Foreign Policy > Europe

Alliance of the Cashiers

The newly founded lobby association European Resilience Alliance (ERA) is demanding state aid to kick-start the hydrogen economy.

Thomas Kolbe | April 30, 2026

The newly founded lobby association European Resilience Alliance (ERA) is demanding state aid to accelerate the hydrogen economy. Among its members are major names such as ArcelorMittal and Thyssenkrupp. On substance, everyone agrees as always: in the end, the taxpayer will foot the bill.

The corporate landscape of the European Union is not exactly known for exceptional innovative strength, dynamic investment activity, or particular resilience in times of crisis and external shocks. Its core competencies, however, include professional lobbying and the stabilization of corporatist networks at the highest levels of EU political decision-making. Brussels has become a veritable spiderweb of interest groups -- political influence included.

In the Belgian capital, the distance between top corporate management and politics has traditionally been short. It is about building close networks to secure flows of subsidies and channel massive public funding. The brazen access to taxpayer money is the legacy of Brussels bureaucracy and professional subsidy hunters.

Left out is the traditional SME sector -- it has no political representation, yet forms the backbone of our economy and is deeply woven into everyday life, a core element of the social and cultural foundation of society. Lobby-driven rent-seeking remains the monopoly of eco-politics and of the subordinated........

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