What von der Leyen’s campaign tour says about her priorities

Competitiveness, defence, combatting foreign interference, and, ironically, protecting nature are European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s key talking points of her campaign visits to Split, Rome, and Copenhagen, shedding light on her next college’s priorities if she gets reelected. 

“Believe in yourself, that’s the most important part at the very beginning, because I tell you, when I was your age, I was very shy and not at all self-confident,” von der Leyen told a crowd of young Italians in Rome, on Monday (17 May), with a personal tone carefully planned by her campaign team.

While the European People’s Party (EPP) lead candidate for the Commission presidency adapts her personal messaging to each country she visits, there are key overarching policy topics that von der Leyen kept repeating during her speeches in Split, Rome, and Copenhagen during 11-15 May.

If she gets reelected, these talking points will be among her top priorities, possibly shaping her portfolio reshuffle and the composition of the College of Commissioners. 

Investment in defence

In Split, Von der Leyen, while reminding the audience of the devastation brought by the Croatian War of Independence at the end of the 20th century and Russia’s war in Ukraine, made sure to double down on her promise to appoint “a full-time” commissioner for defense, so far, the only confirmed portfolio. 

During an interview later in Italy, she clarified the Commission would work on boosting defence industry production and funding.

“We need to invest more in European defence, so we invest billions that also create good jobs for Europe,” she told the audience of ‘Che tempo che fa’, a famous TV show with a centre-left audience. 

This post could be awarded to a Baltic or Eastern European country, to highlight their steady support to Ukraine, though some Western capitals are reluctant because of these countries’ hawkish attitude toward Russia.

Poland has signaled its interest in the post, with the name Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski floating around. 

Competitiveness and Capital Markets Union

Other key topics that will rank high in von der Leyen’s next college are the competitiveness of the EU’s internal market and the completion of the Capital Markets Union (CMU), two policy points she repeatedly mentioned. 

On the sea view terrace of the Raddison Hotel in Split, when asked by a young entrepreneur what can the EU do for startups, she laughed and said she is not good at “business advice”.

She then argued that what Europe needs is to “get better” at bringing in private investment, by completing the Capital Markets Union, one of the key lessons from Enrico Letta’s report. 

A completed CMU in the EU could contribute up to “€470 billion per year investment, for companies like yours,” she told the young entrepreneur. 

The CMU has also become a hot topic among European finance ministers, who are now looking into what specific next steps to take.

She echoed the need to help Europe’s industry at Croatia’s centre-right party HDZ’s campaign kick-off event later that day. She said she intended to boost competitiveness by cutting red tape and protecting it from foreign unfair trade practices stressing, “If we protect someone, we should protect Europe and Europeans first.”

Highlighting the need to protect Europe’s industry specifically from China during an interview her interview in Italian TV, she argued that the country subsidizes too much of its industry, which then floods the European market with cheap products that beat local companies (dumping): “We cannot let the Chinese conquer our market like this.”

At the end of June, Mario Draghi’s report on competitiveness will come out, also shaping von der Leyen’s priorities for next term. 

Protecting nature?

During her tour, she kept repeating the need to protect nature, praising the local environment, while affirming her determination to shift from Green Deal policymaking to implementation.

“We know, also, that what we have to do is on one hand reduce CO2 emissions and on the other hand, protect nature, the beautiful nature you have here, for example, in Split,” she told a Croatian youth group. 

Ironically, HDZ voted against the nature restoration law alongside other EPP members. 

“The young people would never forgive us, my dear Andrej, if we would not live up to the challenge to protect our nature,” she added, looking at Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic. 

A statement she repeated in Italy too, this time praising the “olive groves and cypress trees” and Italy’s “wonderful mountains, lakes, and sea.”

But behind her praises of Europe’s natural landscapes, lies her determination to shift away from green policy-making towards implementation, reacting to the the backlash from farmers and member states who claim a high burden imposed by Brussels. 

“Now it is a matter of moving on to implementation (…) we have very concrete talks with industry, with small and medium-sized enterprises, but also with farmers, for example, to understand what they need, and how we can help them precisely because we can achieve these common goals together,” she said in Italy, after holding a closed-door meeting with the agricultural industry lobby, along with Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani. 

But ‘implementation’ may mean watering down green policies – particularly those that impact farmers. 

For example, the EU is relaxing the environmental rules under the bloc’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), despite warnings from environmental NGOs. The President previously announced that she would withdraw a planned law to half pesticide use by 2030. 

Combatting foreign interference

On her visit to Copenhagen on Tuesday (14 May), right after Rome, von der Leyen promised to push combatting foreign interference with a new policy package, which she named the ‘European Democracy Shield’.

“I believe Europe now needs its own dedicated structure for countering foreign interference. It will pool the necessary expertise and link up and coordinate with existing national agencies,” she said in Copenhagen.

During all her visits with young people, and addresses alongside Croatian Premier Plenković, she repeated that “Russia’s behaviour is a real threat,” referring to the country’s attempt to spread disinformation ahead of June’s elections. 

This has become a key campaign topic for her and other candidates following mounting espionage and online disinformation cases in the last months, such as the alleged involvement of European politicians in a pro-Russian propaganda network.

[Edited by Aurélie Pugnet/Rajnish Singh]

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