The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, had been forced to cancel all her professional engagements until at least Wednesday 15 January, due to a severe case of pneumonia.
As a result, Ms von der Leyen did not attend the opening ceremony of the Presidency of the Council of the European Union in Warsaw on Friday 3 January, and the meeting between the College of Commissioners and the Polish Presidency of the Council of the EU, which was due to take place in Gdańsk on Thursday 9 and Friday 10 January, has been postponed indefinitely.
“Pneumonia is a serious illness that needs to be taken seriously. That is the reason why she cancelled all her external appointments for the first half of month”, confirmed Paula Pinho, spokeswoman for the EU institution, on Monday 6 January. Nevertheless, she noted, Ms von der Leyen, who is resting in Germany, remains in “daily” contact with her teams and keeps abreast of the latest developments at European level, as witnessed by the preparatory telephone conversation she had with the Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, before the latter met the US President-elect, Donald Trump, last weekend in the United States.
In this respect, Ms Pinho indicated that it was not necessary, “at this stage”, to bring into play the rules of the protocol which would give the Commission’s Executive Vice-President, Teresa Ribera, the role of representing the Commission in the absence of Ms von der Leyen. “Next week there is a College meeting. She will see if she’s able to return or if there will be a replacement”, added the spokeswoman.
The provisional agenda for the College meeting on Wednesday 15 January includes the presentation of the ‘Competitiveness’ package, and in particular the presentation of a dedicated fund to boost European economic competitiveness (see other news).
POLAND25EU. On Friday, at the opening ceremony of the Polish Presidency of the EU Council, the Polish Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, urged Europeans to rediscover faith in their own strength. “Let’s do everything to make Europe strong again (...) And Poland is prepared for this task”, he declared.
Mr Tusk will present an “ambitious” vision for the European Union and his country’s priorities for the next six months on Tuesday 21 January in Strasbourg, in the European Parliament’s hemicycle.
The Hungarian ambassador to Poland was not invited to the Polish Presidency ceremony because of diplomatic tensions between Warsaw and Budapest over the political asylum granted by Hungary to the former Polish Justice Minister, Marcin Romanowski, who is wanted by the Polish judiciary.
Present in Warsaw, the President of the European Council, António Costa, saw Poland as “one of the most important successes of enlargement”, twenty years after it joined the EU. In his view, the motto of the Polish Presidency of the Council of the EU - ‘Security, Europe’ - is a good one, because the concept of security, approached in an integrated way, seems to be the only one capable of guaranteeing peace and economic stability in the EU.
One of the EU’s strategic priorities will be to invest massively in defence, in particular to help Ukraine face up to Russian military aggression “as much as necessary, for as long as it takes” and to create the conditions for a just and lasting peace.
The President of the European Council also advocates strengthening the EU’s resilience to natural disasters and border security, tackling the migration challenges, addressing hybrid threats and attacks, enhancing energy infrastructure and food security, and reducing dependency on imported technologies and raw materials.
In the first half of 2025, discussions will begin on the EU’s post-2027 Multiannual Financial Framework, with a Commission proposal expected before the summer. “Creative solutions” will have to be found to enable investment in the sectors of the future and promote socio-economic convergence, said Mr Costa. In his view, “the European Union’s budgetary architecture and policies will have to evolve”, in particular to make defence one of the drivers of future growth.
To see Mr Costa’s speech: https://aeur.eu/f/exl (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)