Von der Leyen warns the European Union faces its most precarious period

A warning from Strasbourg

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen delivered her annual State of the European Union address in Strasbourg with a warning that the bloc is operating in an exceptionally precarious and openly hostile international environment. The speech placed Europe’s ability to act independently at the centre of the agenda, linking security, economic competitiveness, energy resilience and democratic stability rather than treating them as separate policy fields.

The address comes as the European Union confronts Russia’s continuing war against Ukraine, renewed pressure on energy supplies, repeated hybrid-security incidents and widening disputes with major trading partners. Von der Leyen’s framing matters because the annual speech is the Commission’s principal agenda-setting intervention before the European Parliament. It signals where the executive intends to spend political capital and which proposals may dominate negotiations among member states.

Independence as the organizing idea

The Commission’s official programme describes the year’s theme as delivering European independence. It says the bloc has worked to reduce strategic dependencies, strengthen defence, support Ukraine, expand global partnerships and protect democracy. These priorities overlap: dependence on imported energy can become a security vulnerability, weak defence production can limit foreign-policy choices, and fragmented technology or industrial policy can leave Europe exposed to pressure from larger powers.

Euronews identified Ukraine, defence, migration and the EU’s global role as central subjects of the speech. Its pre-address review also highlighted the gap between some of von der Leyen’s previous announcements and implementation. A proposed European drone-defence initiative remains unfinished, while several foreign-policy measures have been slowed or blocked by member-state divisions. The question is therefore not simply what the Commission proposes, but whether governments will supply authority and funding.

The implementation test

The speech’s most consequential audience is the collection of national capitals that must approve much of the programme. Defence procurement, migration rules, energy infrastructure and support for Ukraine all require compromises among governments with different threat perceptions and fiscal constraints. The Commission can draft legislation and coordinate financing, but it cannot by itself create the political unity that von der Leyen says the moment demands.

Attention now turns to the specific legislative and budget proposals attached to the address, followed by the European Parliament’s debate and negotiations in the Council. The strongest test will be whether strategic-independence language produces funded decisions on defence capacity, grids and supply chains. Without implementation, the warning could become another diagnosis of fragmentation; with it, the address may define the EU’s policy programme during a period of unusually intense external pressure.