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A lot of ink has been spent on Ursula Von der Leyen’s State of the Union speech of 13 September. The question to ask is whether this exercise deserves all the hype that surrounds it. There is always a whiff of an “as if” world around it: the European Parliament, which launched the initiative a few years ago, clearly modelled it on the American practice, trying to convey the impression that the Commission President plays a similar role to that of the President of the US. That is, of course, not the case; the Commission programme is not a government programme because the Commission is not a European government.
It would be more accurate to label the talk as the Commission’s vision for the state of the union. The fact is that there is not one President of the EU, and that EU governance is based on a complex system of checks and balances: the independent Commission proposing legislation based on its reading of the common EU interest, the Council and the European Parliament taking the legislative decisions, and the European Council providing the overall political direction.
This is not to say that the speech is without interest or irrelevant. It is worth listening to because the Commission is a central EU institution, with its sole right of legislative proposals and the role of guardian of the treaties. Besides, the Commission President sits at the table of the European Council, and the Commission takes part in the meetings of the Council of Ministers. So, it plays a major part in helping shape and implement the EU agenda. But its President cannot expose a government programme nor take firm commitments in front of the EP or the public; she can only explain how the Commission intends to exercise its right of initiative.
This makes for a delicate exercise, treading a careful path between the opposing political and national interests and opinions and always tottering on the edge of missing the right balances. This year, Mrs Von der Leyen faced an even more demanding task; her speech could be read – and was read by many – as a campaign speech for a second mandate. Now, if she wants to get a second mandate, she first needs to convince the members of the European Council that she is the right candidate; that is already a challenge. She then must make sure that she will get a majority in the EP, which votes on the candidate proposed by the European Council.
All this no doubt explains why this year’s speech was less inspiring than last year’s and contained many ideas it is difficult to disagree with. Ursula Von der Leyen clearly opted for being balanced and sober in her approach. It sounded like a very carefully crafted text designed to tick as many boxes as possible without strongly antagonising any of the political and national constituencies. This should be borne in mind when judging the speech.
I will nonetheless offer some personal remarks on what Mrs. Von der Leyen could have said if she had been freer in her expression. I do this against the background of the upcoming new Strategic Agenda to be adopted by the European Council in June 2024.
The Commission President started with an appeal to the youth. That is entirely appropriate, but she could have linked this more explicitly to issues such as climate change and the public debt: in both cases, the present generations defer necessary decisions at the expense of the following generations. It would also have been good to remind the youth to engage, to take their part of responsibility; democracy is not just about rights and benefits, it is also about duties and commitment.
On the overall record of the EU (not just the Commission), Mrs Von de Leyen was justifiably positive and upbeat, albeit with a slight tendency towards self-complacency: today, the EU is indeed more integrated than a few years ago. What I missed was a more coherent and visionary reflection on the way ahead. The time has come for moving from crisis management to a more structured and long-time effort at strengthening the EU’s resilience and capacity to act, underpinned by a clear understanding of what we want the EU to be in terms of actions, values and our place on the global chessboard.
Looking at the Green Deal, the EU can be proud of the spectacular lowering of its energy dependence on Russian oil and gas, down from 46% to 16%. The gas prices meanwhile have gone back to pre-crisis levels. There has also been an impressive work done in the legislative field; the problem here will be implementation, which, as we saw with the Volkswagen scandal a few years ago, is anything but an easy task. However, in view of the magnitude of the challenges ahead and the growing tensions within our societies on the balance between climate change action and industrial concerns and the social costs involved, it would have been good to have a more Churchillian tonality of ‘blood, sweat and tears’, followed by a rousing appeal for action and the exhilarating prospect of creating a new type of society.
The President was upbeat on the digital revolution, pointing to the EU’s record in creating regulation. I would have liked a more honest recognition, though, of us lagging in terms of innovation and platforms and industrial champions. Without the latter the chances for the EU continuing to dictate the regulatory framework look slim.
On competitiveness, I expected Mrs Von der Leyen to take a firm line with China, including by following French calls for anti-dumping procedures. I was a bit taken aback though by the almost exclusive focus on China. There was nothing on the challenges of the Green Deal for our competitiveness, and more importantly, not a single word about the elephant in the room, i.e., the United States of America, with its ‘America first’ bias, IRA, and its dominant platforms. There was no mention either of multilateralism, which one would have thought is part of our DNA. Multilateralism of course means working with the whole world, and not just like-minded countries.
The passage on the economy was surprisingly self-congratulatory against the background of very sluggish growth and worse in Germany and Italy. Inflation was, however, mentioned as a major risk. She could have insisted on the necessary revision of the Stability and Growth Pact and launched an appeal to combat the excessive public debt in some countries.
On migration, Mrs Von der Leyen took a very pragmatic and hard-headed approach. The Commission clearly has drawn the lessons from the ideological position it took in 2015. She defended the controversial deal reached with Tunisia, which has led to strong criticism on the part of some observers. It bears repeating that this mirrors the approach adopted in 2016 concerning Turkey, under the leadership at the time of Tusk, Merkel and Rutte. While it is true that such deals cannot substitute for a comprehensive policy, they are in my view a pre-condition for having a chance to find internal agreement on the migration and asylum pact.
Ukraine figured less prominently in the speech than last year, but the President of the Commission’s position is well known and has not changed: she remains a staunch supporter of Ukraine and of its request to join the EU. She explicitly distanced herself from the close link established by many between accession and deepening, but she also made it clear that there would be no free passes to entry for anybody. She recognised the need for the EU to adapt its policies in view of enlargement, and her decision to ask the Commission services to examine all the EU policies with an eye on future enlargements is very welcome. So is her call to point out the potential benefits of countries like Ukraine joining the EU: adding a serious army, a strong agriculture (which as we have seen with the spat between Poland and Ukraine is also a challenge) and impressive IT skills.
Finally, a word on geopolitics. Here one could have expected a more comprehensive and ambitious vision from a President who started her mandate with the promise of a “geopolitical Commission” (I still believe that it would have been more accurate to talk about a geopolitical Union). The biggest challenge for the EU in the coming years will be to define its place on the global chessboard and to give itself the means to be one of the key poles in a multipolar world. The very first question in that respect concerns Europe’s position vis-à-vis the US-China rivalry. By focussing only, in an extremely critical way, on the China part of the equation, Mrs Von der Leyen seemed to imply that Europe’s place in the triangle could only be a close alignment to the US. The risk of this stance is three-fold: one, to forsake the prospect of a more autonomous EU, two, to abandon any ambition of salvaging multilateralism, and three, to antagonise countries in what some call “the global south” that do not want to choose between the West and Russia or China. The President’s reading of the reactions world-wide to the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine were, to put it mildly, overly optimistic. Many parts of Asia, Africa and Latin America do not support the US or EU stance on Ukraine.
Mrs Von der Leyen’s speech was a useful contribution to the debate on the future of the EU. She used it to highlight the Commission’s contributions to the results achieved over the past years and to look ahead in a carefully balanced way. The speech did not contain spectacular announcements, nor could it have in the circumstances. It could, however, have been more inspiring in terms of developing a coherent and strong vision for the EU’s future, in view of the new Strategic Agenda to be adopted by the June European Council.
TEPSA Secretary-General Jim Cloos
