The negotiations bring together two issues that have divided Paris and Berlin: Germany’s demand for greater flexibility in rules governing combustion-engine vehicles and France’s campaign for stronger “Made in Europe” requirements in EU industrial policy.
Officials involved in the discussions believe a broader Franco-German agreement may now be possible, although differences remain over how European content should be defined and whether products made in countries with EU free-trade agreements should receive similar treatment.
The automotive dispute follows the Commission’s decision in December 2025 to propose significant changes to rules that had originally required a 100 per cent reduction in tailpipe CO₂ emissions from new cars from 2035.
Under the revised automotive package, manufacturers would instead face a 90 per cent tailpipe-emissions reduction requirement from 2035.
The remaining 10 per cent could be compensated through mechanisms linked to low-carbon steel produced in the EU and the use of e-fuels and biofuels.
EU Today reported before the Commission presented the package that pressure from Germany, Italy and European manufacturers was forcing Brussels to reconsider the original 2035 framework.
The subsequent proposal confirmed the shift.
In March, EU Today also examined the Commission’s decision to link low-carbon European steel directly to vehicle-emissions compliance, creating a connection between automotive climate rules and support for Europe’s heavy industry.
Germany has continued to argue for a technology-neutral approach.
Berlin wants legislation to leave scope for combustion engines operating on renewable or low-carbon fuels rather than treating battery-electric vehicles as the only route towards lower emissions.
That position is particularly important for Germany because of the scale of its automotive sector and the large industrial supply chain built around combustion-engine technology.
France’s priority is different.
Paris wants EU industrial policy to ensure that public subsidies and procurement increasingly support products manufactured inside Europe.
The argument centres on the Commission’s Industrial Accelerator Act, proposed in March as part of a wider strategy to strengthen European manufacturing.
The legislation introduces “Made in EU” and low-carbon requirements for public procurement and public support schemes covering strategic sectors including automotive manufacturing, steel, cement and aluminium.
The dispute is over what “European” should mean.
France favours a relatively strict definition focused principally on production inside the EU’s 27 member states.
Germany has advocated what Economy Minister Katherina Reiche has described as a “Made with Europe” approach, under which some products from close trading partners could qualify if those countries provide equivalent market access to European companies.
That could potentially include states such as Norway and Switzerland and partners including Canada.
Spain has been among countries seeking a middle position between the French and German approaches.
The issue matters because modern automotive supply chains do not stop at the EU’s external border.
Battery materials, semiconductors, electric motors and other components can pass through several countries before final assembly, while Britain and Turkey remain deeply integrated into European vehicle production.
The EU-UK relationship is particularly sensitive because stricter rules of origin for electric vehicles are due to apply from 2027.
EU Today previously reported that European and British manufacturers were seeking another delay to those rules because the regional battery supply chain had not developed as quickly as originally expected.
At the same time, the EU is attempting to reduce dependence on Chinese electric vehicles, batteries and critical inputs.
The Commission has committed €1.8 billion to a Battery Booster strategy intended to strengthen the European battery value chain.
European electric-vehicle demand is continuing to grow. A 16-market European survey examined by EU Today showed battery-electric cars taking more than a quarter of new registrations in July, although large differences remain between national markets.
Manufacturers must therefore make investment decisions while several important elements of the regulatory framework remain under negotiation.
Factory conversion, battery plants and new vehicle platforms require investments planned years in advance. The conditions applying after 2030 will directly affect where those investments are made.
A Franco-German understanding would not determine the final EU rules. The European Parliament, Commission and other member states remain part of both legislative negotiations.
It could, however, bridge two of the most important disputes: Germany’s demand for greater technological flexibility in the 2035 vehicle regime and France’s demand that public money be used more directly to support European production.
The negotiations now underway suggest Paris and Berlin are increasingly treating those questions as parts of the same industrial bargain.
The three governments have written to Energy Commissioner Dan Jørgensen arguing that a post-2030 renewables target would give investors greater certainty, accelerate deployment and reduce European dependence on imported fossil fuels.
Their intervention comes as the Commission prepares a new renewable-energy framework covering the decade after 2030.
The EU currently has a legally binding target requiring renewable sources to account for at least 42.5 per cent of final energy consumption by 2030, with an ambition to reach 45 per cent.
There is, however, no equivalent renewables target for 2040.
The European Commission says it is preparing a post-2030 renewable-energy framework for adoption before the end of this year. It is intended to complement the Union’s wider climate legislation and provide guidance for the next decade of energy investment.
Spain, Portugal and Luxembourg want that framework to contain a numerical target rather than rely solely on the EU’s overall greenhouse-gas reduction objective.
The proposal creates a policy divide with governments that want Brussels to use a broader definition of low-carbon or “clean” energy.
France, Sweden and Finland are among countries that have supported an approach allowing nuclear generation to contribute alongside renewable sources towards European decarbonisation targets.
France in particular operates the EU’s largest nuclear fleet and has repeatedly argued that European energy legislation should treat nuclear power according to its low carbon emissions rather than exclude it from frameworks designed specifically around renewable technologies.
Luxembourg, by contrast, has long opposed nuclear energy and has raised concerns about radioactive waste, safety and the financing of new reactors.
The argument is therefore not simply about the scale of the 2040 ambition. It concerns the structure of European energy investment over the next 15 years.
The Commission’s existing renewable-energy rules set the 2030 floor at 42.5 per cent, almost double the share recorded at the beginning of the decade.
Renewables accounted for 26.2 per cent of EU energy consumption in 2025, according to Commission figures.
Investment will have to increase substantially if the Union is to meet its existing target before any higher post-2030 requirement is introduced.
Grid capacity is another constraint. Wind and solar generation can be built faster than many traditional power stations, but projects increasingly depend on new transmission lines, interconnectors, storage and distribution infrastructure.
EU Today reported in June that member states were resisting greater Commission control over cross-border electricity-grid planning, illustrating the institutional difficulties surrounding an expansion of European electricity infrastructure.
The latest initiative also sits alongside the EU’s legally binding 2040 climate target.
In March, the Union formally approved legislation requiring net greenhouse-gas emissions to fall by 90 per cent from 1990 levels by 2040. EU Today reported on the final approval of the 2040 target, which is intended to bridge the gap between the bloc’s 2030 commitments and climate neutrality by 2050.
How that 90 per cent reduction is achieved is now moving to the centre of the policy debate.
For Spain and Portugal, greater renewable generation is also tied to their ambitions to expand electricity exports from the Iberian Peninsula into the rest of Europe. Limited interconnection capacity across the Pyrenees has historically restricted those flows.
The Commission’s post-2030 framework will therefore have consequences beyond environmental policy. It will influence investment decisions in power generation, grids, industrial electrification, hydrogen, storage and manufacturing.
The political question confronting the Commission is whether those decisions should be driven by a dedicated renewable-energy benchmark or by a technology-neutral emissions objective under which nuclear and renewable generation compete for investment.
With the 2040 climate target already fixed in law, the next dispute is increasingly about the energy system that will be built to reach it.
Meta wants to build one of the largest data centers in the world in rural Louisiana.
The facility, known as Hyperion, is being built to train and operate the artificial intelligence systems behind Meta’s products. What began as a $10 billion proposal has since ballooned into a more than $50 billion development spanning nearly 10 million square feet and roughly 3,650 acres. At full scale, Hyperion is expected to require 5 gigawatts of computing capacity, making it the largest data center in Meta’s global fleet and one of the largest ever built. According to Meta, the project is expected to employ around 7,500 workers during peak construction and support 1,000 permanent jobs once operational.
For residents of Richland Parish, the arrival of Meta has brought both desperately needed jobs and profound uncertainty about what the project will mean for the community. The enormous facility is being constructed on former farmland and will require an equally immense network of infrastructure to support it. In nearby Rayville, many residents view Meta as an economic lifeline after decades of limited employment opportunities, with local families securing jobs that pay far more than the parish’s median income. But the influx of highly paid, out-of-town workers has also driven up rent and the cost of living as landlords and businesses increasingly orient themselves toward Meta employees. Landlords routinely raise the rent of low-income housing in order to price out local tenants in favor of contractors, forcing residents to move out of the area to afford housing.
Richland Parish is a rural stretch of northeast Louisiana dominated by flat, fertile land rich with cotton, soybeans, corn, and rice. The parish’s economy has historically revolved around large-scale, row-crop farming, but declining farm incomes and population loss has strained the region in recent generations. Richland’s employment rate sits at 49.9%, 9.4% below the already dismal state average, with a median income of $53,544. A total of 36% of the 20,000 person population is Black. Rayville, the parish seat, is 80% Black. For decades, Richland has been far removed from the state’s economic centers of New Orleans and Baton Rouge, receiving little of the investment that has flowed into Louisiana’s larger cities.
That changed in January 2024, when Entergy Louisiana, the state’s monopoly power company, began a year-long courting ritual to bring Meta’s largest data center to the impoverished parish. Following months of backdoor deals and nondisclosure agreements, Meta announced plans to build a $10 billion, 4-million-square-foot data center on a 2,250-acre flood plain. In July 2026, Meta expanded the project, committing more than $50 billion and nearly 10 million square feet to what may become the largest data center in the company’s fleet and home to its massive Hyperion AI training cluster.
Both Meta and Entergy have been quick to dismiss community concerns, with state officials claiming that “whatever comes out of it will be better than the mostly fallow farmland that was there.” Meta likewise touts a laundry list of benefits it promises to bring to the area, most notably permanent jobs and increased tax revenue. The company now claims that the expanded Hyperion AI center will create more than 1,000 permanent jobs, alongside thousands of temporary construction jobs.
But Meta has refused to provide the evidence behind those projections. On August 12, the Louisiana Public Service Commission voted 3–1 to overturn the recommendation of an administrative law judge that Meta turn over information substantiating its projected job creation, economic impact, and electricity demand, effectively shielding the company’s claims from public scrutiny.
The public’s skepticism is warranted. Data centers routinely generate thousands of temporary construction jobs while creating only a fraction as many permanent positions once construction ends. Meta’s projects in Texas and Oklahoma, for example, are expected to leave only around 100 operational jobs each after thousands of construction workers leave. QTS similarly estimates that a data center campus in York County, North Carolina will produce roughly 1,000 construction jobs but only about 100 permanent onsite positions. Even Hyperion’s original proposal called for roughly 5,000 construction workers but only 500 permanent operational employees. None of these figures guarantee that the permanent positions will go to Richland Parish residents. Meta has offered assurances about local hiring, but there is no binding commitment requiring the company to employ local workers.
Meta also claims the data center will bring tens of millions of dollars in tax revenue to Richland Parish, an argument it bolsters by pointing to the 2,000% increase in sales-tax totals since construction began – $50,000 of which has funded bonuses for some local schoolteachers. But that windfall is largely a product of the construction boom itself, not a sustainable source of revenue generated by the completed data center. The teacher bonuses are distributed through Richland Parish’s longstanding one-cent sales-tax program, which provides annual “13th checks” to eligible school employees. As those construction workers spend money in the parish, that pool has temporarily grown; once construction ends, so will much of the revenue feeding it. The result is a temporary infusion of money that can obscure the longer-term fiscal consequences of the project. When the construction boom ends, Richland Parish will be left with the costs of a massive industrial project, and fewer public resources to pay for them.
The environmental impact of the Meta data center could also be deadly for residents of Richland Parish and Louisiana as a whole. The Hyperion AI data center is expected to consume roughly half of the state’s electrical capacity – approximately seven times the energy consumed by the entire city of New Orleans – placing enormous new demands on Entergy’s already overburdened power grid. Louisiana residents know what a fragile electrical system can mean in a disaster. After Hurricane Katrina, Entergy’s restoration efforts took 42 days to complete across its service territory. In 2021, Hurricane Ida left nearly 950,000 customers without power after an Entergy tower fell into the Mississippi River, a disaster that required 15 days of restoration work just to bring more than 90% of affected customers back online.
Rather than address these vulnerabilities, Entergy’s proposed solution to Hyperion’s unprecedented energy demands is to build an entirely new fossil-fuel energy infrastructure around the data center. The company plans to construct ten natural-gas power plants, including seven new facilities capable of generating roughly 5.2 gigawatts of electricity, alongside new transmission lines and a massive 500-kilovolt substation. Meta, Entergy, and the Louisiana state government are working to present these projects as investments that will strengthen Louisiana’s electrical grid and improve reliability for ordinary customers.
Louisiana is being asked to construct an enormous new fossil-fuel-based energy system so that a single private corporation can consume an unprecedented share of its electricity. More generation may increase capacity, but it does not eliminate the physical vulnerabilities that have repeatedly left Louisiana residents without power after hurricanes. Instead, the state is doubling down on a centralized, fossil-fuel-dependent grid whose infrastructure will remain vulnerable to the same storms that have already decimated Louisiana’s communities.
Entergy’s catastrophic deal with Meta has arrived as Louisiana is already on the front lines of an environmental crisis. The state has lost more than 2,000 square miles of coastal land since 1932 and continues to lose more than 16 square miles each year. The state has experienced 31 billion-dollar weather and climate disasters since 2018, leaving communities to repeatedly rebuild from hurricanes, flooding, and extreme weather. Meanwhile, along the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, the area known as “Cancer Alley” contains a dense concentration of petrochemical and chemical facilities, exposing surrounding communities to significant air pollution and toxic emissions which have resulted in a cancer rate fifty times higher than the national average.
These environmental pressures are only compounded by an affordability crisis. In 2024, 49% of Louisiana households – nearly 900,000 – were either living in poverty or earning too little to afford basic necessities. A basic survival budget costs an estimated $30,708 a year for a single adult and $81,912 for a family of four, before accounting for savings or emergencies such as climate disaster. All the while, the state is being asked to absorb another enormous industrial project while nearly half of its households are already struggling financially and its communities confront environmental catastrophe.
Community opposition to the Hyperion project reflects a growing recognition that the promised benefits of corporate development cannot be separated from the costs that residents will be asked to bear. The fight is not simply over one data center, but over who gets to determine what Louisiana’s resources are used for and whose interests development is meant to serve. For generations, Louisiana communities have been told that jobs and investment require accepting pollution, environmental destruction, and the transformation of local resources into private profit.
Hyperion offers another version of the same bargain: enormous amounts of Louisiana’s land, electricity, water, and public infrastructure would be redirected toward the interests of one of the world’s largest technology companies. And the resistance to that bargain extends far beyond Richland Parish. Hundreds of Louisianans have mobilized around Public Service Commission meetings, traveling to the capital to demand that regulators prioritize the people who will bear the costs of Meta and Entergy’s expansion. Their concerns have repeatedly been dismissed or overridden by a majority of commissioners, even as the commission has approved billions of dollars in new generation and transmission infrastructure for the project. A 2024 investigation by the Louisiana Illuminator and Floodlight found that nearly 43% of campaign contributions to Louisiana utility commissioners over the previous decade came from utilities, energy-related businesses, and their attorneys and lobbyists, with Entergy Louisiana and its executives and family members contributing roughly $350,000.
The resistance emerging across Louisiana is more than a battle over a single data center. It is a decisive stand for the right of Louisianians to determine their own future, rather than surrender it to corporate interests. This is a battle for the future of working people everywhere, and the people have vowed to keep fighting.
Kieran Spencer is a New Orleans-based historian and organizer.
On 9 September, Biodiversa+ launched the BiodivFuture call to support innovative research on the biodiversity, socio-ecological consequences and future trajectories of novel ecosystems. Novel ecosystems are ecosystems that, often as a result of human influence, differ from those that prevailed historically in an area, and that are unlikely to return to previous conditions, with or without human intervention.
The funded research projects will produce actionable knowledge to drive nature-positive transformative change and reverse biodiversity decline. That knowledge will help sustain resilient and ecologically functioning ecosystems, thus contributing to the goals of the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.
With a total budget of around EUR 40 million, this call will address the causes, effects and consequences of novel ecosystems in different environments across the world, supporting high-quality research projects with holistic, systemic, and integrated approaches.
The call covers three non-mutually exclusive themes that cover key aspects of novel ecosystems:
Successful proposals must demonstrate significant added value at transnational level and are strongly encouraged to pursue inter- and transdisciplinary approaches, involving also non-academic stakeholders to co-produce new knowledge relevant for society.
To be eligible for funding, transnational research consortia will have to include eligible partners from at least three different countries financially participating in the call (including from at least two EU member states or EU Associated Countries).
The complete announcement and call documents, including full eligibility and evaluation criteria, are available on the Biodiversa+ website. The Partnership also organises a general information webinar for interested researchers on 10 September 2026.
Biodiversa+ is the European co-funded biodiversity partnership supporting excellent research on biodiversity with an impact for policy and society. It was jointly developed by BiodivERsA and the European Commission and was officially launched on 1 October 2021. Biodiversa+ is part of the European Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 that aims to put Europe’s biodiversity on a path to recovery by 2030. The Partnership has launched six co-funded joint research calls over the seven years of its implementation with an estimated budget of around €250 million.
European Partnerships such as Biodiversa+ bring the European Commission and private and/or public partners together to address some of Europe’s most pressing challenges through concerted research and innovation initiatives. They are a key implementation tool of Horizon Europe, and contribute significantly to achieving the EU’s political priorities. Biodiversa+ currently gathers 81 research programmers and funders and environmental policy actors from 40 European and associated countries, and aims to connect science, policy and practice for transformative change.
2026-2027 Joint Call - BiodivFuture
The EU energy label, as provided for by Regulation (EU) 2017/1369, aims at promoting the uptake of more efficient energy-related products. It aims to help consumers make informed choices by facilitating comparisons of product alternatives with different features. The label focuses on the energy efficiency of the product during the use phase, but can also include other environment-related aspects.
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They asked for a Circular Economy Act that goes beyond waste management to focus on using resources more efficiently, among other things. European Commissioner Jessica Roswall met on Monday (31 Aug) with 16 young people who helped shape the European Commission's Youth Check on the upcoming Circular Economy Act (CEA).
The meeting with the Commissioner for Environment, Water Resilience and a Competitive Circular Economy was part of the participatory process launched earlier this year to ensure that young people's views help guide the Commission's flagship initiative for Europe's circular economy.
It followed her first exchange with young participants at the annual conference of the European Circular Economy Stakeholder Platform (ECESP) in April. Since then, a team of youth representatives has worked to develop a Youth Position Paper setting out their recommendations.
At the meeting, the group presented their main messages and discussed with Commissioner Roswall the opportunities and challenges of Europe's circular transition. They called for a Circular Economy Act that goes beyond waste management to focus on using resources more efficiently, making products easier to repair and reuse, ensuring safe, high-quality secondary materials, keeping the transition affordable and fair, investing in circular skills, and maintaining meaningful youth involvement throughout implementation.
The discussion also allowed the Commissioner to respond to the youth recommendations, reflect on the contribution of the Youth Check to the policy-making process and reaffirm the Commission's commitment to effective youth involvement.
“Young people are not only stakeholders in Europe’s circular transition; they are essential partners in shaping it. We need young people to voice their ideas and be part of the change that will make Europe’s circular economy a reality. I am happy to receive their ambitious recommendations today, which will help inform our work as we prepare the Circular Economy Act.”
Environment, Water Resilience and a Competitive Circular Economy Commissioner Jessika Roswall
"In the last few months we have seen what effective and tangible youth input can look like in policy-making. We appreciate the opportunity to openly share our recommendations with Commissioner Roswall and DG Environment to shape the Circular Economy Act. This is a significant step forward for meaningful youth participation in environmental policy. The Act will set the framework for a future that we, as young people, will feel the effect of, and we are ready to continue contributing to it with our ideas."
Representatives of Generation Climate Europe and Academics for a Circular Economy
The CEA, due to be adopted before the end of 2026, aims to accelerate the transition to a more circular economy, increasing the EU’s economic security, resilience, competitiveness and decarbonisation.
It is intended to improve the business case for circularity by facilitating the cross-border movement of recycled products, materials, and waste across Europe. It will also increase the supply of high-quality recycled materials and stimulate demand for these materials in the EU.
The Youth Position Paper on the CEA was coordinated by the youth organisations Academics for Circular Economy (ACE) and Generation Climate Europe (GCE).
The CEA Youth Check combined a targeted online consultation of young people aged 15 to 29, a dedicated youth session during the ECESP Annual Conference, and additional exchanges with youth stakeholders. It will also inform the Impact Assessment prepared for the Circular Economy Act in line with the Commission's Better Regulation Guidelines.
Summary of the online Youth Consultation | European Commission
Summary of the ECESP Conference | European Circular Economy Stakeholder Platform
Youth Check | European Youth Portal
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