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We need the courage to defend our borders without abandoning our values.

Migration can never become a political weapon.
Ceuta is Spain and it is Europe.
And European solidarity, cannot depend on who is in power or where a crisis originates.
@iratxegarper.bsky.social #SOTEU

@terryreintke.bsky.social legt den Finger in die europäischen Wunden:

Schweigen und Heuchelei angesichts des Extremsommers mit dem menschlichen Leid und den wirtschaftlichen Folgen.
Kein Sondergipfel, kein Nothilfefonds, kein Masterplan.

Starke Antwort auf #soteu

#SOTEU EU-specialised journalists pay strong attention to Von der Leyen's speech, but care very little about the subsequent political debate in the European Parliament. It says something about the European media’s contribution to democracy.

‘We need pro-EU radicalism’ 😍

‘We need to take global eladership on AI, as we did on nuclear. Set a philosophical limit on the development of AI’ 😍

‘ #Canada is welcome in the #EU because we share the same values’ 😍

Brilliant @valeriehayer.bsky.social, leader of @reneweurope.bsky.social 🩵

#SOTEU

European sovereignty also has a price tag.

If Europe wants more capacity to act on security, technology, energy and enlargement, it also needs the financial means.

So von der Leyen's call for new EU own resources matters.

Political ambition needs financial capacity. #EBDpolitik #SOTEU #mff

One of the most interesting applause lines today: gold-plating.
Good that VdL puts responsibility on Member States too.
für 🇩🇪 Bürokratie : Not everything businesses experience as "Brussels bureaucracy" actually comes from Brussels.

Simplification ≠ dismantling European standards. #EBDpolitik #SOTEU

I sitt State of the European Union, #SOTEU, idag talade Von Der Leyen också om AI, förstås. Nästa steg är inte utveckling, det är att skapade verkliga värden AI kan ge, sa hon bland annat och att kommissionen kommer lansera ett stort AI program för europeisk säkerhet och kapacitet inom AI.

One contradiction in #SOTEU26:

Von der Leyen speaks about defending the "freedoms of our Schengen area" - but says nothing about the internal border controls slowly hollowing those freedoms out. #schrankeimkopf

The Commission is also the guardian of the Treaties. #EBDpolitik #SOTEU

First #SOTEU to name-check UK since 2020, I think

Even so, still only in multilateral work on AI and Security

ec.europa.eu/commission/p...

And yet this is the big gap:

@vonderleyen.ec.europa.eu says Europe's institutions and decision-making were built for another world.

Exactly. But where is the broader reform agenda?

An EU of 30+ needs more than new security instruments. It needs institutional reform. #EBDpolitik #SOTEU

We have a choice, president @vonderleyen.ec.europa.eu : we can return to nationalism, hatred, and war. Or we can defend the Europe we have built. We chose that Europe!

And that means being courageous.
🗨️ @iratxegarper.bsky.social #SOTEU

You have shown "great courage" in confronting Trump, Iratxe García Pérez tells Canada's Mark Carney. The target of García Pérez's remark is of course von der Leyen, who bent the knee to Trump at his Scottish golf course and called Trump's tariff a good deal. #soteu #turnberrry

The repugnant campaign mode of Bardella

#SOTEU

PM Mark Carney, welcome to the 🇪🇺Parliament. This is also your home.
@iratxegarper.bsky.social kicks off her reply to this year's #SOTEU:
"You have shown courage in the face of Donald Trump. And that courage matters. Because when the law of the strongest returns, we need allies’’

The #SOTEU is finished. What a contrast with Carney.

VDL didn't mention the US by name once. Only vague references.

As I've written before, this has been the 🇪🇺president's strategy: the US is only mentioned by name when it's something positive. When it's something negative, only vague references.

In today’s #SOTEU the #EU reaches out to #Canada www.politico.eu/article/ursu...

Ať žije Evropa!

Konec vlákna, co zaznělo od Ursuly von der Leyen v #SOTEU 2026. Bylo to zajímavé, takové víc při zemi, řekla bych. Více brzy na @updateeu.bsky.social.