Dear readers,

On September 13, President von der Leyen gave the last State of the Union speech of this mandate, entitled “Answering the call of history”.

The President’s speech underlined the continued importance of delivering on the European Green Deal, announcing new initiatives on Clean Transition Dialogues with industry and a European Wind Package, as well as a strategic dialogue on the future of agriculture. In addition, the Letter of Intent outlines initiatives on a 2040 Climate Target and Water Resilience. I am confident our science and knowledge will provide invaluable support to these initiatives.

President von der Leyen also underlined “the birth of a geopolitical Union” and that “we have started to make ourselves more independent in critical sectors”. Regarding China, she said that competition should be fair, but also insisted on the need to cooperate on topics where we can and have to work together. In short, her approach is to “de-risk, not decouple”. At the JRC we have been responding quickly to the new demands stemming from this increased emphasis on European economic security. Our work on raw materials is also significant – for example, we provide raw materials country profiles, giving essential background to the EU Raw Materials Partnerships.

On enlargement, President von der Leyen said that we cannot – and we should not - wait for Treaty changes to move ahead. The main new initiative here is the pre-enlargement policy reviews. JRC's capacity for integration as a horizontal science service will certainly play a role here.

On digital, President von der Leyen said that Europe has “set the path for the digital transition” and that we became “global pioneers in online rights”. JRC has a broad portfolio of activities in this area, including the work of the new European Centre for Algorithmic Transparency.

The economy and competitiveness was a common theme throughout the speech – for citizens, farmers, businesses including SMEs, and industry. President von der Leyen has asked for a report on the future of European competitiveness – and this is another development for us to follow. I was also happy to see the biotech and biomanufacturing initiative in the letter of intent, and this will be an important area for JRC in the years to come.

All in all, I am happy to see the strong alignment between the scientific evidence provided by the JRC and the priorities highlighted in this and last year’s State of the European Union speeches. You can dive into some more detailed examples in the articles below.

Happy reading,

Stephen Quest

JRC Director-General