Ursula von der Leyen is set to deliver one of the EU’s most closely watched speeches of the year, outlining her vision and priorities before the European Parliament in Strasbourg.
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
The State of the Union address is known for its breadth and length, covering issues ranging from defence readiness to natural disasters while setting the agenda for the next legislative cycle through new policies, strategies, initiatives and action plans.
Yet the sheer number of promises means some inevitably go unfulfilled, while others are quietly dropped or simply fall apart.
Euronews looks back at last year’s speech to assess how von der Leyen delivered on her promises.
Ukraine: the assets that fizzled out
Von der Leyen used her closely scrutinised address to introduce one of her boldest ideas since becoming European Commission president: a so-called reparations loan to channel the immobilised assets of the Russian Central Bank, worth a whopping €210 billion, into a financial lifeline for Ukraine. The aggressor would therefore pay for the victim.
But the scheme, which had no precedent in modern history, soon met furious resistance from Belgium, which hosts the majority of the Russian assets in Euroclear.
Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever led a dedicated campaign to expose the flaws in von der Leyen’s scheme and mobilise his fellow leaders against it. His efforts coalesced in a dramatic summit in December, where the proposal collapsed. As an alternative, leaders resorted to traditional common borrowing to set up a €90 billion loan.
Interestingly, the Russian assets are now back on the table after Kyiv flagged a massive gap in its finances, raising serious questions about how long the €90 billion will last.
Von der Leyen, though, succeeded in advancing drone cooperation and innovation with Ukraine. She signed an EU-Ukraine drone deal, the first of its kind, in July. The first meeting of the EU-Ukraine Drone Alliance was convened last week.
And she also witnessed the unblocking of Ukraine’s accession process. The country has since opened two of the six clusters of negotiations.
Defence: don’t call it a wall
Last year’s speech took place amid an unnerving succession of drone incursions into European NATO territory, which sent jets scrambling to intervene.
Evoking “the call of our Baltic friends”, von der Leyen shocked Strasbourg by proposing to build a drone wall along the Eastern flank.
“This is not an abstract ambition. It is the bedrock of credible defence,” said von der Leyen, without providing further details.
The announcement left diplomats scratching their heads. Drone walls do not exist in a physical sense but can be understood figuratively to describe a wide, integrated approach to defending European airspace against external threats.
Since last September, the frequency and volume of drones entering NATO territory have steadily increased in parallel to other shadow- and hybrid-war incidents, including an attempted attack at Leipzig airport that Berlin later attributed to Moscow.
This means that, from a deterrence perspective, and as a bulwark against further incursions, von der Leyen’s big promise of a drone wall has failed to materialise.
Nonetheless, the Commission moved forward with its defence roadmap, which highlighted drone and anti-drone technology as a top priority.
The drone wall was discreetly renamed European Drone Defence Initiative to remove negative connotations and broaden its scope beyond the East.
Middle East: big headlines, little action
One of the most, if not the most, striking moments of last year’s speech was when von der Leyen proposed, much to everybody’s surprise, a partial suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement in response to Israel’s war on Gaza.
She also announced sanctions on extremist ministers of the Israeli government and on violent settlers in the West Bank.
“What is happening in Gaza is unacceptable,” she said.
It did not take long for the Association Agreement suspension to become bogged down in heated discussions among member states. Some, like Spain, Ireland and Belgium, pushed hard to take action. Others, like Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic, opposed and called for further dialogue. The proposal is still languishing on the table.
The sanctions on violent settlers were adopted in May after Hungary changed government and lifted its veto, while the sanctions on extremist ministers remain blocked.
Amid the impasse, a coalition of EU countries is asking von der Leyen to table a legal proposal to ban trade in goods with illegal Israeli settlements. But the Commission has declined to draft the required text, pointing instead to the Association Agreement.
Trade: under Trump’s long shadow
The backlash against the EU-US trade deal signed between von der Leyen and Donald Trump, which imposed a 15% tariff on the bloc and removed duties on American goods, was still raging on when she took the stage in Strasbourg.
“I understand the initial reactions,” she told lawmakers. “But the deal provides crucial stability in our relations with the US at a time of grave global insecurity.”
But that “crucial stability” has proven stubbornly elusive, to say the least. Trump and his officials have spent the last year piling pressure on Europeans to dismantle green and digital laws, which the White House has labelled “non-trade barriers”.
Brussels has so far refused to concede on its right to regulate and has set up a formal dialogue with the US on digital matters in a bid to weather the storm.
In the meantime, von der Leyen marched ahead with her diversification agenda.
In the months following her speech, she signed major trade deals with India, Indonesia, Mexico and Australia. The one with India was hailed as “the mother of all deals” due to its vast economic scope. It notably exempted sensitive agrifood products that were at the heart of the dispute with EU farmers in the contentious talks with Mercosur.
Von der Leyen also delivered on her promise to crack down on steel overcapacity: steep tariffs and quotas came into force in early July to protect the EU market from unfair competition, mainly from China.
The Commission chief, though, made scarce progress on her eye-catching pitch to “build a coalition of like-minded countries to reform the global trading system”, despite Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney calling for “middle powers” to close ranks.
Migration: a hard line on returns
While in Strasbourg, von der Leyen called on legislators to promptly agree on a common system for deporting irregular migrants. The Parliament and member states took notice: in June, they struck a deal on a regulation that legalises the controversial “return hubs” and thrusts the bloc’s migration policy into uncharted territory.
Denmark, Austria, Germany, the Netherlands and Greece have taken the lead in outsourcing and intend to start sending rejected applicants overseas in 2027.
“We cannot have a situation where only 20% of those who are not allowed to stay actually leave Europe,” von der Leyen said. (The rate has risen to over 30% since then.)
Von der Leyen also promised a “new system of sanctions specifically targeted at people smugglers and traffickers” to cut off their profits.
A concrete proposal was presented in July, almost a year after the address, introducing asset freezes and travel bans, among other measures, for agents and networks involved in migrant smuggling and trafficking of human beings.
Member states are currently debating the text. Its approval will require unanimity, as it falls under the bloc’s foreign and security policy.
Energy and climate: ambition amidst lobbying
When von der Leyen urged Europeans to pursue “energy independence”, little did she know that just a few months later her ambition would be vindicated. The US-Israel war on Iran triggered the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, prompted an alarming rise in power prices and revived painful memories from the 2022 energy crisis.
It also exposed the obsolete, fragmented state of the European grid network, a major weakness that von der Leyen diagnosed in her speech. Her “Grids Package”, a set of laws to speed up permits for renewable energy projects and revamp the electricity infrastructure, is still under political negotiation.
On climate action, the Commission chief vowed that the EU would “stay the course” towards net zero. However, her services later presented a 2040 target to reduce net emissions by 90% with greater flexibility for domestic polluters.
Von der Leyen’s €1.8 billion strategy to boost the production of EU-made batteries was cut to €1.5 billion, offered as interest-free loans. The funding call opened in July, but the industrial outcome is still pending.
Von der Leyen also touched on the politically charged topic of cars, promising to revise the 2035 combustion engine ban and developing an initiative for “small affordable cars”. The latter was tabled in January after intense lobbying from the automaking industry, which secured a reprieve, while the former is in early stages.
Natural disasters earned a special mention. Von der Leyen said the EU needed to “radically step up” climate resilience and announced a European firefighting hub in Cyprus, which was inaugurated in April 2026.
The bloc has made strides on adaptation, but it remains one of its weakest areas, as the images of this scorching summer have made clear.
Housing: much hype, modest results
Housing has gone from niche to pressing priority in Brussels, and the reasons are hard to ignore.
Property prices across the bloc have surged by more than 20% since 2015. Building permits have plummeted. Summer rentals have pushed residents out of the city. Young adults are increasingly delaying their departure from the parental home.
Von der Leyen, a skilful reader of political winds, seized the moment to preview a European Affordability Housing Plan in her speech.
“Nurses, teachers, and firemen cannot afford to live where they serve,” von der Leyen said, her voice echoing through the plenary. “Students drop out because they cannot pay the rent. Young people delay starting families.”
However, the latest proposals arrived only this month, almost missing the one-year milestone. The Commission proposed new rules that would give national and local authorities clearer guidance on restricting short-term holiday rentals and the purchase of homes or land not used as someone’s main home.
Brussels has also tweaked strict competition laws to allow governments to directly finance and support local housing construction.
The EU Housing Summit announced by von der Leyen is yet to take place.
Overall, von der Leyen’s attempt to put housing front and centre has been constrained by the limited competence provided by the EU treaties on the matter.
