When European Commission President José Manuel Barroso delivered Europe’s first State of the Union address in 2010, many people in Brussels and other European capitals were instantly dismissive. A state of what? What had gotten into the man’s head?
Fifteen years on, ahead of President Ursula von der Leyen’s State of the Union address in the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, on Wednesday, one can only say this annual address marking the rentrée of the new season in European politics—intended to outline and debate the European Union’s priorities with Parliament and to make them accessible to a wider audience—has become a political ritual. Brussels, just back from its long August summer holiday, has been abuzz with speculation and anticipation for days. What will von der Leyen say? What will be left out? And how will the different political groups in Parliament respond?
This ritual is, just like the person delivering it, becoming increasingly recognizable, symbolizing the slow maturing of the EU as a political entity. “Speech is power,” as Ralph Waldo Emerson famously said.
What was instituted by the Treaty of Lisbon (the EU’s rule book) in order to make political life in the EU more democratic and transparent is now coming to life. All over Europe, people watch it in real time. Whereas in the early “SOTEU” days (yes, the State of the Union has an acronym, as well as a website) you had to figure out where to find a link, today it is almost impossible to miss it: Many news outlets headquartered in Brussels open live tickers with a video link to Strasbourg, making it easier to watch and drumming up expectations. This year, again, von der Leyen’s address—always delivered on a Wednesday morning in early September—was hyped up by the media in advance. And already in the spring, think tanks and universities in many countries sent out invitations to watch the address on large screens and comment on it afterward during public panel discussions.
As George Orwell wrote in his essay “Politics and the English Language,” democracies need political language. Words matter, in the public political arena, because debate and the exchange of arguments are the lifeblood of democracy. All too often, however, as he noted in a separate essay “The Prevention of Literature,” there are snakes in the grass: to write or speak “in plain, vigorous language one has to think fearlessly, and if one thinks fearlessly one cannot be politically orthodox.” He continued in “Politics”: “In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. … Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness.” Orwell concluded disappointedly that political language is “designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable.”
Orwell wrote “Politics” in 1946. His observations, of course, applied to the national political arena. European integration started later, in the early 1950s. But now, with the EU increasingly becoming a political actor in its own right, the text—and the excitement and deliberations surrounding it—is increasingly becoming part of a European political arena, too. This is a sign of European politics beginning to mature.
In a rapidly changing world dominated by large powers feverishly competing for territory, raw materials, energy, and data, individual European countries realize that the only way they can navigate this—or even survive—is by pooling power and building sovereignty collectively. Russia’s war in Ukraine, COVID-19, climate change, artificial intelligence, and U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war are all huge issues that EU member states cannot possibly tackle on their own. And they know it. So they do it together.
In recent years, sensitive issues that used to be strictly national—such as health, energy, defense, and security—are increasingly Europeanized at the request of member states themselves. As a result, largely technocratic Europe, with its discourse on fishing quota or chemical directives, is now politicizing and becoming more than a market. Of course, citizens take note. With Brussels suddenly discussing sanctions against Russia, the procurement of vaccines, European defense initiatives, or even a vision for the future—issues Europeans care about—they follow this with growing interest and sometimes even emotion.
The latest Eurobarometer poll, taken in May, confirms this: 73 percent of Europeans said their country had benefited from being a member of the EU, almost the highest score ever. And perhaps surprising in a period of great geopolitical upheaval and stress, 66 percent were optimistic about the future of the EU.
In short, something is happening in Brussels, and citizens perceive it. Even populist politicians, who used to rail against the EU from the national podium demanding exits, are changing their tune and entering European politics. Debates in the European public arena are becoming more ferocious and dramatic, more “real.” Today, prime ministers and members of the European Parliament are no longer just debating the third railway package in Brussels (full of jargon and incomprehensible even for insiders) but also matters of war and peace. Long-term vision becomes involved, on values and the future—much more interesting for ordinary citizens, especially in times of great geopolitical turbulence, than the fact sheets and statistical nitty-gritty that European communication departments tended to produce before.
So European democracy finally gets some political drama. The buzz surrounding the State of the Union is just an expression of that development.