But with wars raging in Iran and Ukraine and with U.S. President Donald Trump’s repeated threats to take Greenland from Denmark, von der Leyen used her speech Monday to make a full-throated case for the EU to rip up the way it does foreign policy, much of which requires unanimity from all 27 member countries. That requirement has seen individual countries repeatedly block EU decisions, such as Hungary’s recent move to stall Ukraine’s much-needed €90 billion loan.
“We urgently need to reflect on whether our doctrine, our institutions and our decision making — all designed in a postwar world of stability and multilateralism — have kept pace with the speed of change around us, both in how it is designed and how it is deployed,” von der Leyen told the ambassadors. “I know this is a stark message and a difficult conversation to have.”
Referring to the promised €90 billion loan to Ukraine, von der Leyen said: “You have all seen the challenges we have faced in getting this over the line, even after all 27 [EU] leaders have agreed to it. This goes back to the point that I made earlier about whether our system is still able to deliver efficiently.”
Without providing details, von der Leyen again insisted that the EU would get the loan to Kyiv “because our credibility, and more importantly, our security, is at stake.”
Von der Leyen said the Middle East crisis was “not a trigger” for her proclamation, but “a symptom of the wider issue, as was Greenland, as is Ukraine.”
“In times of radical change like ours, we can either cling to what used to make us strong and defend habits and certainties that history has already moved beyond, or we can choose a different destiny for Europe,” von der Leyen said.