Views: 1404
The Commission will present this Wednesday its regular “state-of-the-Union address”; the European Environmental Bureau (EEB)and other opponents have already taken a closer look at the Union’s internal and external issues in the Commission President’s State of the Union (so called SOTEU) address to the Parliament. E.g. the EEB’s opinion is that “the state is not looking good”, and the EU-wide nature protection institution acknowledges that the speech can only be described as a “State of Disunion”.
Background
The EU institutional staff is back from holiday; so, the European Commission President makes her first State of the European Union address (SOTEU) of her second term in the EU College. On the official site, the Commission notes that “since December 2024, the new College focused on making Europe stronger and more resilient: it is boosting the economy, investing in skills and housing, ensuring affordable energy and supporting innovation in areas like clean tech and artificial intelligence”.
At the same time, the EU has been deepening global partnerships, taking more responsibility for regional defence, while standing firmly with Ukraine. Then, a modernised EU budget from 2028 will provide the flexibility and ambition needed to face future crises; hence, European strength lies in unity as the states together only can withstand present challenges.
However, the SOTEUs, generally, have been for years a “routine exercise” between the Parliament and the Commission on the year’s policy guidelines; this time, it is likely to be plagued by high tension and political polarization, argue experts.
The address is followed by a debate with the Members of the European Parliament, reinforcing accountability; the SOTEU speech sets out the President’s vision and major initiatives for the year ahead, marking an important moment to shape the EU’s direction and respond to citizens’ expectations.
Citations from: https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/state-union/state-union-2025_en
Recent College’s key actions
Since the start of its second mandate in December 2024, the Commission has focused its work on building a stronger, more secure and more prosperous EU-27; among some of the main actions and achievements during these months are the following:
= December 2024: Political agreement on a groundbreaking partnership with Mercosur states.
= January 2025: Commission presents the competitiveness compass, a roadmap to boost Europe’s competitiveness and secure sustainable prosperity.
= February 2025: the Commission puts forward a new vision for agriculture and food to support European farmers and protect regional food security.
= February 2025: the Clean Industrial Deal and the action plan for affordable energy are presented; with the aim of boosting the competitiveness and resilience of the European industry while keeping the EU committed to its climate targets and accelerating decarbonisation.
= March 2025: adoption of Readiness-2030 plan, as a set of measures to boost Europe’s defence capabilities; the Commission also proposed an EU preparedness strategy to enhance European capability to prevent and respond to emerging threats.
= April 2025: adoption of the AI continent action plan, to position the EU as a global leader in the digital transition and in artificial intelligence.
= May 2025: the Commission launches the “Choose Europe” initiative to attract scientists, researchers, academics and highly skilled workers from around the world. Then, in the REPowerEU roadmap the Commission proposed actions to completely phase out all remaining imports of Russian gas, oil, and nuclear fuels. Besides, this May, at the European Humanitarian Forum, the Commission pledged over €2.3 billion in humanitarian aid for 2025 to address humanitarian needs in Ukraine, Gaza and Sudan: thus, the EU-27 continued to be the world’s leading humanitarian donor.
= July 2025: presentation of the draft for the next EU long-term budget 2028-2034 worth €2 trillion, to strengthen Europe’s sovereignty and competitiveness; also, this month the EU and the US reached a deal on tariffs and trade, delivering stability and predictability for citizens and businesses on both sides of the Atlantic.
Note: the full text of the SOTEU-25 called “From promise to progress: first year in office” can be seen at: https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/state-union/state-union-2025_en
More about the Commission in: https://commission.europa.eu/index_en
Complaints
It is expected that critics would accuse the President of weakening European interests by selling out to Donald Trump via a lopsided US-EU trade deal, of abandoning farmers by endorsing an agreement with South America, of unraveling policies to tackle climate change, as well as of staying silent on Gaza-Israil conflict, to name just a few of the complaints that are piling up.
Ahead of the SOTEU-25 on 10 September, the EEB pointed to the deregulation initiative as a “disguise”: “we want to set the record straight: what the Commission calls simplification is in fact deregulation of the very laws that protect people and planet: and given the speed and confusion of this process, one might even call it complexification”.
Before the SOTU’s official delivery, the European Environmental Bureau (EEB), has made a concise review of the Union’s stand in internal and international affairs. The general account is that the College’s working agenda during first ten months looks “far from where it should be”, including such issues as a heavy-handed deregulation agenda dressed up as “simplification”.
Mostly worrying, as Politico confirms, is the “apparent lack of leadership that has dismayed politicians from all sides”, and memories are fresh from a motion of no-confidence in von der Leyen in July; with just 76 signatures required to force another no-confidenc3e’s vote, observers say, it risks becoming a “regular exercise rather than an extraordinary threat”. Extreme groups in the Parliament’s political spectrum are already plotting another “move” as soon as October, as an unprecedented show of opposition to a Commission President.
Citations from: https://www.politico.eu/article/ursula-von-der-leyen-eu-divison-politics-us-deal-gaza-climate-france/
Challenging SOTEU’s contents
As a big endeavor, the President is going to praise the €150 billion fund to boost defense; however, the Parliament has brought legal action over that initiative after the Commission revealed the plan. Then, the President can reveal legal intentions to cut red tape for “struggling industrial sectors”, but the Socialist, Green and liberal groups in political spectrum already opposed the idea.
Then, the Parliament is critical of a lack of progress on the landmark report by ex-European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi a year ago concerning the actions aimed at improving European competitiveness.
Some political groups already have slammed the Commission as “non-transparent” for rushing to finalize the Mercosur free trade agreement with five Latin American countries: i.e. the Commission concluded the pact amid a trade breakdown with the US, and critics argue that the pact would undermines European farmers’ interests. Thus, the far-right Patriots group in the Parliament is also plotting another no-confidence motion over the Mercosur agreement.
In the EEB’s report “Strategic dialogue on the future of EU’s agriculture: a shared prospect for farming and food in Europe” (August 2024) outlines possibilities for reconciling agriculture with nature: the “reconciliation” shall not be understood as a “mere compromise” but rather as a functional coordination and integration of economic, environmental and social factors in agricultural production as well as in all stages of the entire food chain including demand-side
policies and consumer behavior. Such reconciliation can only be achieved, postulate the report, if market conditions and food systems are organised in a way that environmentally sustainable practices are in the economic self-interest of producers, processors, retailers, traders and consumers –even in the short term. The Strategic Dialogue’s approach considers agriculture as part of the entire food system, from the individual farm to every consumer and citizen; the ultimate aim is to preserve the quality of life, as postulated in the Commission’s political guidelines “Europe’s Choice” for 2024-2029.
Source: https://agriculture.ec.europa.eu/document/download/171329ff-0f50-4fa5-946f-aea11032172e_en?filename=strategic-dialogue-report-2024_en.pdf&mc_cid=94dbb011d2