming so widespread that a leading industry standards group, the Connected Vehicles Systems Alliance, announced in October that it is working on creating international benchmarks for cars' software integration with Android.

Separately, Waymo — which became a separate entity under Google's parent company Alphabet in 2016 — began offering self-driving taxi services in Chandler, Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix. This summer, the company expanded service to San Francisco. Waymo's handpicked riders, who request service through an app, can travel most of the city, though not the downtown area.

The self-driving company also has partnerships with Volvo, Stellantis' Chrysler, Jaguar Land Rover and the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance to incorporate its technology into their cars, though none have yet come to market.

Apple, meanwhile, is waiting in the wings, primarily through its own self-driving car project, "Project Titan," which has been in the works since 2014. Over that time, the project has vacillated between building out just the self-driving software and a fully autonomous vehicle. It also has stalled several times, most recently after the project's leader — Doug Field, an engineer who helped develop Tesla's Model 3 — decamped for Ford in September.

Little is known about the notoriously secretive company's car project, even though CEO Tim Cook acknowledged in 2017 that Apple was working on autonomous technology for cars. The company didn't respond to a request for comment on this story.

"There is a major disruption looming there," Cook told Bloomberg of the auto industry. "We sort of see it as the mother of all AI projects."

The company has filed for dozens of patents related to cars, including for displays that would project information on the windshield and airbags and safety systems for rear-facing seats. Using those patents, U.K. car leasing company Vanarama built a model of the Apple car as a sleek SUV-like model with seats that swivel so they face one another.

Over the years, Apple has reportedly talked with Hyundai, Nissan and Toyota as partners to help manufacture its cars. In early 2020, Apple also held acquisition talks with electric vehicle startup Canoo, whose zero-emission vans are set to debut next year. Those talks ultimately failed and Canoo opted to go public last year.

"Apple has always been less willing to entrust their brand to someone else," ABI's Hodgson said. "They want to own the experience end-to-end."

Enter Amazon


E-commerce giant Amazon is also highly interested in connected vehicles, both as an opportunity to reach consumers and for its own delivery needs. In 2014, the company tried to enter the smartphone market with the Fire phone, a failed effort to challenge Google and Apple. While Fire was a commercial disaster, one part of the project survived and has become key to Amazon's car ambitions: Alexa.

The earliest incarnations of Alexa Auto, Amazon's version of the popular voice assistant for cars, were simply a smartphone app connected to the car through Apple Car Play or Google's Android Auto. But accessing the car's systems through Apple or Google meant limiting the functionality Alexa could provide, so Amazon changed tacks and started working directly with automakers to build their service into the car.

BMW and GM vehicles debuted with Alexa in 2018, and more car makers including Audi, Jeep and Land Rover have added the voice assistant since. With Alexa built in, drivers can remotely lock or unlock the car doors, turn on the engine or check the fuel from smart speakers in their home. Likewise, Alexa in the car can check the thermostat and turn on or off lights at home, while also providing information on weather or helping buy products on Amazon or at its Whole Foods subsidiary.

For cars without Alexa built-in, Amazon now offers a version of its popular Echo speaker for the car — a pocket-sized device designed to attach to dashboard air vents.

Alexa works alongside voice assistants created by carmakers such as Ford, BMW, General Motors and Audi, said Frankie Tobin, an Amazon spokesperson.

"We believe voice agents should be interoperable on a single device (or in a vehicle), and that voice-enabled products should be designed to support multiple, simultaneous wake words, so customers can easily interact with the voice service of their choice," Tobin said.

Voice controls are particularly attractive to carmakers, ABI's Hodgson said, because they help keep drivers from taking their hands off the wheel or eyes off the road. And Alexa's widespread usage within the home already means it has a ready base of customers who would value integration, he said.

Amazon hasn't been as successful as Google with its partnerships with traditional automakers, because it's taking a "hybrid" approach, Heffner of Cox Automotive said, and focusing on new entrants to the auto space. Last summer, Amazon acquired Zoox, a California-based company building autonomous taxis. The boxy four-passenger vehicles have no driver and passengers sit facing each other. The vehicles are intended for driving in urban spaces, and the company hopes to debut its service soon in San Francisco and Las Vegas, though it hasn't yet announced a commercial launch date.

The e-commerce giant has also invested in Rivian, an electric vehicle manufacturer. In September 2019, Amazon then-CEO Jeff Bezos announced the company had ordered 100,000 electric delivery vans from Rivian, at the time a relatively unknown company developing electric SUVs.

Amazon has a 20 percent stake in Rivian, which went public last month raising nearly $12 billion, making it one of the world's most valuable automakers, ahead of both Ford and GM. Ford and Cox Automotive are also investors in Rivian.

"Amazon has been an amazing partner," Rivian CEO R.J. Scaringe told Bloomberg in an interview before the IPO. Scaringe touted "the collaborative relationship" with Amazon, whose "ecosystem of services" will be built into the vans.

The relationship is heavily in Amazon's favor: the e-commerce giant has exclusive rights to Rivian's vans for the next four years, though it isn't obligated to buy any of them at all and Amazon maintains the rights to buy from other automakers.

Amazon declined to comment on the Zoox acquisition or the Rivian investment, pointing to a February blog post on the retail giant's plans to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2040.

Amazon aims to have the largest fleet of delivery vehicles in the world, Heffner said, but it wouldn't be far-fetched for them to use some of the technology developed on the commercial vehicle side to aid its consumer business.

Heffner suggested Amazon might be willing to move to a model where it explicitly offers rides in exchange for transactions and data.

"We're talking about the largest marketplace in the world," he said. Today "they are connecting the consumer with suppliers and the marketplace. In the future, when transportation is just a mode of moving from point A to point B," Amazon will want its marketplace to be available for consumers there as well.

Brand loyalty or monopoly?


While Silicon Valley and automakers are thrilled about the future of connected and autonomous cars, regulators and privacy advocates are less so.

"These companies have an amount of data on us that they shouldn't have, and they have a history of not using it in responsible ways," said Katharine Trendacosta of the digital civil liberties group Electronic Frontier Foundation. "They have a history of going back on promises they have made about that data."

She cited Google's pledge during the DoubleClick acquisition in 2008 — which it later reneged on — not to combine data from its consumer products with that from its advertising services.

Eric Gundersen, Mapbox's former CEO, complained to Congress this spring about how Google's restrictive contracts are impacting his company's ability to offer alternatives. And those exclusive deals will continue to give Google a leg up over time, he said.

"It's the data piece that is so critical here," he told a House panel in February. "It's not just about the user app data: the map and the operating system all the way down to the data coming off the vehicle back to the cloud. This is how AI learns … it's all about the data."

Ford assured reporters when it announced the Google deal that car owners will be able to install Siri or Alexa, but those Apple and Amazon products will have to work in an environment built by and optimized for Google. And only Google and Ford will have access to the user data generated by the system, which will be stored in Google Cloud.

"It's not truly an open system," said an executive at an automotive supplier that competes with Google, who asked for anonymity to candidly discuss the search giant without fear of retaliation. Google is "corralling everything through their system and controls what information is released downstream."

Google said any data-sharing with other companies is limited by its privacy policies and the terms of its contracts with automakers.

The search giant's strategy of making Android free to all but using restrictive contracts for its more popular products isn't new. Europe's top competition authority fined the search giant 4.34 billion Euros — roughly $5 billion — in 2018 for using a similar playbook related to Android smartphones. (Google is appealing that decision.)

A coalition of 38 states and territories also sued Google last year over the tech giant's contracts for Android in smartphones, and officials noted the suit's high stakes as the company makes its move into cars.

"When smartphones took off, Google made sure they controlled search on Apple's iPhone. They are doing the same thing on voice and connected cars. It's a similar playbook," Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery III told reporters when the case was filed in December 2020.

Google said the EU decision only applies to Android phones, not software used on other platforms like cars. The connected car market is “a fiercely competitive and growing market,” the company said in a statement. “Ultimately, manufacturers can choose which voice assistants to install on their cars and users can also choose which assistants to use and install.”

Google's automotive partnerships offer innovation and new benefits to consumers, Google spokesperson Peter Schottenfels said.

"There is enormous competition in the connected car space, and we compete with an array of companies offering car infotainment systems like Apple CarPlay, Amazon Alexa, Nuance Automotive, and others," Schottenfels said. "Android Automotive Operating System is an open platform that is customizable, and both manufacturers and users have the choice to download and install a wide variety of third party apps."

Though the states highlighted concerns about Google's impact on emerging technologies, their lawsuit won't go to trial until September 2023. Appeals are likely, meaning their case is unlikely to be resolved until 2025 or later. That lengthy timeline means a suit might not be able to stop Google or any of the tech companies from gaining a dominant foothold in the auto industry, monopoly experts warned.

"One of the problems we see with Big Tech platforms today is they are able to retain power even though technology changes," said Slaiman, who investigated monopolization cases at the Federal Trade Commission before joining Public Knowledge. "The transition to a new technology is a time when a new innovative competitor has a shot."

While the Apple Car looks like an exciting new technology, a less charitable view of Apple's strategy is the company wants to further enmesh consumers into their profitable ecosystem, where the company gets a 30 percent cut of all digital sales, said Trendacosta, associate director of policy and activism at EFF, which counts Google search rival DuckDuckGo among its donors.

For decades, Apple has espoused some of the most restrictive repair policies for its computers, phones and tablets. Only in November after a push by the White House and federal regulators did the iPhone maker announce that it would begin allowing consumers to repair their own devices.

"Apple's whole goal is to lock you into their ecosystem," she said. "I don't love the idea of them doing that in car form as well."

Smartphone 2.0?


Both Apple and Google have come under fire around the world for the tight control they wield over their smartphone marketplaces, which require other companies to fork over up to 30 percent of subscriptions and sales made on their platforms.

Other major tech companies including Spotify, Tinder parent company Match and Epic Games have railed against the policies, urging policymakers in the U.S., Europe and Asia to break Apple and Google's dominance. In August, South Korea became the first country to prohibit the duopoly from forcing companies to use their payment systems.

Google said automakers that have signed contracts to offer its Maps, assistant and Play Store can choose to offer an alternative app store, though some have chosen to offer only Google's app store.

This summer, a bipartisan group of U.S. senators also introduced legislation that would force Apple and Google to open up their smartphones by allowing other app stores or cheaper payment methods. But the legislation is specifically targeted at smartphones, experts said, and likely wouldn't affect the connected cars.

The tech giants "already profit enough off of where we go and what we search for. Getting a foothold in the auto industry could turn all our movements into profitable data points," said Sarah Roth-Gaudette, executive director of Fight for the Future, a progressive advocacy group focused on digital rights.

The United States' lack of a national privacy law and relatively lax anti-monopoly enforcement mean there's little preventing Google, Apple and Amazon from dominating this new market, Roth-Gaudette said.

It's important "we get these important guardrails in place so it doesn't go the worst possible way," she said.

Both Roth-Gaudette and EFF's Trendacosta highlighted legislation pending in both the House and Senate that would prevent the tech companies from scooping up promising rivals and giving preference to their own products in emerging areas like cars.

"I know it's hard to see in the future and difficult to make guesses about what companies should be allowed to do with technology that doesn't exist. But we know what they are doing with things that already exist," Trendacosta said. "If we had rules that carry forward to whatever they make in the future, we'd be in a better place."

Belgium’s prime minister considers mandatory vaccination

Posted: 27 Dec 2021 01:42 AM PST

Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo is considering mandatory vaccination, he told the newspaper De Zondag in an interview published over the Christmas weekend.

The French-speaking socialists, who are part of De Croo’s government, had previously asked for mandatory vaccination in Belgium, but De Croo called such a step “political laziness.”

In a seeming change of heart, Belgium’s liberal prime minister said the situation on intensive care units was now making him reconsider. “The impact of a relatively small group on our healthcare is too big. We can not allow that to happen. Keynes, a British economist, once said: ‘When the facts change, I change my mind.’ Good arguments can convince me.”

“The goal is clear: we must vaccinate everyone. If the path of mandatory vaccination can help, then I would like to consider it. Mind you: A government cannot decide that by itself. That debate must happen in parliament," he said.

On Sunday, the number of COVID-19 patients in Belgian hospitals dropped below 2,000 for the first time since the beginning of November, according to a press release from the national public health institute Sciensano. But authorities expect this number to rise again because of the Omicron variant.

EU seeks emergency powers on supply chains

Posted: 27 Dec 2021 12:30 AM PST

The European Commission is planning to unveil a proposal early next year for new powers that would allow Brussels to secure supplies during a crisis, according to an internal message seen by POLITICO’s Brussels Playbook.

Europe has encountered serious vulnerabilities in its supply chains over the past year on a number of fronts. The EU was caught flat-footed in the coronavirus vaccination race and had to take contentious measures to limit exports and keep jabs in the bloc. That crisis only compounded existing worries about dependence on Asia for critical imports ranging from face masks to microchips.

In particular, the European Union worries that 98 percent of the rare earth metals that it needs in a host of industrial applications come from China. A shortage of magnesium from China has also become a major headache for producers of cars, planes and electronics.

In a New Year's message to his staff, Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton said Brussels would present the new law in the "spring."

The law will consist of a "toolbox of measures that can be activated to ensure security of supply during a crisis," Breton wrote, which could mean export controls and powers for the EU to request information from companies on production, stockpiles and their supply chains.

It would also include "mid-to long-term measures … to address structural strategic dependencies, diversify sources of supply and increase EU industrial capacities." Officials say this will include measures aimed at reducing the EU's dependence on China.

Still, Europe’s supply chain woes during the pandemic had internal as well as external causes, in part triggered by border restrictions and bans on medical equipment exports within the bloc. France seized mask shipments moving across the EU that passed through its territory, and Germany imposed unilateral export bans. France maintained its national export restriction on masks even after the EU had imposed one for the entire bloc.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen first hinted at the new law in a speech earlier this year, when she said Brussels was "working on a Single Market Emergency Instrument" to "ensure the free movement of goods, services and people, with greater transparency and coordination … [and] fast-track decisions, whenever a critical situation emerges."
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