Diplomatique Expert recommends the following reports from different media on how the #SOTEU was reported.
Different views and perspectives.
Eu Observer
Juncker, the ‘sad and wiser’ man of Europe
The image was symbolic. Jean-Claude Juncker back to his seat after his State of the Union speech, quickly bowing in response to polite standing applause and then sitting with a grave, bewildered face. The address to the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Wednesday (12 September) was “surely not my last speech”, the European Commission president noted. But it was his last “SOTEU” before the end of his term next year, and one could not help feeling it sounded like a farewell speech, an ‘avant-la-lettre’ political testament.
Jean-Claude Juncker: EU must close ‘gap between East and West’
In his final State of the EU speech, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker urged the bloc to take on a stronger role in the World. DW’s Max Hofmann asked him how realistic that goal is in a divided Europe.
Juncker vows to turn euro into reserve currency to rival US dollar
Jean-Claude Juncker has vowed to turn the euro into a global reserve currency that could rival the dollar as part of the EU’s drive to reduce its financial dependence on the US. In his last “State of the Union” speech to MEPs in Strasbourg on Wednesday, the president of the European Commission said it was an “aberration” that the EU paid for more than 80 per cent of its energy imports in US dollars despite only 2 per cent of imports coming from the US. Most of the dollar-denominated imports are from Russia and the Gulf states.
Strain shows as Juncker delivers final State of the Union
Delivering a rambling, often disjointed and disorganized State of the Union speech, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker at times gripped the lectern in the Parliament hemicycle in Strasbourg as if he was holding on for dear life.
Juncker scorns Chequers proposals in state of union speech
Jean-Claude Juncker has ruled out the central plank of Theresa May’s Chequers proposals and scorned the British government’s plans to build a rival to the EU’s Galileo satellite project, in a downcast reading of the Brexit negotiations in his annual state of the union speech.
The European commission president said Brussels would not let the UK enjoy the benefits of an internal market on goods, and that if negotiators failed to find an agreement on a deal it would not be the fault of the commission.
The European Union should offer a free trade agreement to the whole of the African continent and a new investment alliance, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said in a keynote speech on Wednesday.
Among various proposals for EU action to bolster prosperity in the world’s poorest continent and Europe’s close neighbour, the Commission chief called for a more equal partnership and investment rather than aid, as Europeans look for ways to stem an economic divide driving Africans to try to migrate northward.
