State of EU: Ursula von der Leyen--the accidental president | Social Europe |

After all the rhetoric about listening to citizens, the 49 citizens' recommendations coming from the conference in May last year, as approved by the European Parliament and transmitted to the Council of the EU, have however still not been debated by the member states--despite this being required by the treaty. And this is not the only promise which could contribute to a coherent vision for the union that is falling apart at the end of this five-year term.

Green Deal

In July 2019, during her inaugural speech to the parliament, von der Leyen promised to launch a Green Deal in the first hundred days of her term. With no hint of this in her domestic political trajectory, von der Leyen's position on climate change was dictated more by the political circumstances surrounding her nomination than her record. It was meant to gain the support of the European Parliament, where following the parliamentary elections her centre-right European People's Party and the Renew Europe liberals were well short of a majority.

This compromise with the left and green blocs in the parliament could have given Europe a new vision around the green transition, strengthening the union's political legitimacy. As the 2024 elections loom, however, such a vision seems to have vanished, due to the reservations not only of von der Leyen's EPP but also of liberal figures--from the French president, Emmanuel Macron, to the German finance minister, Christian Lindner--who have repeatedly called for a pause.

Replacing Green Left commissioner Frans Timmermans by a conservative Wopke Hoekstra with no track record on the environment and green energy ...

EC VDL nominates Wopke Hoekstra as top climate diplomat

The hesitations of the EPP and the liberals about the pace of the ecological transition threaten its full adoption and make its future in the next political cycle uncertain. Von der Leyen will need the support of her party for a nomination (this time as Spitzenkandidat), yet the EPP now stands as one of the main opponents to implementation of the green agenda. That support will also be needed to match her promise to reform the ethical rules of the union after the Qatargate scandal, including establishing a new ethics body.

Crisis management

[same as Boris Johnson and Mark Rutte: patch it over, neglect and no timely action, lack of social vision]

Von der Leyen can claim successes. Yet her term has been marked by crises, from the pandemic to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, [gross failure in diplomacy, on America's leash] with its many knock-on effects in energy, food and security. Her presidency has been distinguished by continuous crisis management, to the point of turning the state of exception into the norm. Besides constantly reacting to events, she has often delegated the solution of an impending task to member states' leaders within the European Council--leading to an increasingly evident and damaging rivalry with its president, Charles Michel. 

In this context and reading between the lines of her speech, a fundamental question arises: will European citizens content themselves with institutions that just seek to muddle through? In an evolving political union, the shock of the invasion plus the shared pandemic ordeal should have generated some consensus on the need to regain control of the direction of history.

The time has come to stop improvising and show instead not only Europe's ability to react to external shocks but also its capacity to build, plan and project. To get out of the current geopolitical impasse and growing internal mistrust, a union that brings together 27 member states--rapidly considering the integration of others in the east and the Balkans--must piece together its many elements into a coherent whole.