What to expect from Ursula von der Leyen's second presidency

Ursula von der Leyen has received the final green light to begin another five-year mandate as president of the European Commission, set to begin on 1 December.

“We’re eager to start,” the president said after the European Parliament approved her new College of Commissioners. “It’s critical because time is pressing.”

Her first term in Brussels saw the bloc navigate painful crises of unprecedented scale, which forced her executive to come up – often, in a rush – with transformative proposals that would have otherwise been unthinkable. Von der Leyen’s hands-on approach greatly improved her political profile and earned her admirers and detractors alike.

Her new turn at the Commission’s top is poised to deal with the shockwaves of those same crises while coping with new formidable challenges.

Here’s what to expect from Ursula von der Leyen’s second presidency.

Wartime management

War defined von der Leyen’s first presidency and will also define her second.

Her new mandate begins at a critical time for Ukraine, with Russian troops making substantial gains on the ground and an estimated 11,000 North Korean soldiers joining the fight in Kursk, the region that Kyiv has partially occupied. Meanwhile, China continues to ignore the EU’s pleas and supply Moscow with the advanced technology that Western sanctions have heavily restricted.

Von der Leyen, who has repeatedly vowed to stand with Ukraine for “as long as it takes,” will have to guarantee military, financial and humanitarian aid to the war-torn nation keeps flowing uninterruptedly, even after Donald Trump’s comeback. Tightening sanctions on the Kremlin and closing loopholes will also be high on her to-do list.

Early this year, member states adopted a Commission proposal to establish a €50 billion plan that allows Brussels to provide Ukraine with financial assistance until 2027. Last month, they approved a groundbreaking plan enabling G7 allies to issue a loan of €45 billion ($50 billion) using Russia’s frozen assets as collateral.

While both tools inject much-needed predictability, they might prove insufficient if the war takes a turn for the worse and Ukraine’s budget woes deepen. Russia’s relentless destruction of power plants and civilian infrastructure is adding to the ballooning bill.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has expressed hope the war could end next year “through diplomatic means,” a process in which von der Leyen is likely to play a prominent role given Ukraine’s status as an EU candidate. These membership talks would enter uncharted territory if Russia retained the occupied territories in the East.

“The European Union is the closest partner of Ukraine. Ukraine is now a candidate country,” David McAllister, the MEP who chairs the European Parliament’s committee on foreign affairs, told Euronews. “This also means that, of course, the European Union will be heavily involved in the reconstruction of a peaceful and prosperous Ukraine.”

What to expect: tough questions and crucial decisions about Ukraine’s future.

The Trump tariffs

One of von der Leyen’s core ideological tenets is a strong belief in the transatlantic alliance. Her close ties with US President Joe Biden bear witness to this.

This belief will soon be put under severe strain when Donald Trump, the mercurial billionaire with an ardent distaste for the multilateral system, returns to the White House and makes good on his threat to slap sweeping tariffs on all foreign goods.

The US is the EU’s largest trading partner: last year, the EU exported €502 billion worth of goods and imported €344 billion, resulting in a €158 billion surplus. Trump resents this imbalance and says the bloc should pay a “big price” in return.

For the EU, the tariffs would come at the worst possible time: sluggish consumer demand, high energy prices, tight monetary policy, labour shortages and underwhelming investment in new tech have thrust the bloc into a dangerous spiral of industrial decline.

Exports are one of the few options companies have to cushion the blow and keep their operations afloat. If America’s huge market became suddenly rife with trade restrictions, the impact would be immediate and devastating. EU leaders have already floated the idea of making a deal with Trump, appealing to his businessman’s instincts. Von der Leyen has suggested ramping up purchases of American LNG for starters.

The Trump tariffs would coincide with worsening trade tensions with Beijing, which has reacted furiously to the bloc’s extra duties on Chinese electric vehicles. European pork, brandy and dairy exports are in the crossfire and more products might soon follow.

During von der Leyen’s first term, the Commission armed itself with new legal tools to protect its economic interests that will come in handy for her second mandate, says Bernd Lange, the MEP who chairs the Parliamnet’s committee on international trade.

“We have to deal with two trading partners, the United States and China, which are really practising some unfair methods. Mr Trump will set some tariffs. We have to sharpen our weapons against that and have some defence measures (ready),” Lange told Euronews.

“On China, we see some kind of hegemony regarding industrial policy with a lot of illegal subsidies. We have to react.”

What to expect: a defensive Commission, with an anxious eye on the White House.

From green to clean

Shortly after von der Leyen’s sudden arrival in 2019, she addressed the press to present her first landmark proposal: the European Green Deal, which she famously hailed as Europe’s “Man on the Moon” moment. What followed was a raft of far-reaching, ambitious proposals to steer the bloc towards climate neutrality by 2050.

But the big push came with a big price: a right-wing backlash that the farmers’ protests sent into overdrive. Since then, von der Leyen has tweaked her narrative to fit in with the new mainstream. The guidelines for her second term speak little of the Green Deal and more of “the Clean Industrial Deal,” expected to be unveiled in the first 100 days.

She also intends to convene a “strategic dialogue” on the future of Europe’s car industry, which is going through profound turmoil and cutting thousands of jobs.

Tellingly, none of the portfolios in her new College has the word “green” in their title, even if she stresses all climate commitments have to be respected.

Another “deal” that von der Leyen will be tasked with making a reality is the “New European Competitiveness Deal” that leaders recently endorsed in a bid to cure the EU’s economic stagnation, described by Mario Draghi as a “slow agony.”

It includes pledges to unlock the “full potential” of the single markets, unleash a “simplification revolution,” develop “disruptive technologies,” foster “strategic energy sovereignty” and build a “resource-efficient” economy, among other things. The Commission will be asked to translate this ambitious rhetoric into tangible proposals.

What to expect: a heavy focus on boosting economic growth and cutting red tape, coupled with a scramble to keep the Green Deal alive.

Controversial innovation

When the bloc completed in May its hard-fought reform to manage the arrival of asylum seekers, Brussels, perhaps too naively, thought it would be enough to lower the temperature of the conversation and focus minds on implementation.

It was wrong.

Soon after the overhaul was approved, an ever-larger group of member states came forward demanding “innovative solutions” to curb irregular migration. The lines began converging around untested, undetailed plans to move a share of asylum procedures from inside to outside EU territory. In other words: outsourcing.

Von der Leyen, a skillful reader of political winds, jumped on the bandwagon and opened the door to – at least explore – the idea of building detention camps in non-EU countries to transfer asylum seekers whose applications have been rejected. NGOs quickly blasted the project, warning it would fuel rampant violations of human rights.

The president has also promised new legislation to speed up deportations, revise the concept of “safe third countries,” crack down on instrumentalised migration and sign more EU-funded deals with neighbouring countries, following the Tunisia model.

“We have seen von der Leyen taking steps in the wrong direction,” says Juan Fernando López Aguilar, a socialist MEP with a long track record on migration policy.

“There is nothing in the EU legislation that allows member states to externalise the management of the external borders of the European Union on migration flows or asylum requests. On the contrary, it sets binding obligations.”

What to expect: controversial plans to curb irregular migration that will test the limits of European and international law.

Pandora’s box

Supporting Ukraine’s reconstruction, boosting defence capabilities, replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy, promoting cutting-edge technology, coping with commercial retaliation, building detention camps in faraway countries – none of this is cheap.

But where should the money come from?

Ursula von der Leyen will be the one to answer the be-all, end-all question when she opens Pandora’s box and presents her much-anticipated proposal for the next long-term budget (2028-2034), expected to arrive sometime before the summer break.

The budget will have to juggle traditional envelopes that some capitals zealously guard (the Common Agricultural Policy, cohesion funds) and strategic investments that other capitals want to prioritise (climate, innovation, research, defence), while taking into account external factors that are impossible to calculate (the war in Ukraine, humanitarian crises, natural disasters, migration flows, demographic changes).

The colossal list of expenses is set to bring back the explosive debate of joint debt, which Mario Draghi considers “indispensable” to address the plethora of challenges.

Von der Leyen, who fully embraced common borrowing to establish the €750 billion COVID recovery fund, has so far treaded carefully on the contentious matter, fearing a rebuke from frugal countries, like Germany and the Netherlands.

However, if the EU’s industrial decline persists, if Russian expansionism continues, if the climate crisis spirals, she might have no choice but to take a side in the debate.

What to expect: a fiery battle between member states, with growing calls to modernise the budget and make all EU funds conditional on the rule of law.