President of the European Commission announced that he will present, next week and after a slight delay, the “new Competitiveness Compass”, to defend European values
The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, will present a strategy next week to make the EU economy more competitive, arguing that there is work to be done through “tough geostrategic competition”.
“We have work to do here at home, and if we want to protect our interests and defend our values, we also have to be economically strong. Europe has all the instruments to successfully play its role in the balance of powers”, said Ursula von der Leyen, speaking at the plenary session of the European Parliament, in the French city of Strasbourg.
Two days after the inauguration of the new American president, Donald Trump, and when the EU fears the economic and commercial impacts of this new administration, the leader of the community executive pointed to the first three weeks of 2025 as “a glimpse of the change that is coming to politics worldwide.”
“We have entered a new era of tough geostrategic competition, we are dealing with powers of continental dimension and they engage with each other based mainly on interests. This new dynamic will increasingly dominate relations between global actors and the rules of the game are changing. We, in Europe, may not like this new reality, but we have to deal with it”, said Ursula von der Leyen.
To defend European values, the official announced that she will present, next week and after a slight delay, the “new Competitiveness Compass”, a strategy to make the community economy more competitive compared to competitors such as the United States and China and which will be “ the north star of the new Commission and will guide our work over the next five years”.
“We have established three objectives: first, to reduce the innovation gap in relation to our competitors; second, a common roadmap for decarbonization and competitiveness; and thirdly, reinforce our economic resilience and security,” said Ursula von der Leyen.
This intervention was made in what was the first debate in the plenary of the European Parliament by the new president of the European Council, António Costa, to whom the president of the European Commission thanked “for his excellent collaboration in the first weeks of his mandate”, as both began functions in last December.
