STORY: Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz campaigned for free trade at the World Economic Forum in Davos. He will do his utmost to ensure that the EU concludes free trade agreements with India, the South American Mercosur countries and Indonesia, he said in Davos on Wednesday. In order to achieve fairness in the competition between the countries with different climate protection efforts, the EU must have a border adjustment mechanism, emphasizes Scholz at the same time. This could then have import duties for products from countries without expensive climate protection regulations. Scholz emphasized again that he welcomes the US subsidies for climate-friendly investments. However, these should not put European industry at a disadvantage. At the same time, Europeans would have to expand their subsidies for key technologies, especially in the digital and climate sectors. Scholz expressly contradicted demands for a new EU pot for investments worth billions. Because only 20 percent of the more than 700 billion euros of the European development fund have been paid out, he said.