16 / 09 / 2020
EC President addressed the State of the Union 2020
On 16 September 2020, the European Commission (EC) President Ursula von der Leyen addressed her first State of the Union 2020 at the European Parliament (EP) Plenary, pledging that the EC would drive a sustainable and transformational recovery, aiming at giving Europe a global platform to lead economically, environmentally and geopolitically. Among other topics, the EC President announced:- NextGenerationEU: 30% of this €750bn budget will be raised through green bonds, 20% on digital (especially in data, AI and infrastructure) and 37% will be spent directly on European Green Deal objectives, including ‘lighthouse’ European projects (hydrogen, green building and €1 million electric charging points);
- Single Market: EC’s industrial strategy will be updated in the first half of 2021 and EC’s competition framework will be adapted;
- Digitalisation: EC proposed a new regulation for the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking to maintain and advance Europe’s leading role in supercomputing and quantum computing;
- EU Green Deal: EC proposed to increase the 2030 target for emission reduction to at least 55%;
- Letter of Intent: to EP President David Sassoli and to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, marking the start of the interinstitutional dialogue on the key new priorities and main initiatives for 2021 (including Health, European Green Deal, Single Market and Digital Decade).
