The #SOTEU was very presidential - and not in a good way. @vonderleyen dropped a lot of headlines but gave very little indication of where the @EU_Commission is headed and failed to strengthen the EP‘s Hand in the ongoing negotiations.
A few examples:
1/ The EU is in the worst recession in history. To get out of it, the EU will need a Post-Corona consensus on fiscal policy. This will take time and probably new rules. The Commission should steer this debate. But nothing on this in the speech but a vague reference.
2/ @vonderleyen promised new spending on digital and climate-related European projects - but she doesn’t have the money. She could have asked member states for it when the Green Deal came out and when the Recovery Instrument was presented. She didn’t, and now it’s too late.
3/ To pretend now that the funds can come out of the Recovery Instrument is wishful thinking. Member states will use the funds in their recovery efforts (as they should). Money for long-term projects should be in the MFF. But that shop has sailed.
4/ She implicitly acknowledged that as the only place where she asked for a change of the #EUCO deal was when she called for an increase in health expenditure. That’s a few billion. But she did not strengthen the EP‘s position in a meaningful sense on the big topics.
5/ There was absolutely nothing on own resources even though even the Council debated it last week. On rule of law conditionality, she said it was non-negotiable - but what does that mean on substance? We know that there will be *a* mechanism - the details is what matters.
6/ Finally: It took @vonderleyen almost an hour to even get to Moria and she could not bring herself to mentioning that what happens there is an utter breach of EU law. This is where again she could have provided orientation - after all upholding EU law is the Commission’s job.
7/ The rest was a lot of rehash of old strategies and headlines (ok, I grant European Bauhaus, hadn’t heard that before). But do we know more now about the Commission’s plans for the future than we did this morning? I don’t think so.
8/@vonderleyen now has roughly three years to get more concrete, to take risks, to take on member states where necessary, and yes, to occasionally lose. The president of the Commission should not be the president of Europe - she should be its prime minister with a wish to govern.
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