EC President von der Leyen holds State of the Union speech

On 10 September 2025, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen held the 2025 State of the European Union speech at the European Parliament. In her State of the Union speech, the Commission President shared the key priorities and flagship projects for the year to come, building on the progress the EU has made in recent years.

Starting out her speech, the Commission President emphasised that "Europe is in a fight" for its future and has to face a world that is "unforgiving". Despite the fact that the EU is a "peace project", the Union has to fight for its place in the world. The President said that "This must be Europe's Independence Moment" and called for unity among Member States and EU institutions.

Among the issues addressed were financing Ukraine's war effort against Russia, defence - where the President announce a "European Semester for Defence"; enlargement (Moldova, Ukraine and the Western Balkans); the situation in Gaza (the Commission will put bilateral support to Israel on hold; the President also addressed the EC's initiative to put Israel's association to Horizon Europe partly on hold, which is still "stuck without a majority"), an the renewal of the Framework Agreement between the EC and the European Parliament (where the President added „I believe that we need to move to qualified majority in some areas, for example in foreign policy. It is time to break free from the shackles of unanimity. The point is that we need to make sure our Union is faster and can deliver for Europeans.”).

From the perspective of research and innovation, the Ms von der Leyen addressed the following issues:

• entering into a "Drone Alliance" with Ukraine
• massive investments in digital and clean tech, mentioning amongst others the European Competitiveness Fund and "a doubled Horizon Europe", as well as the AI Gigafactories (the President is meeting the CEOs of the largest European tech champtions and will be handed over the European AI & Tech Declaration), as well as a Battery Booster package and the Industrial Accelerator Act;
• simplification continues to be a core objective ("We need to make business in Europe easier");
• private investment and the Scale-up Europe Fund;
• the "Choose Europe" package with € 500 million („Science has no passport, gender, ethnicity or political colour. It is one of the most valuable global goods.”);
• a new Global Health Resilience Initiative;
• a "European Centre for Democratic Resilience";
• renewable energies including nuclear energies ("We need to generate more homegrown renewables – with nuclear as a baseload");
• the "fifth freedom" (“... we will present a Single Market Roadmap to 2028. On capital, services, energy, telecoms, the 28th regime and the fifth freedom for knowledge and innovation. Only what gets measured, gets done.”)

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In the context of the State of the European Union speech, the Commission President also sent a Letter of Intent to Roberta Metsola, the President of the European Parliament, and Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen of Denmark, which holds the Presidency of the Council. In it, the President detailed the actions the Commission intends to take in the following year by means of legislation and other initiatives.

For more information:

State of the European Union Speech by EC President von der Leyen

Letter of Intent

See also Science|Business article: Europe’s independence hinges on innovation, von der Leyen says