Intervention by President von der Leyen at the panel discussion ‘Maintaining European unity and coherence in times of polycrisis' at the European Political Community Summit

President Christodoulides: Dear Ursula, looking at the current very challenging geopolitical situation, what do you see as Europe's main responsibility in the years ahead, also taking into account what you referred to on a number of cases, and where I fully agree, as ‘Europe's independent moment'?

President von der Leyen: First of all, thank you very much, Nikol Pashinyan, for being such a fantastic host. And indeed, the speakers of the opening of the plenary and you, Nikos Christodoulides. In your question, you described the turmoil the world is in. I will not linger on that. But during these last years, since we have the EPC actually, during the last four years, if there is anything we have learnt, then it is how vulnerable we are when we have overdependencies. And it was a painful process to learn about these overdependencies. I want to mention three.

The first one is the overdependency on imported fossil fuels. Energy has always been a stumbling block in the Internal Market of the European Union. But now, with the crisis, the conflict in the Middle East, it has really become a choke hold for us. And this overdependency and the volatility of the global prices of energy is painfully hurting our competitiveness. But we have assets. That is also important. We have assets in the European Union: these are the energies that grow at home; it is the renewable energies – from wind and sun to hydropower to geothermal but also to biomass, you name it; and it is nuclear. And we have to build our energy reliance on these homegrown, cheaper and predictable energy sources that we do have. And for that, it is important that we electrify the European Union. I will not go into detail. But we have to be much more independent here.

The second point is of course security and defence. If there was an eye-opener over the last four years, it is the fact that we need to be able to stand up for ourselves. It is long overdue. This is the reason why we mobilise up to EUR 800 billion until 2030 to fill the gaps that we have in security and defence. It is of utmost importance that we are more independent in this area and that we are able to build a credible deterrence. Because the best prevention of potential military aggression is a credible deterrence. And this is a task where all of us here in the room must deliver; much more credible, stronger – together with Ukraine – and reliable security and defence.

And my third point is that European independence does not mean to be inward-looking, not at all. It is the opposite. It is about reaching out to like-minded partners. Because we also need stable, reliable supply chains with partners. And therefore, you have witnessed over the last years that we have very much intensified our network of free trade agreements with Latin America, with India, with Australia, and I will be travelling with António to Mexico. We have the biggest network of free trade agreements worldwide. And we should really cherish this.