It was as if the tension that had accumulated after the scandals of the previous period had suddenly erupted. Ursula von der Leyen’s “State of the Union” speech was so successful that both the left and the right announced on the same day that they would initiate a vote of no confidence against her.
In her speech, von Der Leyen tried to portray the past period as successful and to frame the future with large-scale plans. However, there is not always such a big overlap between what is said and reality. According to him, “the EU has concluded the best trade agreement with the US“. On the other hand, the reality is that the agreement contains a lot of concessions on the part of the EU, so it has actually betrayed European interests. In her speech, von der Leyen stressed that the EU must become independent both economically and geopolitically. Compared to this, however, there has not been such a breakthrough either in terms of competitiveness or investments. Moreover, the proposals in the Draghi report have barely been implemented (about 11%) and the reforms are too slow.
In her speech, the president also announced tough action against Israel, but some EU politicians say that this is a belated and inconsistent step, while others fear for good relations with Israel, so this has also created divisions.
One of the further plans is to use the frozen Russian assets to help rebuild Ukraine after the war, but many believe that this will only result in this hefty amount going from Russian oligarchs to Ukrainian oligarchs.
UVDL also spoke about the restructuring of the EU budget , among other things, but this is also a divisive topic rather than a unity of opinions; Excessive centralisation arouses resentment from several parties and member states. Overall, the president’s efforts to give the impression that the recent period has brought her undivided success and popularity in EU society, even though several opinion polls already in 2024 (and the most recent ones) showed that her rejection is very high and this trend has not been reversed.
Translated and edited by Hans Seckler