The President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, May 27, 2020. -

Kenzo TRIBOUILLARD / AFP

During her first speech on the state of the European Union on Wednesday, the President of the European Commission, the German Ursula von der Leyen, unveiled her battle plan.

On the program: a Europe more resilient in the face of health threats, climate change and the economic crisis.

The one who made the Green Deal a pillar of her mandate announced to MEPs that she intended to raise the objective of reducing the EU's greenhouse gas emissions for 2030, currently set at -40% by compared to the 1990 level, at -55%.

The EU, a pioneer in “green bonds”

This increase, which would have important consequences for the energy, transport or agricultural sectors, "is too important for some and insufficient for others", admitted Ursula von der Leyen.

But "our economy and our industry can cope with it," she said.

The objective is part of the larger project to make Europe the first carbon neutral continent by 2050, that is to say capable of balancing greenhouse gas emissions and their absorption.

In this spirit, the European recovery plan of 750 billion euros on which the member states agreed in July to get out of the crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, will be financed at 30% by green bonds.

“We are breaking new ground in developing a strong EU standard for green bonds,” said the German.

Faced with the Covid, which provoked national responses in dispersed order and put European solidarity to the test, she called for a “European Health Union”, a sector which falls under the competence of each State.

“We will create an agency for advanced biomedical research and development at European level, as it exists in the United States,” she said.

Vaccine, Brexit and tensions in the Mediterranean

And in the face of fierce global competition for a vaccine, she warned that "vaccine nationalism puts lives at risk."

“We must ensure that European citizens and those around the world have access to it (…) None of us will be safe until we are all safe,” she continued.

On the Brexit front, as relations deteriorate with London, the Commission President has warned: the agreement sealing the UK's departure from the EU, signed in January, cannot be changed unilaterally.

"It is a question of law, of trust and of good faith", she affirmed, while the British Parliament has just approved a bill partly going back on the commitments made in the withdrawal agreement. , and that the prospects for an orderly exit from the United Kingdom diminish.

The end of the year marks the end of the transition period.

Ursula von der Leyen, who promised to head a “geopolitical” Commission, also warned Turkey against any attempt at “intimidation” in the gas conflict between it and Greece in the eastern Mediterranean.

“If we are geographically close, the distance between us seems to keep growing,” she said.

An action plan against racism, discrimination and homophobia

Tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean will be at the heart of a European summit on September 24 and 25, as will the situation in Belarus where the repression of opponents of President Lukashenko continues unabated.

Another highly sensitive issue for the EU: migration.

The fire in the Moria migrant camp, the largest in Europe, reminds us "painfully that Europe must act in unity", declared the head of the Commission, who is due to present a very reformed reform on 23 September. expected from its migration policy.

"If we step up our efforts (at European level), we expect all member states to step up their efforts as well," she said, in the face of past refusals from some Eastern European countries to host asylum seekers.

Ursula von der Leyen, finally announced that she would present "an action plan" against racism and "hate crimes, whether based on race, religion, gender or sexuality."

The “LGBTQ-free” zones that have been decreed in Poland are “humanity-free zones” that “have no place” in the EU, said the German, who also wants the parental rights of couples in the country. same sex recognized in one Member State is recognized in all.

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