EU Chief to Lay Out Priorities,Vision  09/15 06:04

   European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will deliver a major 
state of the European Union speech on Wednesday setting out her priorities for 
the next year and her vision for tackling the challenges faced by the world's 
biggest trading bloc.

   BRUSSELS (AP) -- European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will 
deliver a major state of the European Union speech on Wednesday setting out her 
priorities for the next year and her vision for tackling the challenges faced 
by the world's biggest trading bloc.

   The content of von der Leyen 's address to the European Parliament in 
Strasbourg, France, has been kept under wraps. Political groups in the assembly 
have lobbied to get their priorities and pet projects included.

   But the speech is likely to touch on AI, climate change and the fires that 
have swept Europe this summer, as well as protection for children online, 
Russia's war on Ukraine, conflict across the Middle East and international 
trade tensions.

   Last year, she warned that Europe must stake out its independence as the 
continued to impose tariffs on the world and members if the Trump 
administration criticized the bloc's migration policies, warning of 
"civilizational erasure."

   "Europe is in a fight," von der Leyen said. "A fight for our values and our 
democracies."

   "Battle lines for a New World order based on power are being drawn right 
now," she said, adding that the EU "must fight for its place in a world in 
which many major powers are either ambivalent or openly hostile to Europe."

   A political spectacle to showcase European ambition

   The event has become an annual ritual modeled on the State of the Union 
addresses to Congress by U.S. presidents, but it won't be broadcast widely and 
few of the European Union's 450 million citizens across 27 member countries are 
likely to tune in.

   It's a carefully crafted communications exercise in front of often 
applauding lawmakers that is appreciated most by EU insiders. Von der Leyen 
tends to conclude with what has become her rallying cry: "Long Live Europe."

   Routinely, its themes are aspirational. They touch on von der Leyen's hopes 
and plans for the commission -- the EU's increasingly powerful executive branch 
-- over the coming year but often lack detail. Critics say the commission's 
work is opaque.

   Eric Maurice, an analyst at the European Policy Centre think-tank, warned 
against her using it "to placate political groups" or "to raise the Commission 
President's profile and extend the Commission's political and institutional 
domain."

   "The EU is facing the crumbling of all the premises on which it was built. 
The rules-based order with benevolent free-trade and U.S. friendship and 
support is disappearing," Maurice said.

   An institution's rising power and influence

   The commission proposes laws used across the 27 countries and watches to 
ensure that those already in place are not being broken. It negotiates trade on 
behalf of all its members and is Europe's top antitrust investigator.

   At its helm stands the 67-year-old former German defense minister, who has 
become a prominent figure at summits with leaders around the world, despite 
being a political appointee who hasn't been elected to Europe's top post.

   Von der Leyen is hard to ignore. She has accumulated influence over 7 years 
in office by securing vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic, managing the 
energy crisis sparked by Russia's invasion and support to Ukraine through the 
war.

   She also seems to have the begrudging respect of Trump. She, her chief of 
cabinet, and her trade commissioners have labored to limit the damage caused by 
Trump's tariff war to the European economy.

   But the Trump administration has also been riled by the commission's 
crackdown on Big Tech companies, many of them in the United States, over their 
perceived flouting of Europe's data regulations.

   Ahead of the speech, the commission has set up a website dedicated to its 
leader and the event and has been distributing brochures laying out their 
achievements over the last 12 months.

   The list is considerable, and includes sealing new trade agreements, 
boosting economic competitiveness, cutting energy costs, spurring defense 
investment, providing billions of euros in support to Ukraine and slapping 
sanctions on hundreds of Russian officials and organizations.