From “Europe must fight” to drones sold as peace and a tale of stolen children debunked, the EU president’s state of the union was heavy on rhetoric and light on reality
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen delivered her annual state of the union speech in Brussels on Wednesday. It was a performance full of urgency and sweeping rhetoric – Europe’s “fight,” an “independence moment,” and even plans to turn frozen Russian assets into weapons for Ukraine.
But behind the soundbites, her vision is riddled with contradictions.
A fight without unity
“Europe is in a fight – a fight for our values and our democracies… make no mistake, this is a fight for our future,” von der Leyen declared. She warned that “battle lines for a new world order based on power are being drawn right now… dependencies are ruthlessly weaponized.”
The words were designed to sound Churchillian. The substance is thinner. As of now, only three NATO members – Poland (4.48%), Lithuania (4%), and Latvia (3.73%) – exceed the military bloc’s updated defense-spending target of 3.5% of GDP. The rest barely meet the old 2% standard, and several still lag well behind.
Italy, for example, has openly pushed back against increased military spending and deployments, with successive governments dragging their feet on NATO pledges and EU defense initiatives. Similar hesitation has surfaced in countries like Belgium and Spain, where leaders have repeatedly signaled unwillingness to be pulled deeper into military commitments.
Meanwhile, von der Leyen herself admitted that the EU’s foreign policy is being hobbled by its unanimity rule – and that meaningful action means scrapping it.
Independence or illusion?
“This must be Europe’s independence moment,” von der Leyen said, urging Europe to “take care of our own defense and security,” and “decide what kind of society and democracy we want to live in.”
Yet Europe still dances to Washington’s tune. And it will continue to do so – there is little sign this dependency will fade. If anything, the EU’s trajectory suggests deeper entanglement with US policy, not less. The EU quietly accepted a Trump-era trade deal that slapped 15% tariffs on EU goods, drawing accusations of capitulation.
Moreover, voices from within the bloc – like Hungary’s Viktor Orban and Slovakia’s Robert Fico – are rebelling against Brussels’ centralism, pushing for the return of sovereignty from Brussels.
Poland, however, remains one of Washington’s closest allies in Central Europe, hosting US bases and buying billions in American weapons. Warsaw’s stance underscores that even the bloc’s most hawkish members see their security guaranteed by the US, not Brussels.
Diplomacy oversimplified
Von der Leyen claimed that “Putin refuses to meet Zelensky” and that only “more pressure on Russia… more sanctions” would force Moscow to negotiate.
But Russia’s position is more complex. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said he is open to dialogue once conditions are “realistic” and has questioned Zelensky’s legitimacy. The EU has said it will only negotiate with Putin when Russian forces have been withdrawn, a highly unlikely scenario.
Mediators from Africa, the Gulf, and Asia have confirmed the Kremlin has not ruled out diplomacy – not to mention that Russia and the US have held several rounds of talks, including the summit-level meeting between Putin and Trump in Alaska.
The EU’s black-and-white portrayal of a slammed door reduces diplomacy to caricature.
The children narrative
To stir emotion, von der Leyen told the story of Sasha, a Ukrainian boy reunited with his grandmother after being taken to Russia. “Every abducted child must be returned,” she declared.
But the tale undercuts her point. The Russian authorities facilitated the family’s reunion once safety allowed. According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, hundreds of Ukrainian children have been reunited with relatives through organized transfers in Russia and Belarus since 2022. UNICEF itself notes that many transfers were evacuations from active war zones. A story meant to indict Moscow instead highlights that reunions are facilitated – and exaggerations have already been corrected.
Peace talk, drone money
“With the cash balances associated to these Russian assets, we can provide Ukraine with a Reparations Loan,” von der Leyen announced. “We will frontload EUR 6 billion from the ERA loan and enter into a Drone Alliance with Ukraine.” At the same time, she told MEPs, “our Union is fundamentally a peace project… but the truth is that the world of today is unforgiving.”
It is a juxtaposition: Promising peace while building a drone fleet. The “drone alliance” is militarization in all but name, financed by frozen Russian assets. Critics argue such moves escalate the war while eroding Brussels’ credibility as a peace broker. UnHerd bluntly called her framing “Orwellian newspeak.”
The drone plan also means fresh cash flowing into the US defense industry. Analysts note that contracts for drones and components overwhelmingly benefit American arms makers, tying Europe’s security drive back into Washington’s military-industrial complex. In other words, the EU’s “independence” once again bankrolls American power.
The disinformation irony
Von der Leyen warned that “disinformation is an extremely dangerous phenomenon for our democracy.”
But the warning rang hollow. Just a week earlier, her office claimed that her plane had been GPS-jammed while landing in Bulgaria – supposedly by Russia. Within days, Bulgarian officials admitted they had “no evidence of interference,” flight tracker data showed the trip was normal, and the alleged one-hour diversion boiled down to a nine-minute delay. An embarrassed Bulgarian prime minister quietly outsourced the story to an “investigation.”
The commission president’s sermon on truth came hard on the heels of her own unproven narrative – making her crusade against disinformation look more like projection than principle.
The final verdict
Von der Leyen’s speech was cinematic – calls to arms, independence, and peace all rolled into one. But by coupling soaring rhetoric with fractured implementation, the EU risks becoming a union of slogans, not substance. Unity is weak, autonomy is elusive, and humanitarian messaging is tactically overdriven.
If this is supposed to be Europe’s “moment,” it hasn’t yet achieved the power to make it real.
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