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Germany

In Germany, Driving An Electric Car Is Still A Drag

E-car charging in Berlin
E-car charging in Berlin
Thomas Fromm

MUNICH — For people driving through Germany in a normal car, things couldn't be easier. With just a single debit card, they can refuel everywhere at anytime.

That is not, unfortunately, the case for people who drive electric cars. To travel, let’s say, from Wolfsburg via Stuttgart and Munich to Berlin and back, that person would need a couple of dozen cards at least if he or she intends to recharge at public places.

What with new energy providers constantly appearing on the market, hundreds of municipal utilities, and completely different access systems — it’s enough for someone to go from one region to another and the electricity provider will change — conditions as they stand now promise technical problems from the outset.

But the makers of electric cars also know that they alone will not be able to determine the success of the alternative vehicles. The last word belongs to those in charge of infrastructure.

To promote and research electro-mobility in Germany, the German federal government set up four "Electromobility Showcase Projects" in 2012 to test how the different systems with their different billing methods and data standards could be better coordinated.

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E-car charging point in Cologne — Photo: CEphoto, Uwe Aranas / CC-BY-SA-3.0

The result, according to Franz Loogen, who heads the Baden-Württemberg project, is that "we’re now at the point that a single card will get you through Baden-Württemberg. Beyond that it gets difficult. But still, I’m operating on the premise that Germany-wide roaming with a single card for recharging should be possible by 2016 at the latest. The objective is for the driver to have at their disposal "barrier-free access and billing to recharge their car."

But as with so many things, politics play a role. Big providers mostly hail their own payment system to be the best one. Most of them are already part of bigger, so-called "e-roaming network" that are not unlike telecom roaming networks in that as soon as the user leaves the area covered by one network he enters the network of the area he is now in.

For recharging electric cars there are presently two such networks in Germany, "Ladenetz" and "Hubject." They work separately. "Our goal is for e-cars to be barrier-free," says Loogen. "For that to happen both networks will have to cooperate closely in future."

Even if that happens, there's still the problem of what Loogen refers to as "Gallic villages," areas that belong to no network and that make driving through in an electric car tougher still.

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Economy

Lex Tusk? How Poland’s Controversial "Russian Influence" Law Will Subvert Democracy

The new “lex Tusk” includes language about companies and their management. But is this likely to be a fair investigation into breaking sanctions on Russia, or a political witch-hunt in the business sphere?

Photo of President of the Republic of Poland Andrzej Duda

Polish President Andrzej Duda

Piotr Miaczynski, Leszek Kostrzewski

-Analysis-

WARSAW — Poland’s new Commission for investigating Russian influence, which President Andrzej Duda signed into law on Monday, will be able to summon representatives of any company for inquiry. It has sparked a major controversy in Polish politics, as political opponents of the government warn that the Commission has been given near absolute power to investigate and punish any citizen, business or organization.

And opposition politicians are expected to be high on the list of would-be suspects, starting with Donald Tusk, who is challenging the ruling PiS government to return to the presidency next fall. For that reason, it has been sardonically dubbed: Lex Tusk.

University of Warsaw law professor Michal Romanowski notes that the interests of any firm can be considered favorable to Russia. “These are instruments which the likes of Putin and Orban would not be ashamed of," Romanowski said.

The law on the Commission for examining Russian influences has "atomic" prerogatives sewn into it. Nine members of the Commission with the rank of secretary of state will be able to summon virtually anyone, with the powers of severe punishment.

Under the new law, these Commissioners will become arbiters of nearly absolute power, and will be able to use the resources of nearly any organ of the state, including the secret services, in order to demand access to every available document. They will be able to prosecute people for acts which were not prohibited at the time they were committed.

Their prerogatives are broader than that of the President or the Prime Minister, wider than those of any court. And there is virtually no oversight over their actions.

Nobody can feel safe. This includes companies, their management, lawyers, journalists, and trade unionists.

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