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If a week is a long time in politics, a year can feel like several eternities.
Ursula von der Leyen’s third State of the Union address strayed in both tone and content from her previous annual set-piece speeches, focusing on the war in Ukraine and the energy crisis it has created.
“They say that light shines brightest in the dark,” von der Leyen told European Parliament members, highlighting the solidarity that individual European citizens had shown toward their Eastern neighbors.
But with nearly two years in her term, the Commission president ranged widely onto other topics, too, including protecting democracy, the transition to a net-zero economy, securing critical raw minerals and harmonizing tax rules for small businesses.
She was also careful to avoid the gripes in previous years that she paid too little attention to European francophones. This year’s address was scrupulously fair to both German and French, with sections in both lasting the same amount of time (though the overall speech was English-heavy).
POLITICO’s number crunchers have turned our attention to analyzing von der Leyen’s script — and what her words tell us about her changing priorities.
With Ukraine to the fore, the tone of the speech was darker than in previous years. The word “war” alone was mentioned 16 times. Compared to last year’s speech, von der Leyen had little time for other policy areas such as health and tech, while the terms around the issues of economy, energy and fossil resources featured prominently.