Ursula von der Leyen returns to Strasbourg this week to give a State of the Union speech — the first in her second term as European Commission President.
The address traditionally marks the post-summer launch of a new season of EU politics — but diplomats, MEPs and lobbyists told Contexte of a palpable sense of gravity, if not gloom.
After a relatively straightforward re-election last year, her 10 September address to EU lawmakers takes place against a backdrop of uncertainty…
What’s in the box?
The contents of the State of the Union address are usually a closely-guarded secret. The fact that von der Leyen’s chief of staff, Bjoern Seibert, was kept busy by intense political activity over the summer further blurs the view.The speech usually contains promises of new legislative initiatives — but could just as easily be rhetoric.
One topic certain to emerge is the need to reinvigorate an EU that risks becoming too slow and passive as a global player. Mario Draghi, Italy’s ex-Prime Minister and the former head of the European Central Bank, made several references to this in a speech at the start of the month that foreshadowed von der Leyen’s own.
Draghi — who’s well-respected in Brussels and who recently wrote an authoritative report on competitiveness — called to radically transform the bloc’s objectives, deadlines and working methods.
Séjourné also floated a proposal to speed up implementation of EU policies and, privately, Seibert also seems sensitive to this theme of urgency, which could therefore appear, at least implicitly, in von der Leyen’s speech on Wednesday.
Sources have told Contexte that von der Leyen will touch upon the EU-US deal, competitiveness, defence and Ukraine.