By LORNE COOK
BRUSSELS (AP) — European Fee President Ursula von der Leyen delivers a significant state of the union speech on Wednesday addressing the challenges going through the world’s greatest buying and selling bloc and laying out her imaginative and prescient for tackling them.
The fee has enthusiastically billed her speech — modeled on the annual State of the Union addresses to Congress by U.S. presidents — as “a milestone occasion for European democracy.”
Throughout her deal with, to be delivered to lawmakers throughout a session that might run for round three hours on the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, von der Leyen is predicted to announce new spending targets and insurance policies for the years forward. Few particulars have been launched about what she may say.
Fabian Zuleeg, Chief Govt on the European Coverage Centre think-tank, mentioned that he expects the speech to be vital and carefully watched in Europe.
“Loads has occurred during the last yr. A variety of issues that are extra on the unfavourable facet moderately than on the optimistic facet. So individuals can be how will she react to that,” he instructed The Related Press on Tuesday.
“Folks wish to know not solely what are the coverage initiatives, however what’s the temper, what’s the feeling, the place Europe goes to go within the subsequent years,” he mentioned.
An more and more highly effective EU government
The fee is the European Union’s government arm. It proposes legal guidelines that influence the lives of round 450 million individuals throughout 27 international locations, and displays whether or not these guidelines are revered.
Beneath von der Leyen’s stewardship, the fee has pushed laborious in commerce talks with the US to attempt to safe favorable phrases and restrict the financial harm inflicted by President Donald Trump’s international tariff warfare.
Her division has pushed efforts to assist Ukraine – now within the fourth yr of a warfare seen as an existential risk to Europe – and to assist the EU arm itself towards an aggressive Russia whose president reveals little curiosity in peace talks.
The fee can also be Europe’s prime antitrust regulator and has angered tech corporations — and Trump — by imposing large fines on corporations over competitors issues. Final week, it slapped a $3.5 billion positive on Google for breaching the principles.
“Very unfair, and the American Taxpayer won’t stand for it!” Trump mentioned in a put up on his Fact Social on Friday. “As I’ve mentioned earlier than, my Administration will NOT enable these discriminatory actions to face.”
On the identical time, Trump has heaped praised on von der Leyen, and the 66-year-old former German protection minister has turn into an everyday function at summits with leaders world wide, regardless of her function as a political appointee not elected to workplace.
The fee has gained energy because the energy of governments in Europe’s conventional driving forces France and Germany have waned. Her speech in Strasbourg takes place simply two days after yet one more French authorities fell.
Criticism possible after a no confidence vote
However the EU’s most influential official can also be more likely to hear contemporary criticism from lawmakers, two months after surviving a uncommon no confidence vote towards a fee president within the parliament.
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FILE – From left, European Council President Antonio Costa, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European Fee President Ursula von der Leyen arrive for an EU Summit on the European Council constructing in Brussels, Thursday, March 6, 2025. (AP Photograph/Omar Havana, File)
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FILE – From left, European Council President Antonio Costa, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European Fee President Ursula von der Leyen arrive for an EU Summit on the European Council constructing in Brussels, Thursday, March 6, 2025. (AP Photograph/Omar Havana, File)
A nebulous mixture of claims have been raised towards her, together with over her personal textual content messaging with the chief government of vaccine maker Pfizer throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, and allegations of misuse of EU funds and election interference.
She gained comfortably however didn’t flip up for the vote. Taking to social media, von der Leyen posted: “As exterior forces search to destabilize and divide us, it’s our responsibility to reply in keeping with our values. Thanks, and lengthy reside Europe.”
On the eve of her speech, European public curiosity teams and commerce unions criticized her over plans for “an unprecedented wave of drastic cuts to laws defending labor, social, and human rights, in addition to digital rights, and the setting.”
They declare the fee is rolling again protections below the guise of chopping bureaucratic purple tape.
Mark Carlson in Brussels contributed.
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