The EU State of the Union Address

About the United States, Without the United States

By Dr. Ian Lesser

In her lengthy speech addressing issues affecting Europe and its place in the world, Ursula von der Leyen did not mention the United States once. There were multiple references to China, Russia, the war in Ukraine, conflicts from the Middle East to the Balkans and, of course, a partnership with Canada. If the speech had a central message, it was the need to make Europe more independent in the face of internal and external threats. From unfettered social media platforms to climate change, from economic and security challenges to the erosion of democracy and media freedom, from energy and material vulnerabilities to trade wars, Europe needs to do more. But hardly any of these points would have been made in the same way or with the same sense of urgency if the power unmentioned, the United States, had not given history a shove. Reading between the lines, Washington was present from start to finish. 

First, there was the invitation to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and the extraordinary proposal to make his country the first associate member of the EU. The symbolism and significance of this cannot be separated from the deteriorating state of US-Canada relations and Europe’s search for new international geometries to hedge against transatlantic uncertainty. With his Davos speech and more recent remarks, Carney has emerged as a leading critic of US policy and its consequences for the global order. He says what many European leaders would like to say but do not, and he says it as an establishment figure. His presence and the Canadian dimension were not afterthoughts. They were central to von der Leyen’s message.

Second, much of the speech was devoted to the challenge of Europe’s economic and technological competitiveness. A “second China shock” may be part of the equation, but on issues of finance, risk culture, and economic scale, including completion of the European market, the United States is the unspoken pacesetter. This was the background to the explicit references to expanded EU cooperation with India, Mercosur, Australia, Indonesia and, again, Canada, as ways to leverage European power and achieve greater scale. The state of geopolitics was also behind connectivity initiatives closer to home, including the Middle Corridor and the EU’s Global Gateway. Notably, in a speech full of issues on which Europe and the United States disagree—climate policy may be the most prominent example—the emphasis on regional connectivity is one area where Washington and Brussels actually speak the same language. The commitment to accelerate Europe’s defense build-up, and doing so in cooperation with NATO, will reassure many American observers inside and outside the administration.

Third, von der Leyen was at her most articulate and animated in addressing questions of values and democracy. This had internal and external drivers. Within Europe, a serious political threat from the hard right and, to an extent, from the hard left now exists. She spoke with great force about the counterexample of Hungary and the electoral defeat of Viktor Orbán (who enjoyed Washington’s support). The stakes are high. Few initiatives that von der Leyen proposed will be possible if Euroskeptic movements triumph at the national level in France and Germany. Indeed, their victories could put the whole EU project in jeopardy. At the same, time the bloc faces external political pressures, from disinformation and malign influence to the erosion of solidarity among democratic states. As she noted, “democracy does not belong to only the strongest, richest and loudest.”

For those who stayed tuned for the post-speech debate in the European Parliament, there was a striking shift in tone. Speakers on the left and the right had fewer reservations about explicit criticism of the United States and President Donald Trump. Traditional Atlanticism has undoubtedly worn thin in many EU quarters.

Can von der Leyen’s moderate message of independence and hedging hold in a harsher, more polarized and less secure world? The answer has implications for both sides of the Atlantic.

Global Economic Engagement Continues, But Boy, Has It Changed

By Peter Chase

The EU is the world’s largest trading power, so trade normally takes an important place in the EU State of the Union (SOTU) address. This time the tone was totally different. The EU normally stresses the importance of the WTO and multilateral rules, but this year European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen remarked that the EU can “no longer rely on [the rules-based system] as the only way to secure our interests. Or assume that its rules will shelter us.”

Early in her remarks, she identified China’s enormous €360 billion trade surplus with the EU as a major issue; “China shock 2.0” is already bringing de-industrialization and social problems. She offered the carrot of dialogue to Beijing, but her mention of “using all tools at our disposal to rebalance the relationship” seemed limp when left on its own, as it was in the speech.

Only later in her remarks did one gets a sense of where Brussels is heading: As part of the EU’s response to the “fracture of the rules-based system”, she lauded the trade agreements the EU has finalized in the past year with India, Mercosur, Mexico, Australia, and Indonesia. Yet she also stated that, “In this new world, we must urgently reimagine our partnerships. And build global coalitions for our resilience and democracies.”

In this context, Canada today stands at the head of the line, which is why she invited Prime Minister Mark Carney to attend the speech in person. The EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) shows that both sides know that “power does not belong to the strongest, the richest, or the loudest, but to all of us.” The EU and Canada will “move from CETA to an ‘Alliance for the Future’” to strengthen bilateral cooperation on economic security, intelligent manufacturing, clean technology, defense industries, AI, quantum, critical raw materials, and more.

And perhaps reflecting the need for “middle powers” to become even closer, von der Leyen suggested that the two explore the possibility that Canada could become “the first Associate Member” of the EU—a reimaging of relationships indeed, as such a status does not exist under EU law.

Carney’s appearance, the announcement of the move from CETA to much broader economic engagement under an “Alliance for the Future”, and the novel offer of a possible “associate membership” to Canada all come as US President Donald Trump’s administration ramps up its trade war against Canada. By omitting mention of the United States in her remarks, von der Leyen criticized Washington and its undermining of the international rules-based system all the more loudly.

On AI, A Gap Between Ambitions and Resources

By Heli Tiirmaa-Klaar

AI was one of the areas where von der Leyen struck the right tone by balancing ambition with realism. She clearly recognized that Europe has not been at the frontline of AI development, a welcome acknowledgment of the continent's position in that global race. At the same time, she presented a positive, perhaps overly optimistic, vision of Europe’s becoming a leading power in AI use, particularly in health, transport, agriculture, advanced manufacturing, defense, and space.

This focus on AI deployment rather than frontier innovation is arguably where Europe's strongest opportunities lie. The speech emphasized rich datasets, industrial strengths, and established practices in these sectors, while also stressing the importance of building AI with human agency, in line with Europe's social market model. The underlying argument was that AI should empower people rather than replace them ("AI with human agency"), a theme reinforced by the announcement of a Quality Jobs Act aimed at boosting employment opportunities in the AI age.

At the same time, the speech reflected the growing importance of AI safety in European thinking. Von der Leyen placed significant emphasis on guardrails, citing Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei's recent "pace the frontier" proposals and calling for a coordinated international approach to AI evaluation and model safety. This demonstrates that Europe continues to view governance and safety as essential components of AI competitiveness rather than obstacles to it.

Yet a significant gap remains between Europe's ambitions and resources. While von der Leyen stressed the need for greater computing capacity and public-private investment, she announced no major new AI funding initiatives. Instead, she promised more far-reaching proposals in November. If Europe is serious about becoming a leader in AI application and adoption, major new investments will be required in computing power, data centers, and talent.

Perhaps the most striking aspect of the AI section was what was left unsaid. Von der Leyen called for an international effort together with Canada, the United Kingdom, and other countries to work with leading AI labs on a coordinated approach to development and safety. But there was no mention of Washington. It remains unclear how middle powers can spearhead international AI regulation when the frontier industry still operates largely out of Silicon Valley. The omission raises important questions about the feasibility and the effectiveness of any global AI governance effort that does not explicitly engage the US government.

This concern also surfaced in the parliamentary debate following the speech. Most notably, European Peoples Party leader Manfred Weber argued that Europe needs to invest much more seriously in AI development and adoption, underscoring a growing recognition that Europe's ambitions in these areas ultimately depend on its willingness to commit substantially greater resources.

Competitiveness and the Road Ahead

By Antonia Wunnerlich

Despite talk of gold-plating, this EU State of the Union speech offered few nuggets on competitiveness. The speech identified obstacles to growth but did less to articulate the destination.

The address ultimately focused more on existing measures than on new initiatives. The European Commission president reiterated the importance of simplification, reducing fragmentation, completing the single market, and deepening the savings and investment union, but did less to convey why these issues rank among the EU’s top priorities.

Europe faces difficult challenges to generate growth, raise living standards, attract investment, scale innovation, and maintain social cohesion in an increasingly competitive global economy. According to the OECD, FDI inflows dropped by 5% in 2025 in the EU. The speech highlighted the need for deeper financial market integration and faster progress on electrification and grid infrastructure but offered few new answers. Instead, it focused largely on implementation challenges, many of which depend on member-state action.

This, of course, points to a larger constraint. The Commission is increasingly calling for member states to act in areas that ultimately lie beyond its direct control. Housing and permitting are two examples. It is perhaps unsurprising, therefore, that limited attention was devoted to the cost-of-living pressures that continue to shape political and economic realities across the bloc.

For many Europeans, however, competitiveness is about exactly that: raising living standards, affordable housing, and greater economic opportunity. The speech made a case for reducing fragmentation and deepening integration but could have more compellingly connected these priorities to a broader vision for future prosperity and growth.

Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference

By Etienne Soula

This year’s EU State of the Union (SOTU) reminded listeners that Europe is a continent under siege. With more than half a dozen explicit mentions, Russia loomed large over the speech. And Ursula von der Leyen made it clear that Moscow’s aggression reaches far beyond Ukraine’s border, describing the attempted drone attack in Leipzig as “using military-grade material, carried out by Russian operatives on European soil”.

The EU’s growing awareness of the Kremlin’s escalatory tactics was also apparent in the Commission head’s explicit allusion to “cyberattacks and sabotage, arson and drone incursions”, as she indicated that Russian hybrid threats are increasingly looking like acts of war. In that respect, it was notable that the Commission would be pushing for “Europe’s own Article 4”, a mechanism inspired by NATO to allow EU member states to better coordinate their responses to Russian aggression.

Yet for all the evidence that the EU is coming to terms with what Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk calls a "prewar" era, the speech also highlighted the lack of clarity that still permeates Brussels’ understanding of its own predicament. Russia's kinetic actions are only the visible edge of a broader destabilization campaign. While the speech addressed disinformation and foreign interference, calling it "cognitive warfare", that passage sat in a section on democracy, far from the security agenda where it belongs.

Similarly, the speech lumped together “ultranationalists”, “anti-Europeans”, and “Russian interference”, forgoing the EU’s own concept of foreign information manipulation and interference, and blurring the lines between foreign adversaries who seek the Union’s collapse, and European citizens entitled to criticize Brussels—however harshly. Conversely, it stopped short of naming the parties that have demonstrably colluded with the Kremlin, most notably France’s Rassemblement National and Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland.

Finally, China’s aiding and abetting of Russia’s assault on Europe was completely omitted. Rather, Brussels’ issues with Beijing were boiled down to—admittedly critical—trade and commercial disagreements. After years during which the EU seemed to awaken to China’s revisionist world view, it seems the institutions have come full circle and gone back to divorcing trade from all other parts of the relationship.

What comes out of this SOTU is a European Commission that can no longer ignore the realities of the increasingly severe attacks that move ever closer to Brussels, but is still unwilling to fully commit to the clarity of concept and purpose that this harsher world requires.

As Its Window on Ukraine Closes, Europe Remains in Denial 

By Olena Prokopenko

Ukraine was noticeably peripheral in President Ursula von der Leyen’s 2026 EU State of the Union (SOTU) address. Late in the speech, she did emphasize the importance of strengthening assistance to Ukraine, furthering EU-Ukraine defense-industrial cooperation, closing loopholes in sanctions on Russia, and reducing EU dependence on the Russian fossil fuels—all of which is critical and long overdue nearly five years into Russia’s full-scale war in Europe. Yet the marginal positioning of the Ukraine agenda has once again demonstrated that the EU sees Russia’s war in Ukraine largely as an external conflict, and an all-out Russian war against Europe as a remote prospect.

Contrary to continued assurances that enlargement remains among the EU’s top priorities and geostrategic goals, the president’s address barely touched on the topic. The lack of reference to a progressive path to the EU for Ukraine reveals a sobering assumption: Europe believes it still lives in peaceful times and can afford to follow conventional enlargement methodology and business-as-usual decision-making.

Notably, the proposed associated membership for Canada creates a precedent and raises the risk that a limited integration model could once again be presented to Ukraine’s leadership as an alternative to meaningful accession. Ukraine has already rejected such an offer.

As it searches for ways to secure a decisive voice in Ukraine-Russia peace talks, Europe continues to leave unused one of the strongest cards it has: the potential to use of the roughly €210 billion in Russian sovereign assets frozen within the EU. Tellingly, the president’s address made no mention of the issue, suggesting that the EU still struggles to reach consensus on a matter that is central not only to Ukraine’s defense, but also to Europe’s own security.

Just as strikingly, the address lacked adequate recognition of a growing threat to the European project: the rise of the far-right and ultranationalists. Changes in the political landscape could soon paralyze Europe’s efforts to deter Russia and support Ukraine, and potentially even place Europe’s expanding defense capabilities in the hands of actors sympathetic to Russia. This stark reality should galvanize a new sense of urgency in Brussels that was not evident in von der Leyen’s address.

The EU has a rapidly shrinking window of opportunity to translate broad political support for Ukraine into future-proof policies and durable long-term support mechanisms. Now more than ever, it must accelerate decisions on EU-Ukraine defense cooperation and broader integration with Ukraine.

The EU and Africa: Silent Partners in Critical Minerals

By Hermine Sam

Early in her address, von der Leyen called for building “an independent Europe that has the power to act”. To secure this autonomy, she announced an EU Corporation on Critical Raw Materials to procure and stockpile raw materials. Its mandate to address Europe’s processing constraints, however, remains unclear.

Europe's dependency transcends access to minerals to include processing capacity at scale. In short, it lacks the ability to refine them. China controls 60%-80% of global processing capacity of key materials. The EU confronts this in its Critical Raw Materials Act and RESourceEU initiative, which explicitly targets domestic refining and provides funding for processing facilities in Estonia, Finland, and Poland. Yet these investments alone cannot close the gap. By framing the corporation as primarily a procurement mechanism, von der Leyen did not address Europe’s processing vulnerability at scale. This risks preserving Europe’s dependency on Chinese refined materials.

The European Commission president reiterated the importance of diversifying partnerships. Yet African countries, which supply a substantial portion of Europe's critical raw materials and are negotiating partnerships for extraction and processing capacity, went unmentioned. This is unfortunate. While Brussels’ strategy targets domestic midstream refining, European engagement in Africa remains almost exclusively focused on raw extraction. The address was the moment to reframe African partnerships for strategic industrial inputs, not development assistance or geopolitical hedge.

Von der Leyen’s commitment to European strategic autonomy is undermined by the current structure of the continent’s minerals partnerships. Of the 14 bilateral mineral partnerships between EU and African countries, only one includes joint extraction and co-financing. The rest remain nonbinding memorandums of understanding, exploration agreements that lock in European access without commitments to European investment or African value addition. The corporation should guarantee minimum offtake volumes of African-processed minerals at negotiated prices, making processing investment on the continent economically viable. 

Von der Leyen's statement that no country alone can break dependencies is true. Green hydrogen from Namibia and rare-earth mineral cooperation with Rwanda are not favors to development partners. They are the backbone of European strategic autonomy. The new corporation should formalize this reality in binding commitments.

The views expressed herein are those solely of the author(s). GMF as an institution does not take positions.