The speech of the President of the Commission on the State of the Union is highly anticipated by the various political groups, but the expectations of each differ greatly, according to the press conference of the political groups on Tuesday 13 September.
For instance, the German Manfred Weber, chair of the EPP group, laid great emphasis on the security dimension. He expects "unity, not division" on a union of security and defence pushed back to centre-stage by France and Germany, but also on increased protection of the external borders. On this point, Weber stressed that the Union should adopt a system of entries and exits from the territory as soon as possible and make swift progress on the revision of the visa regime. He argued that the EU must fight illegal migration and set in place a European system to provide an overall view of the jihadists moving round on European soil. He feels that the informal Bratislava summit (see EUROPE 11610) could provide the opportunity to make progress on all of these fronts, as the United Kingdom will not be seated around the negotiating table. On the 'growth' plank, the group chair said that he supported the continuation of the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) in the framework of a new Juncker plan.
The same employment and growth pact was also of great importance to the Italian Gianni Pittella, the chair of the S&D. He expects the Commission President to make a "strong" speech, a landmark in the history of European integration. The Social Democrat chair believes that the Juncker plan should be enhanced and its funding doubled. He also expects Juncker to announce extra money for the Globalisation Adjustment Fund, which he hopes will increase threefold. Finally, he hopes that the president of the European Commission will take position on the very durability of the Stability and Growth Pact. Pittella confessed himself "bewildered" by the EPP's almost "obsessive" persistence in not wanting to revisit the austerity plans, citing Weber as an example. "We need to be talking about growth and jobs, not austerity", he stressed. He also hopes that the Commission will undertake to put forward a blacklist of tax havens, take position in favour of whistleblowers (see EUROPE 11601) and revision of the commissioners' code of conduct, in light of the recent 'revolving door' new job for the former Commission president (see EUROPE 11621). As regards the Bratislava summit, Pittella is not expecting too much, describing it as an "empty shell" denuded of all content.
For the ALDE group, the Belgian Guy Verhofstadt welcomed recent declarations made by Germany and France in favour of European defence. In particular, he expressed hopes that the member states and the Council will support these plans and recalled the work of his own group on this project, which was published earlier in the year. He said that the basis should be the existing bilateral cooperation between the member states and these should be brought together in the framework of Eurocorps, an army corps made up of contingents from six member states, to gradually build up into an integrated European army.
For his part, the Belgian Philippe Lamberts, co-chair of the Greens/EFA Group, is worried. As he sees it, "Juncker doesn't seem to have taken the measure of the crisis" and is unwilling to jeopardise the trade agreements (TTIP and CETA), which Lamberts describes as "machines to weaken states". Even so, he hopes that the president of the Commission will make statements regarding the Stability Pact. Lamberts has raised the question of taking investments into account, but stressing that some investments were bad, such as the regional airports built in Spain which have never operated. On the future of the Juncker Plan, he supports plans to extend it "in time and space", but described it as nothing more than a "homeopathic" remedy. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)