Matthias Bauer is a German economist and Director at European Centre for International Political Economy (ECIPE), a think tank based in Brussels dedicated to supporting free trade. He works on EU and global trade policy with a focus on digital and technology policymaking.

In this this episode of the Brussels Report podcast, BrusselsReport.eu editor Pieter Cleppe discusses the following topics with him:

- How to assess the two new import EU legislative initiatives to regulate the digital sector, the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and the Digital Services Act (DSA)? Will these foster innovation, or, on the contrary, constitute an extra contribution to Europe losing competitiveness?

- The concept of “Strategic Autonomy” and the future of globalization. Is there a danger of the West decoupling from the rest of the world?

- The OECD’s Pillar I (redistributing corporate tax income) and II (minimum tax rates) initiatives

- What to think of the Western sanctions against Russia?

- The proposed EU external Climate tariff CBAM: will it effectively function as EU protectionism? This is a topic often covered by ECIPE.

- Lobbying in the Brussels bubble: Is it normal that green and other groups funded by the European Commission also lobby that institution? A question also raised in a 2019 paperauthored by Bauer.