10-ish takeaways from the State of the Union address (September 2025)

#SOTEU quick takeaways:

To my surprise, quite some positive points (with caveats):
- The strongest condemnations of the atrocities in Gaza/Palestine by a EU and German official I have heard to date (apart from Commissioner Ribera and the EU Officials for Peace and Justice). The words may come with concrete measures against the Israel state (including financial cuts, suspension of trade deal....). We will see what they propose in the end, and what European pro-Netanyahu governments allow the Commission to do, but it is finally something (small, very late, and not enough) in the right direction.
- Calls for massive invest in Europe's technology and digital sovereignty but trade unions claim this may just mean more free money to businesses
- Calls for clean tech and clean energy, support of Green and socially just transition
- Move fast on the circular economy
- Recognising housing crises as an imperative for Europe to act, with concrete measures on the table: Affordable Housing Plan
- Workers must be empowered and they will propose a quality jobs act.
- Call to eradicate poverty in Europe by 2050.
- Calls to support independent media

The negatives:
- Lots of talk to praise the de-regulatory agenda supported by business groups, which shows that the current trend is unstoppable unless critical mass derails all of these de-regulation Omnibus (one on digital laws is coming soon)
- Again very strong anti-migration rhetoric: "‘No time to lose’ on asylum and migration framework, deportations"
- An out of touch rant on protecting the (German) automotive industry disguising the speech as pro-European electric cars. No mention to revolutionise public transport instead, unless I missed it
- Of course, no change of course from the growth/market religion in these times of increasing climate emergency. Including the support for the 28th regime that trade unions reject.
- More mentions of "fight" than "peace", if my memory does not fail me

Image: Dato Parulava/POLITICO