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State of the Union: From Putin’s war to a trade war? by Zach Meyers, Camino Mortera-Martinez and Sander Tordoir, 26 September 2023 If she wants the EU to be greener, fairer, and more resilient, Ursula von der Leyen, or whoever comes next, should stay away from trade spats and support a more ambitious industrial policy instead. The annual State of the European Union speech (SOTEU), which Commission presidents deliver to the European Parliament in Strasbourg every September, had never been a particularly exciting occasion. That changed in 2020, when the EU was in the midst of a global race to develop and purchase vaccines against Covid-19, and continued through to last year, when the EU was responding to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. From 2020 to 2022, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s speeches moved away from the technocratic verbiage of years past to grandstanding announcements that often surprised her own officials in Brussels. With one important exception – the announcement of an investigation into Chinese subsidies for electric vehicles (EVs) – this year’s speech went back to being (relatively) boring. Perhaps the Commission thinks that the crisis is ending and that it can slowly return to its usual, more technical, self. Von der Leyen laid out a range of important but dull policy ideas. But she did not reveal whether she plans to be around to implement them after next year’s Parliamentary elections in June. EU capitals and the European institutions alike agree, however, that she will almost certainly win a second term if she runs for it. It may not be easy to predict von der Leyen’s next career move. But it was not hard to guess the topics she would touch upon in her legacy speech. She has a strong record on devising the EU’s responses to the pandemic and to the war in Ukraine. She came to office promising to steer Europe through the socalled twin digital and green transitions, and she has stood her ground on both, sometimes against the wishes of her own conservative political family and her most important allies. Those who were looking for cues on von der Leyen’s energy and climate agenda for a possible second term might have been disappointed, however. The energy crisis seemed to be almost a memory of the past. Von der Leyen was eager to portray Europe’s response to Russia’s weaponisation of gas supplies as a success story, without dwelling much on the energy challenges ahead. One topic she was keener to delve into was the thorny political tension between farming activity and nature conservation. By saying CER INSIGHT: STATE OF THE UNION: FROM PUTIN’S WAR TO A TRADE WAR? 26 September 2023
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