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Speech on the State of Europe: Von Leyen's Promise, Leyen's Weaknesses

2020-09-16T11:46:56.356Z


Europe's future will be green and digital - there is no lack of shining visions in the keynote address by the EU Commission head. But Ursula von der Leyen still owes answers to crucial questions.


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Ursula von der Leyen: "Let's not talk badly about Europe"

Photo: Francisco Seco / AP

At the end, after well over an hour, Ursula von der Leyen made an appeal to her audience in the European Parliament, or better: to all Europeans.

"Let's not speak badly to Europe," she says, "let's work on it." 

Judging by this, her own claim, Ursula von der Leyen gave an almost perfect speech in front of the European Parliament on Wednesday morning.

But only almost.  

Von der Leyen starts in French, a small bow in front of the parliamentary seat of Strasbourg, where the speech should actually have taken place if the MPs had not canceled their traveling circus because of the corona warnings.

She thanks nurses, nurses, doctors and then turns to Europe's citizens: "People want to step out of this Corona world - this is the moment in Europe."

This sets the topic for von der Leyen's first speech on the State of the European Union in the Brussels plenary hall.

Of course, this bond seems a bit megalomaniac at the annual "State of the Union" appearance of the US President before Congress, after all, the Commission President is not a head of state.

Nevertheless, the appointment after this gloomy Corona summer is a good opportunity to see what von der Leyen is up to with the EU.

Von der Leyen spans the lockdown to the green deal.

"Although the world was largely at a standstill during the curfew, global warming continued to rise dangerously," she says, suggesting, as expected, "the target for reducing emissions by 2030 to at least 55 percent".

The Green Deal, von der Leyen's flagship project, should be at the center of things when it comes to pulling Europe out of the economic downturn.

Green bonds, green project finance: "This is the plan for real reconstruction."

And von der Leyen not only proclaims the green restructuring of the economy, but also a "digital decade" for the EU.

"This is how we create the world of tomorrow," she says.

Anyone who listens to von der Leyen like this must get the impression that corona chaos, economic crisis, internal combustion engines and dead spots are only a short, annoying intermediate step into the beautiful, new and above all green European world.

But how realistic is it all?  

Sure, you don't have to mention the German auto industry in such a speech after all the exhaust gas and diesel scandals.

But wouldn't it be appropriate to think of hundreds of thousands of workers in Europe in this industry and their future?  

Von der Leyen prefers to talk about the big picture.

"A virus, a thousand times smaller than a grain of sand, showed us that our lives hang by a thread," she says.

"He showed us how fragile our community of values ​​really is."

That's brave, on the one hand, because when do top politicians admit that they too are once without influence?

However, von der Leyen describes Europe's reaction to the corona crisis far too positively.

She even wants to found a health union, after the heads of state and government cut the money for health projects at their mammoth summit in July.  

Von der Leyen wants to sound gripping, to demonstrate determination.

That is not wrong, Europe has enough faint-heartedness.

Nevertheless, it is amazing how much von der Leyen hides the internal deficits of the community.  

Example

migration

.

"The pictures in Moria painfully show us that Europe must act together here," says von der Leyen.

"We just have to manage to deal with the issue of migration together."   

Above all, these words speak of helplessness.

Because there can be no talk of a tough migration policy.

In truth, the EU Commission's asylum package, which is to be presented next week, has been overdue since February and has been postponed again and again.

The political capital that the Leyens Commission has so far invested in reforming the European asylum and refugee policy is as high as the climate target that von der Leyen is aiming for the EU by 2050: zero. 

Sure, there are nice photos with Greta Thunberg on climate policy, and problems with Viktor Orbán on migration.

From a PR point of view, von der Leyen's reluctance is understandable, the only question is, and that's why Parliament should be on this day, whether this also serves Europe.

Because it's true: Anyone who tolerates conditions like in Moria and shoots migrant families with water cannons and rubber ammunition, as at the beginning of March, has bad cards if he wants to warn the Chinese president to respect the human rights of Uighurs or Tibetans.

"We just have to manage to deal with the issue of migration together."

Ursula von der Leyen

After all, von der Leyen apparently insists that all EU countries participate in the distribution of refugees in the future: "Migration is a challenge for all of Europe," she says.

"That is why all of Europe must do its part."

Of course, this line would only be really powerful if von der Leyen would clearly name some of those who shrink Europe's refugee policy to a joke: Viktor Orbán, for example.  

This also applies to the

rule of law

, the second weak point of the speech.

Soon there will be a new rule of law monitoring, which should identify deficits in all EU members.

Von der Leyen wants to get Hungary and Poland out of the dirty corner.

The only problem is that Orbán and Co. will see this as an incentive to keep going.

True to the motto: Everyone has trouble with the commission anyway.  

Migration and the rule of law are not issues that can simply be brushed away.

On the contrary: Both concern the core of the Union, its DNA.

She shouldn't have put von der Leyen at the end of her speech, but rather - alongside climate policy - at the center.

Especially since you could certainly trust her to make a difference here.

The CDU politician has shown in her career that she tackles difficult issues even against resistance, such as the expansion of the crèche or the women's quota.

When it comes to migration and the rule of law in Europe, on the other hand, their courage seems to be shrinking from sheer consideration for some heads of government.  

A little more than a year ago, in the summer of 2019, von der Leyen had inspired the European parliamentarians and the European public in Strasbourg with a kind of European response and thus narrowly secured her election as head of the Commission.

It is uncertain whether it would achieve this majority again after this Wednesday morning.

Icon: The mirror

Source: spiegel

All news articles on 2020-09-16

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