Yesterday, President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, delivered her “State of the Union” speech, laying out the yearly priorities of the EU. This year, von der Leyen’s speech framed a dangerous world requiring a “strong” and “independent” Europe.

But if you read between the lines, “strong” and “independent” is a smokescreen for a more militarised and imperialist Europe; shifting our economies toward war, privatisation and tech-dominance and harming migrants, racialised people, and people of the global South.

 

The EU will massively expand its military apparatus

The EU will massively expand its military apparatus in the coming year. In her speech, von der Leyen remarked upon “80% increased defence spending” and “record levels” of military spending across the bloc. Left out of her speech are the EU policies driving this expansion in military spending, such as the ReArm Europe – an €800 billion plan to rearm Europe over the next four years.

She also proposed:

• A European Security Council, which brings together the EU, Canada, the UK, Norway and others into a security alliance
• A European Emergency Security Protocol, similar to NATO “Article 4” mechanism, allowing one member state to trigger a coordinated European response to “hybrid attacks”
• A European Instrument for Strategic Enablers, which will pool EU funds for military equipment in line with NATO

The EU will militarise and deregulate our economy

While von der Leyen speaks of “kickstarting the economy” she avoids acknowledging that the main route for this is through militarising the economy. The proposed 2027-34 Multi-annual Financial Framework allocates funds in a way that will reorganise Europe’s industrial base around arms production.

Central to this militarisation process is deregulation. In her speech, Von der Leyen called for the overhaul of the single market to be completed by the end of 2027, framed around cutting red tape and fighting “gold-plating”. 

In reality, this removes member states from being able to set higher labour, health, safety, and equality standards for workers and the environment.

 

Climate mitigation as a front for securitisation

EU environmental policy is no longer about tackling climate change’s root causes but about survival. Despite acknowledging 2026 as the coolest summer of the rest of our lives, von der Leyen proposed no new emissions-cutting measures.

She laments firefighters dying as heroes to fight wildfires, while sidelining their calls and strikes for more material support. Proposals for a new European Firefighting Fleet distract from a lack of real prevention measures like ending fossil fuel dependency and slashing the profits of Big Oil.

Food and water security follow a similar trend – flimsy proposals to patch up leaky pipes and language of “urban adaptation and cooling” expose the EU’s strategy to live with climate change rather than reverse it.

Instead, public funds are once again diverted towards militarisation:
A new European Security Strategy, and
A military Schengen: a new military mobility package ensuring the free movement of weapons, tanks, and missiles through civilian infrastructure.

 

Digitalisation as tech-militarism 

Von der Leyen makes AI and digitalisation a key priority of the address, arguing for AI integration across all industries from health, transport, agriculture, manufacturing and the military.

“Moving AI from the screen to the real economy and society. On the factory floor. On the hospital ward. In precision agriculture. In our energy grids. For autonomous driving. For defence.

…We want AI. We want AI to create more value, more responsibly. And at a lower cost and with less energy consumption. But above all, we want AI with human agency.”

More ideological and financial investment in AI not only will cement the infrastructural power of a few tech companies, but will further instil an ongoing marriage between digitalisation and defence, a central cornerstone of EU industrial policy.

 

Resourcing Fortress Europe

“We can reduce illegal migration… and defend the freedoms of our Schengen area.”

The EU continues to conflate internal free movement with hard-line external migration policies that kill, imprison and surveil. Following the situation in Ceuta, von der Leyen takes aim at migration that is “engineered and weaponised” by smugglers, proposing:

• A European Emergency Response Framework: access to asylum and protection from refoulement will be conditional on numbers and lifted during “emergencies”
• A strengthened Frontex for speedier deportations and more surveillance

She calls for action against the “instrumentalisation of migration” – while recently leveraging international trade agreements to prevent people from the Global South from seeking safety.

Von der Leyen thinks job creation will keep people from “gambling with their lives”, proposing a Mediterranean Youth Skills and Jobs initiative. However, the real cause of migration (displacement, conflict, extraction) will only increase thanks to the EU’s path to unbridled militarism and ambitions of resource monopoly.

 

International agreements for colonial extraction

Couched in the language of “sovereignty” and “independence”, von der Leyen calls for a more extractivist EU that protects its raw materials interests in the Global South.

The European Corporation on Critical Raw Materials would “obtain and stockpile what [Europe] needs” for tech and the military, but it contains no commitment to technology transfer, human rights, or environmental protection for the countries from which these resources are extracted.

The EU-Mercosur free trade deal that von der Leyen celebrates in her speech will accelerate deforestation in South America and further displace Indigenous peoples from their lands for mining.

This will only displace more people from the Global South, forcing them to move.

 

US: a threat left unspoken

Von der Leyen’s speech does not mention the US, naming only Russia & China. But many decisions have been clearly made to circumnavigate the US threat, and even challenge it.

The proposed European Security Council challenges US-led NATO as a security pact that governs the region. von der Leyen also calls for “co-operation” around AI with Canada and the UK, but leaves out two countries leading on AI technology: the US & China.

Canada is in prime geographical position to act as a physical buffer between the US threatening Greenland from the South, and Russia to the West. The EU-Canada Associate Membership – the first of its kind – can be seen as the EU’s insurance policy against an increasingly volatile US and a new type of EU expansionism. An Alliance for the Future will integrate EU and Canadian tech and defence industries for “common prosperity”.

 

What cost of living crisis?

Von der Leyen’s speech made no mention of the cost of living crisis currently affecting millions of people in Europe battling soaring food prices and electricity bills.

Public funds were only referenced for international infrastructure projects, start-ups, and corporations. The Commission President doubled down on commitments to scorched-earth deregulation – with no proposals for taxes on windfall profits to reinvest in public services.

Meanwhile, a lack of funds for equality, social rights and public services and for addressing the cost of living crisis, is contrasted with massive militarisation investment and “energy support” to Ukraine for the winter – keeping people in Europe cold and Ukrainians warm to keep sending working people to war.