The Global Gateway Forum: Change through connection and resilience

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has been promoting the concept of a “geopolitical Commission” since her appointment in late 2019. Since then, successive crises—the Covid-19 pandemic, the ever-worsening climate crisis, and the war in Ukraine—have tested the Commission’s intention to turn the concept into practice. This is particularly evident in the field of energy politics following Russia’s attack on Ukraine. When the war started, Russia was the EU’s largest energy supplier. The EU’s desire to end its energy dependency on Russia called for “geopolitical actorness,” notably swift political and diplomatic initiatives to find alternative suppliers considering the rapidly changing geopolitical circumstances. To what extent and how did this occur? Did the Commission achieve its goal of becoming a geopolitical actor in the field of energy politics? What does geopolitical actorness imply for the EU’s energy policy and low-carbon transition? The article addresses these questions through an analysis of policy documents published by the von der Leyen Commission between 2019–2023, including the communications on the European Green Deal and Critical Raw Materials Resilience, the EU Hydrogen Strategy, the Global Gateway, the REPowerEU Plan, the External Energy Strategy, the Solar Energy Strategy, and the Green Deal Industrial Plan. The article argues that EU policy priorities progressively shifted from a focus on broad multilateral cooperation and open strategic autonomy to more narrowly defined strategic partnerships with “like-minded” Western and neighbouring countries. The 2022 war in Ukraine was a strong catalyst for this shift.

SCRREEN project gathers more than 50 European initiatives, associations, organisations or independent experts working on Critical Raw Materials (CRM) into a long lasting Network including stakeholders, public authorities and civil society representatives. SCRREEN contributes to improve the CRM strategy in Europe by (i) mapping primary and secondary resources (ii) estimating the expected demand of various CRMs and identifying the major trends, (iii) providing policy and technology recommendations for actions improving production and substitution of CRMs, (iv) addressing specific waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) and End-of-Life (EoL) products issues related to their mapping and treatment standardization, and (v) identifying the knowledge gained over the last years and easing the access to these data. In the last months, SCRREEN worked at providing stakeholders with a comprehensive analysis of the current use of CRMs, the mapping of potential primary and secondary resources, an identification of the key technologies used for their production, CRM substitution profiles, an analysis of relevant business for Europe in the field, and an identification of standards, policies and regulatory frameworks concerning CRMs. SCRREEN will also provide guidance for improving the CRM market and policy in Europe.

The current paper consists of thought exercise that aims at challenging the quasi-universal assumption that only those opposing the multidimensional integration project underlying the construction and expansion of the European Union are populists. Analyzing the European Commission’s president - Ursula von der Leyen - inaugural speech against the backdrop of Ernesto Laclau “On populist reason”, this paper unveils traces of populism in the EU actions and discourse, only to confirm populism as a logic inherent to the political, rather than an ideology per se.

In recent years, Kalaallit Nunaat, as Greenland is known in Kalaallisut (Greenlandic), has come under ever intensifying scrutiny — featuring in debates about geopolitics, climate change and natural resources. As US interest in the island continues, the EU is now stepping into the fray, with Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, poised to visit Greenland and the wider Arctic region in March.News reports are bolstered by images of Greenland’s colourful settlements, its icebergs and fjords. This attention builds on a long history. For over a century, Greenland and Greenlandic culture have attracted international filmmakers, particularly from Denmark, which began colonising the island in 1721. The country has functioned as a powerful visual and narrative resource in global screen culture. And yet, for international audiences, knowledge of Greenlandic society itself often stops at ice and strategy; Greenlandic culture itself remains unfamiliar...

Child death in Germany sparks health-policy review

This chapter examines Ursula von der Leyen’s mediative-institutional leadership. It focuses on von der Leyen’s management of the College of Commissioners during her first mandate (2019–2024). The chapter tests rival hypotheses—one from the literature on the Commission’s institutional development, the other from the literature on gender and meetings. Using natural language processing to analyze meeting agendas and minutes from the Prodi Commission (1999–2004) forward, the study’s findings reveal a mixed picture. Von der Leyen’s College meetings have involved stereotypically feminine (cooperative) and stereotypically masculine (assertive) elements, resulting in a “combined leadership style” (Müller and Tömmel 2022). In some respects, her College of Commissioners has been more collective and collegial than its predecessors. But it has also featured hierarchical elements. The findings highlight von der Leyen’s role as a critical actor in developing the College’s modus operandi, balancing increased presidential authority with enhanced participation from fellow commissioners.

Unprecedented crises marked von der Leyen’s first term as Commission president. Amid these extraordinary circumstances, she steered an exceptionally ambitious political agenda, pushing European integration into new territory. Simultaneously, she demanded a new vision of “A Union of Equality,” fostering (gender) equality in the European Commission and EU policy-making with unprecedented force. This chapter analyzes von der Leyen’s agenda-setting, with a dual focus on her six priorities and the “Union of Equality” during (1) the COVID-19 pandemic and (2) the Russian war against Ukraine. Additionally, taking the example of the Financial Times, the chapter examines the media’s attention allocation to the presidents’ political agenda and equality topics. The chapter highlights that von der Leyen provided proactive agenda-setting amid unprecedented times. Yet, while she addressed (gender) equality with new urgency, it remained largely marginalized from her other agenda priorities, reinforcing the precariousness of the focus on (gender) equality topics.

This article examines geoeconomic leadership as a narrative of the EU foreign policy towards different countries. The article analyses the European discourse of leadership, which is associated with sovereignty/autonomy as the management of interdependence. The ongoing debate has not yet reached a consensus on its exact objectives and scope. However, it describes systemic pressures and competing interests of the EU Member States as the main variables in the leadership narrative in the EU political system. The EU’s Global Gateway strategy aims to improve ties with countries around the world by adopting a pragmatic approach to sectoral cooperation. The article criticizes the Global Gateway strategy as a new approach, but raises concerns about its viability in the Eurasian space. It is evident that the EU seeks to compete with China’s Belt and Road Initiative and other influential players in both the regional and global arenas in order to regain its global position. However, the Global Gateway strategy appears to reflect the evolving discourse around EU sovereignty at the national level. The article provides a comprehensive overview of the Global Gateway strategy in a broader macro-regional context, with a particular focus on the challenges and inconsistencies between the immediate and long-term objectives of EU foreign policy.

The Role of Chinese Financial Institutions in Promoting Sustainable Investment Under the One Belt One Road Initiative

The climate policy of the European Union became the key priority for the European Commission, headed by Ursula von der Leyen. This article analyses both its internal and external dimensions, while concentrating on the finances of the European Green Deal, the multiyear strategy for the EU socio-economic development. The methods are demonstrated which the EC employs to mobilize public and private capital for the realization of the green transit, including the financial instruments designed to assist businesses when investing in clean energy and industry. The notion of ‘sustainable’ investment is specified that Brussels is guided by when working out its financial decisions. The EU taxonomy, a green classification system that translates the EU's climate and environmental objectives into criteria for specific economic activities for investment purposes, is presented. The research reveals how the market and regulatory powers of the EU are brought to bear in rolling out its controversial Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism. By means of this transnational taxation Brussels hopes to avoid carbon leakage: the situation that allegedly may occur if European carbon-intensive businesses were to transfer production to other jurisdictions with laxer emission constraints. Yet a lack of flexibility in applying the CBAM is causing concern in many countries of the world, including the USA, Brazil, South Africa and China. In EU-Russia relations in particular, it risks increasing political tensions and/or causing trade retaliation due to low levels of mutual trust. Russia developing energy transition plans of her own, her efforts in this respect are now visibly stimulated by the declared EU intention to externalize its regulatory practices. At the same time, Moscow perceives this externalization as an imposition which is most unwelcome and hurts Russia disproportionally. Presumably, the European Union could put more effort in negotiating and developing this latest European initiative with international partners to win new willing ears for it.

As part of the EU Green Deal initiative in 2019, the EU Commission decided to develop a proposal to include emissions from shipping in the EU emissions trading system. This occurred only one year after the Commission had heralded the emissions reduction agreement negotiated in the International Maritime Organization (IMO) as a significant step forward—thereby signalling support for the IMO process. We apply a multi-level reinforcement perspective to explain this apparent policy volte-face, resulting in a Commission proposal in July 2021 which is now moving through institutions in the EU. Such a perspective notes the “friendly” competition for leadership among central actors at various levels in the EU—particularly the Commission, the European Parliament, and leading member states. We find, first, that the inclusion of shipping is in line with the broadening ambitions of the Commission since the start of the emissions trading system. Second, until 2019, the Parliament carried the regulatory torch. A turning point in the policymaking process was the inclusion of the shipping issue in Ursula von der Leyen’s programme for getting accepted by the Parliament and elected as Commission leader in 2019. From then on, the Commission again took the lead. Third, despite the 2018 IMO agreement, progress there was deemed slow, which further motivated EU policymakers to act unilaterally.

The Covid-19 pandemic was a catalyst for the growing systemic crisis of the EU and at the same time gave the Union an impetus towards its qualitatively new development in favor of deeper integration, expressed in a change in the financial and economic space of the EU. Realizing the risks of their internal destabilization, the EU core countries decided to sacrifice the surplus from their economic successes through the socialization of debts in order to save the most affected peripheral Member States to preserve both the integration union and the European idea itself. The purpose of this article is to explain the difficulty of making this decision and its compromise nature, as well as to clarify the likely consequences and suggest options for the further development of the situation. The authors first compare the pros and cons of debt socialization. Then the variables are compared: the Spanish proposal, the Franco-German initiative and the negotiating platform on the "next generation EU" by Ursula von der Leyen with the fundamental points of the European Council compromise decision. It also provides answers to questions about the volume, conditions, mechanism, and control over the expenditure of the financial assistance provided. The breakthrough steps taken by the Member States towards finding an optimal solution are analyzed. The result of the study is a balanced conclusion about the ambiguous nature of the decision adopted by the EU but having a historical significance and opening prospects for the further deepening of integration processes. This is facilitated by reaching an agreement on the need to bring the core of the EU closer to the periphery through the socialization of debts, as well as the importance of structural reforms that would ensure the construction of a harmonious economy of the future based on a new technological platform and formulated in a breakthrough plan called the next generation EU. Success is not guaranteed, as it depends on the behavior of all Member States, but it is real.

This chapter scrutinises narrator engagement, an understudied narrative aspect, in the parliamentary speeches of two emblematic EU leaders: Ursula von der Leyen and Emmanuel Macron. To that end, it proposes a collaborative method that gathers the hermeneutical expertise of political scientists and applied linguists for the analysis of both content and form. Findings disclose rhetorical and lexical differences in the discourses of the two leaders that constitute distinctive persuasive strategies and profile their narrative idiolects.

South Africa unveils new 5-year HIV/AIDS plan

Listen to this article As India welcomed European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen for Republic Day, attention was on the India–EU Free Trade Agreement (FTA), which both von der Leyen and India’s Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal described as the ‘mother of all deals’. In a post tariff world, the FTA acts as a touchstone […]