European president sets out second term vision

By Andrew Hammond

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen gave on Wednesday what may be the most important speech of her life, potentially her last ever annual "state-of-the-union" address to the EU.

Almost four years into her presidency, the EU faces a "crossroads" moment in the aftermath of the pandemic and the wake of the Ukraine war. The array of challenges and opportunities facing it means the bloc is at a potentially historic tipping point between the past and a hopefully brighter, new dawn. Von der Leyen hopes to lead that future by serving a second term in Brussels from late 2024, but that will depend upon the "political horse-trading" that follows next June's European Parliament elections. Even if she does not serve as Commission president again, she may land in another big job with, for instance, U.S. President Joe Biden reportedly wanting her to serve as the next NATO secretary general.

When von der Leyen took office in Brussels in December 2019, she could not have foreseen that the pandemic and Russia's invasion would be the decisive challenges of her presidency to date. Yet they have dominated the landscape, and it is sometimes now forgotten that it nearly caused her to resign after the bungled, initial EU roll-out of vaccines in 2021.

However, for all of the challenges that the pandemic and Ukraine war have brought, this crisis-type environment is one that the EU has sometimes found beneficial, in the past, to enable the pathway to a closer union. A good example here is the Commission of the sometimes controversial President Jacques Delors. Coming to office during a troubled period for the bloc in the 1980s, he is seen by many as giving what is the present-day EU a clear sense of direction, including as the founding father of the Euro. In his first term in 1985, he rallied the bloc to the call of the single market, and when appointed to a second term, he urged Europeans toward the ambitious goals of economic, monetary and political union.

While history may not see von der Leyen's presidency as being ― quite ― as historically important as that of Delors, she has delivered a wide number of big achievements. One of these is the huge scope of her Green Deal mega project with more than 50 major sustainability initiatives rolled out since the agenda was announced in 2019. As Europe seeks to become the first continent in the world to be climate neutral by 2050, von der Leyen focused again on Wednesday on this green vision for the EU.

Other von der Leyen achievements include the role she played in 2021 in persuading squabbling fellow EU leaders to agree to give the bloc, for the first time in its history, debt-raising powers to finance a 750 billion Euros post-coronavirus recovery plan to counteract the worst economic shock for decades. At the time, there was even discussion in Brussels of a "Hamilton moment" in reference to Alexander Hamilton, the Treasury Secretary in 1790 for the newly created United States of America who convinced the Congress of the benefits of common debt. Earlier in her presidency, in 2020, von der Leyen was key to the EU 27 and the United Kingdom agreeing to a Brexit trade and cooperation deal.

Von der Leyen emphasized on Wednesday that it is critical for the more than 400 million population bloc to be ambitious and seize the initiative in the coming years. The alternative, in her view, is the further inertia that has characterized EU affairs for so long. For as well as opportunities on the horizon, there are also risks too, including growing Euroskepticism and wider populism. Von der Leyen is, therefore, anxious to claim the political ground around migration control in a bid to head off right-wing nationalist parties such as Brothers of Italy and Spain's VOX. For instance, von der Leyen hopes her 785 million Euros agreement with Tunisia, which involves budget support and investment in return for greater control over migrant departures from the North African state, will become a model for similar deals with North African countries and, in turn, be held up as evidence to voters that she is solving Europe's dilemma over migration.

The continuing political storm clouds highlight the fragility of the political situation across the EU. In recent years, there has been a huge growth of domestic and external challenges that may be without precedent in the post-war era. On the global front, there is a new, starker geopolitical reality not just from an increasingly assertive Russia. There is also massive uncertainty from the United States with the key 2024 US presidential election offering potentially a stark international relations choice between the strong Atlanticist Joe Biden and ― possibly ― the pro-Brexit, anti-EU Donald Trump.

Taken together, von der Leyen's speech will seek to make clear that decisions in late 2023 and 2024 will have a huge role in defining the EU's longer-term political and economic character in the face of multiple opportunities and challenges, including Ukraine. She is right that there may now be a historic window of opportunity for the continent to forge a stronger and more sustainable path into the future.

Andrew Hammond is an associate at LSE IDEAS at the London School of Economics.