EUobserver takes a deep dive into the workings and new chairs of every single European Parliament committee for the new 2024-2029 session, in a series of articles first published in our print magazine of October 2024
Anna Cavazzini is back on the job. For the past four years, the German Green has been the chairwoman of the European Parliament's Internal Market and Consumer Protection committee (IMCO).
Over the summer, she was re-elected for the post and now supervises a committee with 51 MEPs as full members, most of them from rival political factions.
Some are openly hostile towards policies championed by Cavazzini, most especially from eight IMCO members sitting with the far-right Europe of Sovereign Nations and the Patriots for Europe groups.
"Traditionally, there is a lot of consensus in the internal market committee to fuel our motor of European integration — even more in challenging times for our economy," said Cavazzini.
"Therefore, we often find broad majorities in IMCO which I hope we will continue to do given the tasks ahead of us," she said, when asked to describe some of the likely divisive points on the committee's agenda.
That agenda is likely to be a daunting task. Political views aside, Cavazzini's committee is taking deep dives into policies that mould the digital and green transition with an aim to enhance consumer protection, she said.
In the last legislative term, that included the right-to-repair, as well as the EU's Digital Services Act (DSA) designed to address illegal online content.
"We will take a political look at their implementation and enforcement," said Cavazzini of both the DSA and the right-to-repair.
The European Parliament adopted the right-to-repair rules in April, in an effort to extend a product’s lifecycle.
The hope is to curtail the premature disposal of consumer goods that produce around 261m tonnes of CO2-equivalent emissions, consume 30m tonnes of resources, and generate 35m tonnes of waste in the EU each year.
As for the DSA, the digital rule book has already set targets. Last year, the European Commission launched a court case against X, the social media platform owned by tech billionaire Elon Musk.
The far-right has since nominated Musk for the European Parliament's Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.
But IMCO will not only be about the politics of implementation and enforcement, said Cavazzini.
"A lot of groups have been pushing for new public procurement rules and it is exciting that the commission already announced a revision in order to align procurement more to the EU’s goals," she said.
IMCO will also explore the ideas presented in reports drafted by Italy's former prime minister Enrico Letta and former European Central Bank president Mario Draghi.
Letta published a report back in April outlining ideas for reshaping the single market, while Draghi in September presented a blueprint for improving Europe’s competitiveness.
Cavazzini’s hope is to see the internal market foster the green and digital transition over the next five years, as part of a wider effort to fight the climate crisis and to shape digitisation.
"We need to address the ever faster-growing share of e-commerce that causes problems for the climate, for consumer protection and product safety as well as for the level playing field of our EU companies with those of third countries," she said.
This includes ongoing negotiations of the customs reform, she said, noting the need to deal with the huge amount of foreign shipping that often lands on the consumers' doorsteps.
"I hope that in the next five years, we will fill the existing regulatory gaps between the customs reform and the implementation of the DSA to assure that consumer protection keeps up with growing e-commerce," she concluded.
The IMCO coordinators are: Andreas Schwab (EPP, German), Laura Ballarín Cereza (S&D, Spain), Klára Dostálová (PfE, Czech Republic), Piotr Müller (ECR, Poland), Svenja Hahn (Renew, Germany), Kim van Sparrentak (Greens, Netherlands), Hanna Gedin (Left, Sweden), and Arno Bausemer (ESN, Germany).
Nikolaj joined EUobserver in 2012 and covers home affairs. He is originally from Denmark, but spent much of his life in France and in Belgium. He was awarded the King Baudouin Foundation grant for investigative journalism in 2010.
Nikolaj joined EUobserver in 2012 and covers home affairs. He is originally from Denmark, but spent much of his life in France and in Belgium. He was awarded the King Baudouin Foundation grant for investigative journalism in 2010.