The von der Leyen II Commission has articulated its programme around seven new priorities, which have been redefined and reorganised compared to six priorities of the previous mandate. For example, the European Green Deal, the ‘number one’ initiative during the first mandate, does not exist as such anymore, and measures pertaining to this objective are now spread over several priorities. Given the geopolitical shifts of the past few years, defence and security have been propelled to a new second priority: ‘A new era for European defence and security’. The former second (digital) and third (economy) policy areas now largely fall under the new first priority: ‘A new plan for Europe’s sustainable prosperity and competitiveness’.
To map the Commission’s commitments, the European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS) has monitored the announcements made in three major political speeches to Parliament’s plenary, together with their supporting documents: the political guidelines, delivered on 17 July 2024; the presentation of the College of Commissioners and its programme, on 27 November 2024; and the Commission’s 2025 work programme, on 11 February 2025.
This assessment follows the Commission’s initiatives on legislative, budgetary and external matters. Legislation makes up a substantial part of the initiatives monitored here, with proposals for new directives and regulations but also a number of omnibus texts (see Priority 1) that aim to revise provisions set out in (mostly) recently adopted legislation, by postponing application dates or reducing administrative requirements.
In the area of budgetary matters, the next seven-year budget (the multiannual financial framework, or MFF) receives special attention in this publication. While the 2020-2027 MFF is still applicable for the next two years, the 2028-2034 MFF will impact all priorities later in the mandate since it will define the financial means allocated to the respective policies. With a first package of proposals adopted on 16 July 2025 and a second expected in early September, the MFF will be high on the agenda for some time to come, with interinstitutional negotiations just starting (see Priority 7 below).
It is worth noting that, at this early point in the tenth legislative term, a substantial part of the initiatives monitored in this publication were not tabled by the von der Leyen II Commission but are the continuation of work from the ninth term carried over to the tenth (see the previous issue in this series under the References section).
The first priority, at this stage of the mandate, in both ranking and in number of initiatives, is prosperity and competitiveness. This comes as no surprise given the prominence of this objective on the EU political agenda, especially since the Letta and Draghi reports requested by von der Leyen and published in April and September 2024 respectively. Almost half of the initiatives covered in this assessment fall under this priority, including most of the 16 initiatives adopted by the Commission in these first nine months. Defence and security (Priority 2) comes next, followed by Supporting people, strengthening our societies and our social model (Priority 3), then A global Europe: Leveraging our power and partnerships (Priority 6), and Sustaining our quality of life: Food security, water and nature (Priority 4).
This analysis covers all seven of the Commission’s priorities. The infographic (see Figure 1) illustrates the degree of progress numerically – both overall and by priority, while the two-page commentary on each priority focuses on the major themes and developments in that area. EPRS will publish new issues in this series twice a year, in spring and ahead of the annual State of the Union address, throughout the von der Leyen II Commission’s mandate. The series continues those of similar publications covering the work of the first von der Leyen Commission and the previous Commission under Jean-Claude Juncker.
For more information on how the von der Leyen II Commission’s agenda is progressing, readers are invited to consult the proposal-by-proposal assessment on the European Parliament’s Legislative Train Schedule website, developed and regularly updated by EPRS.
Read the complete in-depth analysis on ‘The policy priorities of the von der Leyen II Commission: State of play ahead of the 2025 State of the Union address‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.
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