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STATE OF THE EU DEBATE: READING BETWEEN THE LINES WHERE EUROPE IS HEADED

JESÚS GONZÁLEZ MATEOS

STATE OF THE EU DEBATE: READING BETWEEN THE LINES WHERE EUROPE IS HEADED

As every year, the start of the European political year took place in Strasbourg, at the European Parliament, where the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, presented the state of the Union to the Members of the European Parliament. A political agenda that continues to be marked by the war in Ukraine and, a legislature, which is entering its final stretch and is trying to close the pending dossiers before the European elections in June 2024.

She did not clarify whether she will be a candidate for reelection, but her words oozed future, something that does not sound like someone who is in retirement.
He defended the achievements of the European Green Pact, but stressed the need to temper it with reindustrialization and the defense of European companies’ ability to compete.

And despite citing the Ukrainian war and Putin’s war crimes, neither in gestures – last year he wore the colors of the Ukrainian flag with matching pin and ribbon, this year it is all gone – nor in substance has he wanted to focus his words on the conflict. Rather, it has been China that occupies the place of the EU’s great future enemy.

READ BETWEEN THE LINES

The first thing that the speech and subsequent parliamentary debate on the state of the Union has made clear is that we are already in election time in Europe. Von der Leyen, who in the past has been committed to the Social Democratic position in the European Parliament, has made a subtle shift towards her political family of the popular center-right.

In that vein, he made almost no mention of the EU’s social pillar, yet emphasized the importance of industry, business and competition, with clear protectionist messages.

Similarly, without abandoning the defense of Ukraine, she took more than half an hour to mention the subject, while she was much harsher and more specific in criticizing China for the multiple battle fronts that the EU has with the Eastern power: trade dumping by public aid, purchase of rare earths and critical materials, use without ethical codes of AI and a long etcetera.

Similarly, his words on the ecological transition undoubtedly show a clear concern for the pace at which measures to combat climate change are being implemented and the negative impact they have on industrial sectors and agriculture, for whose professionals he had words of gratitude for their work in times of pandemic and now of war.

ENLARGEMENT AS A HISTORICAL CHALLENGE
The closing of the speech was forceful and much less convoluted than the rest of his words. It is clear that the debate on enlargement has crept surprisingly and expressly into this end of the legislature.
In this context, the President did not ignore the issue and fully entered into the historical obligation we have to close the European project with the accession of the Western Balkan states and the countries threatened by Russian annexationism – Ukraine and Moldova -.
Aware of the governance difficulties that the process may entail, she has put the bandage before the wound by instructing the Commission’s services to analyze the problems that these incorporations may cause in the Community framework. But she has not hesitated to state that, if the EU Treaties need to be reformed to that effect, she is ready to propose it.
In short, Von der Leyen believes that we must deepen the unity of the 27, but that at the same time we are obliged to enlarge the European Union to more than 30. Perhaps, his speech is the best summary to know the state of health of the European Union and where it can go in the medium-term future.

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