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If every week is a very long time in politics, a 12 months can really feel like a number of eternities.
Ursula von der Leyen’s third State of the Union deal with strayed in each tone and content material from her earlier annual set-piece speeches, specializing in the battle in Ukraine and the power disaster it has created.
“They are saying that gentle shines brightest in the dead of night,” von der Leyen advised European Parliament members, highlighting the solidarity that particular person European residents had proven towards their Japanese neighbors.
However with practically two years in her time period, the Fee president ranged extensively onto different matters, too, together with defending democracy, the transition to a net-zero financial system, securing essential uncooked minerals and harmonizing tax guidelines for small companies.
She was additionally cautious to keep away from the gripes in earlier years that she paid too little consideration to European francophones. This 12 months’s deal with was scrupulously truthful to each German and French, with sections in each lasting the identical period of time (although the general speech was English-heavy).
POLITICO’s quantity crunchers have turned our consideration to analyzing von der Leyen’s script — and what her phrases inform us about her altering priorities.
With Ukraine to the fore, the tone of the speech was darker than in earlier years. The phrase “battle” alone was talked about 16 occasions. In comparison with final 12 months’s speech, von der Leyen had little time for different coverage areas similar to well being and tech, whereas the phrases across the problems with financial system, power and fossil assets featured prominently.
