Five years ago, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen devoted her first State of the European Union address to her plans to use the Covid pandemic as a catalyst for positive change.
Now she says, “Europe must fight.”
The Commission president’s speech on Wednesday was marked by a grim read of geopolitical events ― from war and bloodshed in Ukraine and Gaza, to pressure from U.S. president Donald Trump and rising costs, a housing crisis and poverty at home.
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“Our Union is fundamentally a peace project,” von der Leyen told a divided and at times jeering Parliament. “But the truth is that the world of today is unforgiving.”
Europe “must fight for its place” in a world marked by “imperial ambitions” and dependencies that are “ruthlessly weaponized,” she said.
POLITICO’s wordcloud analysis of von der Leyen’s speeches, five years apart, shows the extent to which public opinion and political narrative have shifted since she took the helm of the Commission.
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