Adnkronos (Adnkronos) – Outlining the state of the European Union, taking stock of progress on past commitments, and charting the course for new initiatives to address the bloc's emerging challenges. This is the objective of the customary State of the European Union (Soteu) address that European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will deliver before the European Parliament plenary session in Strasbourg on Wednesday, September 16.
This will be followed by speeches from the leaders of the European Parliament groups, both those belonging to the majority supporting the Commission and those in the opposition.
Introduced in 2010 with an agreement between Parliament and the Commission and directly inspired by the traditional State of the Union address that the US President delivers each year before a joint session of Congress, the Soteu has become the main annual institutional event in community politics.
The assessment of the results and legislative priorities for the coming year are accompanied by the traditional letter of intent that the leadership of the European executive will send to the leaders of Parliament and the Council. The importance of this discussion lies in the concrete exercise of democratic accountability, placing the Commission under the political scrutiny of the European Parliament, the only EU body directly elected by the citizens of the twenty-seven member states.
Unlike the US presidential model, the EU meeting does not involve a simple programmatic monologue, but is structured into a chamber session in which the parliamentary groups question and press the president on the executive's choices.
And given the tensions simmering within the traditional centrist majority in the European Parliament, primarily due to the "two-oven policy" that leads the People's Party to cooperate with groups to its right on issues such as sustainability and migration, this year's Soteu will also serve as an excellent observatory for exploring the gap between von der Leyen, representing the EPP, and the other groups that helped support her: the Socialists (S&D), Liberals (Renew), and the Greens (Greens/EFA), with the Conservatives (ECR) formally opting out but cooperating on some issues.
According to press reports, von der Leyen's address on external security will focus on formalizing the plan for a common European air defense system and strengthening civil and military readiness against hybrid threats, a particularly hot topic after Berlin accused Moscow of an attempted drone attack on Leipzig/Halle airport. Von der Leyen intends to reaffirm long-term strategic assistance to Ukraine and clarify the criteria for protecting the EU's underwater and digital infrastructure, accelerating procedures for joint procurement of weapons systems and rapid troop mobility among member states.
On the production and trade fronts, the EU executive president is expected to push for the swift approval of the European preference clauses contained in the Industrial Accelerator Act, as well as the launch of a dedicated artificial intelligence computing network to support European businesses. Clarifications are also expected regarding the trade defense approach to unfair competition and Chinese subsidies, linked to the continent's reindustrialization plans, which von der Leyen intends to advance, including through the Competitiveness Fund, which aims to consolidate resources for innovation, industry, and energy independence into a single instrument.
Rounding out the policy guidelines is expected to be a strong focus on the social dimension, starting with the plan for affordable housing to allow individual governments to support the construction of social housing. References are expected to be made to a future law on quality jobs to protect workers' purchasing power, measures to address rising energy prices, and targeted interventions to combat drought and hydrogeological instability following the summer's climate emergencies. These measures will be the cornerstone of the usual reminder of the EU's decarbonization ambitions, on which the executive intends to remain on track. Finally, von der Leyen herself announced that she will present the Commission's proposal for EU-wide action on minors' use of social media.
Looming over all the work of the EU institutions is the shadow of the next Multiannual Financial Framework, the EU budget for the seven-year period 2028-2034, embodied in the Commission's proposal of nearly €2 trillion. A prominent feature of this dossier is the proposal to provide the EU with new streams of direct revenue, a topic von der Leyen is expected to address in her speech. On this and other issues, the "frugal" capitals and those in favor of a more expansionary economic policy (such as the "Friends of Cohesion," which includes Italy) have not yet found a negotiating framework: the ball is in the court of the Irish Presidency of the Council of the EU.
Other issues the groups will address will range from the energy crisis to the sustainability of the European social model in the face of rising living costs. There will also be discussion on the balance of the EU's decarbonization roadmap, which the von der Leyen-led government is generally advancing despite immense pressure from capitals and industrial sectors, already grappling with some of the highest energy costs in the world. Also on MEPs' radar are the protection of traditional production sectors in the face of increasingly complex international trade relations, the implementation of new common rules on asylum and immigration, and the measures needed to ensure the security of the Union's external borders. In her final speech, delivered on September 10, 2025, von der Leyen focused her report on the need for unprecedented political and economic mobilization, calling this historic moment "a battle for our freedom and our future."
On the security and foreign policy front, the president had confirmed her commitment to Kiev, proposing a reparations loan guaranteed by the proceeds of Russian assets immobilized in the EU: that push foundered at the European Council in December (but was recently brought back to the table) and was replaced by the decision to issue common debt for a €90 billion community loan to Ukraine.
The President of the European Commission also called for a decisive acceleration towards a true European Defense Union, with initiatives to strengthen military industrial cooperation and joint arms procurement, which are now being realized through the European Defense Industry Program (EDIP) and the SAFE financing instrument. There was also the promise of establishing a surveillance mechanism for the eastern flank, extending from the Baltic to the Black Sea. Finally, the plan also included coordinating national military policies through a structured cycle by 2030, a technical development that currently addresses major challenges such as the lack of structural support and operational integration with NATO.
On the economic and production front, the 2025 intervention incorporated the recommendations put forward in the strategic reports drafted by Mario Draghi and Enrico Letta, identifying competitiveness as the key to continental sovereignty in the face of international trade tensions. The leader of the EU executive announced concrete measures to support manufacturing, including the implementation of the Clean Industry Pact (a competitiveness-focused revamp of the Green Deal), a law to accelerate industrial growth in technology-intensive sectors, targeted incentives for the battery supply chain, and the introduction of preferential criteria for European production in public procurement. These measures were presented in recent months and are currently being examined by Parliament and the Council.
These measures were accompanied by a commitment to drastically simplifying the bureaucracy for small and medium-sized enterprises, pursued by the Commission with the presentation of six additional "omnibus" packages last year, and the removal of remaining barriers in the single capital market, a goal also endorsed by the European Council starting from its informal meeting last February. Some progress has been made on this issue, such as the acts passed on securitization and investments, despite the persistent fragmentation of national tax regimes.
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