{"id":207896,"date":"2025-09-14T14:55:18","date_gmt":"2025-09-14T14:55:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/?p=207896"},"modified":"2025-09-14T14:55:18","modified_gmt":"2025-09-14T14:55:18","slug":"ursula-von-der-leyen-promises-more-war-censorship-and-centralization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/ursula-von-der-leyen-promises-more-war-censorship-and-centralization\/","title":{"rendered":"Ursula von der Leyen promises more war, censorship and centralization"},"content":{"rendered":"

In her <\/em>2025 State of the Union address<\/em><\/a>, von der Leyen signalled her intention to continue pursuing the policies that have weakened Europe.<\/em><\/p>\n

Ursula von der Leyen’s 2025 State of the Union address offered few surprises. It was the usual mix of empty promises, technocratic jargon, and hypocritical moral posturing that has become her trademark. In other words: more of the same.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The speech, delivered in a familiar Orwellian tone, included words like freedom, peace, prosperity and independence \u2013 even though the EU continues to pursue policies that undermine all of this by promoting war and militarisation, cracking down on freedom of expression, sabotaging the European economy with self-destructive energy and trade policies and further subordinating the continent to Washington’s strategic agenda.<\/p>\n

As expected, von der Leyen opened with Russia \u2013 Brussels’ main issue. \u201cEurope is in a fight. A fight for a continent that is whole and at peace……. a fight for our future<\/em>,\u201d she declared, announcing a new \u201cEuropean Defence Semester<\/em>\u201d and a \u201cclear roadmap<\/em>\u201d for defence readiness through 2030, while emphasizing the bloc’s unwavering commitment to NATO. She announced that Europeans should prepare for a future characterized by permanent militarization, including a \u201cdrone wall<\/em>\u201d along the EU’s eastern flank and real-time space surveillance so that \u201cno troop movement goes unnoticed<\/em>.\u201d Furthermore, she promised a \u201cQualitative Military Edge<\/em>\u201d program for Ukraine and a \u201cdrone alliance<\/em>\u201d with Kyiv, financed by a controversial \u201creparations loan<\/em>\u201d backed by profits from frozen Russian assets.<\/p>\n

Von der Leyen then turned to Israel and Gaza. Despite overwhelming evidence of atrocities \u2013 including what leading humanitarian institutions and genocide experts have called genocide<\/em> \u2013 the EU has not suspended any trade or cooperation agreements with Israel, let alone imposed sanctions. The contrast with its response to Russia’s Special Operation in Ukraine could not be starker.<\/p>\n

To salvage her credibility, von der Leyen announced that the Commission would \u201cput our bilateral support for Israel on hold<\/em>\u201d and proposed sanctions against \u201cextremist ministers and violent settlers<\/em>,\u201d along with a partial suspension of the Association Agreement<\/em>. However, since only minor actors were targeted and the measures require unanimous approval by member states \u2013 a virtually impossible condition \u2013 this was little more than a fig leaf to protect her declared firm alliance with Israel.<\/p>\n

The enlargement agenda was once again in the spotlight. \u201cUkraine, Moldova, the Western Balkans \u2013 their future lies in our Union<\/em>,\u201d she declared, underscoring the EU’s relentless expansionist drive.<\/p>\n

On the economic front, the speech became a pipe dream. Von der Leyen promised a Scaleup Europe Fund<\/em> for startups, AI gigafactories, a Battery Booster Package<\/em>, and an Industrial Accelerator Act<\/em> \u2013 all with the goal, she said, of making the EU a leader in technology and AI. Last year’s speech was full of similar promises \u2013 hardly any of which have come true, as Politico<\/em> noted.<\/p>\n

Addressing one of the main problems burdening both European industry and households \u2013 high energy prices \u2013 von der Leyen made the astonishing claim that these were caused by \u201cdependence on Russian fossil fuels<\/em>\u201d rather than the EU’s own decision to cut itself off from affordable Russian gas and replace it with far more expensive American LNG. She further compounded this distortion by claiming that \u201cEurope is on the path to energy independence<\/em>,\u201d when in reality, the continent has simply traded proximity for distance, becoming even more dependent on imports from distant suppliers exposed to volatile global markets.<\/p>\n

Von der Leyen drew audible laughter when she declared that \u201cthe future of cars and the cars of the future must be made in Europe<\/em>\u201d \u2013 a hollow slogan that sounded absurd given the deep crisis facing the European auto industry, not least due to the stifling EU regulations. She even defended the recent EU-US trade deal \u2013 widely hailed as a capitulation \u2013 as \u201cthe best possible deal there is<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

The speech reached its surreal climax when she presented a \u201cEuropean strategy to combat poverty<\/em>\u201d that would help \u201celiminate poverty by 2050<\/em>\u201d \u2013 even though poverty rates in the EU have risen since she took office in 2019, not least due to sanctions and an energy policy championed by Brussels itself.<\/p>\n

But the most ominous part of von der Leyen’s speech came when she spoke of \u201cnew tools<\/em>\u201d to enforce the rule of law and combat \u201cinformation manipulation<\/em>\u201d and \u201cdisinformation<\/em>.\u201d To this end, she reiterated the need for a \u201cEuropean Democracy Shield<\/em>\u201d and a \u201cEuropean Centre for Democratic Resilience<\/em>\u201d to counter supposedly dangerous propaganda. In doing so, she predicted further encroachments on freedom of expression and the criminalization of dissent, and announced further EU-sponsored propaganda campaigns under the banner of \u201csupporting independent journalism and media literacy<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ultimately, von der Leyen’s 2025 State of the Union report was less a roadmap for Europe’s future than a catalogue of failures dressed up as triumphs. As usual, she blamed Europe’s problems on external enemies \u2013 Russia, China, disinformation \u2013 while ignoring the real problem: the EU’s own supranational model, with its rigid political and economic constraints. By calling for even more centralization, including the abolition of unanimity in key policy areas, von der Leyen signalled her intention to double down on the very policies that have weakened Europe. What she offered was not renewal, but more of the same \u2013 an increasingly militarized, dependent, and authoritarian Union.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

yogaesoteric
\nSeptember 14, 2025<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In her 2025 State of the Union address, von der Leyen signalled her intention to continue pursuing the policies that have weakened Europe. Ursula von der Leyen’s 2025 State of the Union address offered few surprises. It was the usual mix of empty promises, technocratic jargon, and hypocritical moral posturing that has become her trademark. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1087],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-207896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-censored-news-politics-5127-en-censored-sensational-news-3480-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207896"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207896\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":207900,"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207896\/revisions\/207900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}