“In this new world, we must urgently reimagine our partnerships,” von der Leyen said in the speech at the European Parliament building in Strasbourg. She added that the EU wanted to “build global coalitions for our resilience and democracies. And here too only Europe ― with its size and power ― can take the lead.”
For the head of the EU’s executive branch, who’s now two years into her second five-year term, the speech amounted to a declaration of geopolitical legacy.
Coming one year after she declared Europe’s “independence moment” from the same platform, von der Leyen expanded on that idea in a speech that seemed to echo Carney’s own address at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in which he called for the world’s “middle powers” to stand together against autocrats.
In addition to offering Canada associate member status, von der Leyen suggested bringing the leaders of the U.K., Norway, Canada and Ukraine together in a newfangled “European Security Council” that would exist outside of NATO, offering a platform to discuss hybrid threats without the United States.
She also proposed that, with Europe in the role of coordinator, like-minded countries could jointly address challenges ranging from climate change to Chinese industrial overcapacity to the risks of frontier AI models.
“This speech was all about the big threats occupying European leaders: Russia and China, and to a lesser extent the United States,” said Mujtaba Rahman, Europe director at the Eurasia Group political consultancy. “It was all about how the EU can organize itself amid an imperialist Russia, a withdrawing America and a materialist China — it’s an attempt to draw those dots together.”