Ursula von der Leyen’s State of the Union: Political Theater for the Brussels Bubble

On Wednesday morning, Ursula von der Leyen stood before the plenary of the European Parliament in Strasbourg to deliver her annual State of the Union address. The stage was carefully arranged: a solemn atmosphere, carefully chosen words, enthusiastic applause, and a few choreographed standing ovations. It was the EU’s attempt to simulate grandeur. Yet no matter how much the Brussels bubble tries to dress it up as Hollywood, the truth remains: this speech barely penetrated the European public sphere.

The problem is not only that the address is notoriously prone to lapsing into the peculiar jargon of EU institutions. The deeper issue is that the gap between what Brussels offers and what Europeans demand has grown alarmingly wide. Von der Leyen spent much of her time pointing fingers at others—Russia, China, even Trump. The pivot to foreign policy is a classic tactic of embattled politicians eager to deflect from failures at home. Who would dare undermine a leader cast as standing up to Russia or shaping the world order? By contrast, her domestic policy proposals shared a common flaw: they sought to remedy problems created by the EU’s own past interventions.

Von der Leyen may consider herself fortunate that the speech remains largely ignored beyond the Brussels echo chamber. Were Europeans truly listening, the contradictions would be painfully obvious.

Foreign policy: a flight forward

Von der Leyen devoted much of her speech to portraying Europe as a geopolitical force. She pledged solidarity with Ukraine, announced a “reparations loan,” and unveiled an “Eastern Flank Watch” complete with drone walls and space surveillance. Yet the hundreds of billions promised for Europe’s defence industry cannot hide the fact that it was the EU itself that helped erode those capabilities in the first place. Brussels long preferred soft power over hard power, dressing up calls for an EU army as efficiency gains rather than genuine rearmament. Her flagship Green Deal, meanwhile, saddled the defence sector with layers of taxonomy regulations that discouraged investment. Now the EU proposes yet more bureaucracy and debt to patch the very holes it created—while the Green Deal itself remains untouchable.

In the Middle East, von der Leyen proposed cutting payments to Israel and sanctioning “radical” settlers, alongside a new initiative for Palestine. The gesture was less about strategy than symbolism. She knows such sanctions are either toothless or lack the necessary backing among member states. But chastising Israel has become ritualistic for the leftist parties propping up her coalition. Ever the opportunist, von der Leyen gave them a token victory. It was a small price to pay.

Domestic policy: symbolism over substance

At home, von der Leyen showered Parliament with promises: a digital euro, a multi-billion scale-up fund, a ‘Made in Europe’ label, and the EU’s first housing initiative. She vowed to slash red tape, launch a European electric car push, build new energy ‘highways,’ and roll out fresh support for farmers.

But many of these pledges are either empty symbolism or far beyond the EU’s competencies. Once again, Europe offers a textbook case of the intervention spiral. Consider housing: more than a decade of quantitative easing by the European Central Bank inflated asset prices, including real estate, driving housing costs well above wage growth. Von der Leyen’s promise of a European housing plan is little more than a mockery. Farmers, once the backbone of EU policy, face a similar fate. Their bureaucratic burden has soared even as agricultural subsidies have halved in real terms over three decades. Small landholders are abandoning farming in droves. Meanwhile, Europe now imports 10% of its calories and 25% of its proteins. Yet von der Leyen somehow managed to tout a ‘Buy European Food’ campaign and, in the same breath, a free-trade agreement with Mercosur.

Migration was no less contradictory. The EU’s sprawling web of rules has made it nearly impossible for member states to manage inflows. Politicians in Brussels boast of reducing numbers, but migration trends track external crises—like the collapse of Assad’s regime in Syria—not EU policy. Von der Leyen now promises to triple spending on migration and border management and step up deportations. In practice, that means pouring more money into a system that has never worked. Meanwhile, the one country that has effectively defended the EU’s external borders, Hungary, finds itself fined by Brussels for doing so.

The solutions she offers follow the same formula: more EU regulation, more bureaucracy, more taxation, more debt—while the root causes go untouched. Honi soit qui mal y pense.

Cracking down on dissent

Even the EU leadership seems dimly aware that smoke and mirrors cannot last forever. Independent digital media pose a constant threat by exposing contradictions Brussels would rather bury. Von der Leyen now proposes channelling more EU funds into a network of compliant outlets while tightening control over online speech. By labelling dissent as ‘disinformation,’ the EU shields itself from accountability. Her warning that “the first step in an autocrat’s playbook is always to capture independent media” backfired spectacularly: it described her own Commission all too well.

A feverish dream

One day later, despite its warlike rhetoric and lofty declarations of independence, even the EU’s own media had largely moved on. The aesthetics of the speech failed to capture imaginations, and its contradictions were too glaring to ignore. What remained was a speech crafted not for Europeans, but for the coalition keeping von der Leyen in office.

But if she were truly the wartime leader she claims to be, why did she feel compelled to placate every faction of her fragile majority like an ordinary coalition manager? The truth is that the centre-left alliance of EPP, Social Democrats, Liberals, and Greens cannot confront Europe’s structural crises. The only thing uniting them is blind faith in the same tired recipe: more regulation, more taxation, more debt. As this formula produces more problems than it solves, pressure on the coalition will intensify.

Brussels may soon look for systemic fixes—more censorship, more centralisation—but these are recipes not for stability, but for disruption. They risk transforming incremental policy drift into a sudden political rupture that shakes the EU to its core. A responsible leader would see this coming and act. A responsible leader would see this coming and act. But where is this person?