What lies ahead for the EU in 2025?

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By Manuel Müller

The election year is over and the new Commission has taken office. In 2025, the journey will continue.

In theory, the course of events is clear: After the 2024 European Parliament election and the appointment of the new European Commission, the EU is set to resume its work in 2025. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen (CDU/EPP) has promised to deliver more than half a dozen projects in the first hundred days of her second term. In the Council of Ministers, Poland will take over the presidency in the first half of the year, followed by Denmark in the second – certainly an improvement on the less than constructive Hungarian presidency in the second semester of 2024. But as the EU rolls up its sleeves to implement its plans, external events could easily dominate the agenda again this year.

Elections in Germany, Poland, Romania – and France?

Anyone expecting the European electoral calendar to relax in 2025 after the “super election year” of 2024 is likely to be disappointed. Citizens in several large member states will be called to the polls again in the new year. Germany will hold early federal elections on 23 February. Romania will hold a re-run of the presidential election, after the first round was annulled by the Constitutional Court last November due to massive foreign interference. Poland will elect a new president in May and Czechia a new parliament in the autumn – in both cases, the main choice will be between liberal-conservative and right-wing authoritarian forces.

This could be added to by France, which has been in a permanent political crisis since last summer’s snap elections. No one is currently able to predict how long the recently formed government led by François Bayrou (MoDem/EDP) will last. According to the French constitution, the National Assembly cannot be dissolved for twelve months after an election. This period ends in July 2025.

Other government crises that could lead to new elections are also taking place in Slovakia, in Bulgaria (which is heading for its eighth parliamentary election in four years) and possibly in Spain.

Geopolitical turbulence

But it is the change of government in the US that is likely to shake up the EU even more than the intra-European elections. With the start of President Donald Trump’s (Rep./IDU) second term in office, we can expect major turbulence in global politics.

This is especially true for Ukraine, whose continued support from the US is now in serious doubt. If Trump cuts off financial aid and arms supplies, the EU is unlikely to be able to fill the gap on its own. As a result, also the debate in Europe is increasingly focusing on ceasefire negotiations. Still, the European Council recently reaffirmed its goal of strengthening Ukraine enough to prevent it from falling by the wayside. Indirectly, the EU must also ensure that Russia does not see the outcome of the war as a success and feel emboldened to embark on further adventures in the coming years.

Meanwhile, in Georgia, the conflict between the pro-Russian government and the pro-European opposition continues to escalate following the allegedly rigged elections in October. In the Middle East, there are hopes of a ceasefire in Gaza; in Syria, the EU must take a position on the new government led by the HTS militia, which the UN officially still considers a terrorist organisation. With China, the EU continues its difficult balancing act between growing geopolitical mistrust and efforts to cooperate on global issues.

White Paper on European Defence

Given these geopolitical uncertainties, it is hardly surprising that both the Commission and the Polish Council presidency have identified security policy as a key issue for the coming months. One of the most important projects on von der Leyen’s 100-day agenda is the adoption of a “White Paper on the Future of European Defence”.

Among other things, it will look at redefining the relationship between the EU and NATO, increasing defence investment and dealing with new threats, such as cyber and hybrid attacks.

Protecting democracy and the rule of law

Protecting European democracies from manipulation and disinformation has also been high on the EU’s agenda, and not just since the allegedly Russian-funded Tiktok campaign in favour of the independent far-right candidate Călin Georgescu in the Romanian presidential elections at the end of November. The Commission’s focus on external interference is understandable, given the obviously unfriendly behaviour of the Russian government. If its approach is too narrow, however, there is a certain risk that the Commission might lose sight of the no less serious threat posed by authoritarian actors within the EU.

At least, there has been some progress in this respect recently at the European Court of Justice: In the infringement case against Hungary’s “anti-LGBTIQ* law”, the Commission and many member states argued for Article 2 TEU, which defines the EU’s values, to be treated as justiciable – an approach advocated on this blog already back in March 2013. If the judges follow this view in their decision, which is expected in summer 2025, it would become much easier for the Commission to take action before the ECJ against member state governments that violate the principles of democracy and the rule of law.

Rule of law crisis in asylum policy

Meanwhile, a very different kind of rule of law crisis is looming in the area of border protection and asylum policy, which has also been an ongoing issue in the EU for a good decade, and is unlikely to diminish in importance as geopolitical uncertainties increase. Under pressure from far-right parties, the EU has increasingly adopted a stance that focuses on limiting irregular migration. For the coming year, the main item on the agenda should have been the implementation of the Migration and Asylum Pact, which was adopted in 2024 and will apply from June 2026.

However, several member states have already pushed ahead with further measures. In the name of combating “weaponised migration”, countries such as Finland and Poland have enacted so-called “pushback laws”, which allow border guards to turn people back without examining a possible asylum claim. In doing so, they are undermining protection standards guaranteed under international and European law, but the massive criticism from constitutional lawyers has had no effect so far.

Most recently, the Commission has also made it clear that it does not intend to pursue infringement proceedings against the member states that have enacted restrictions on the right to asylum. Similar to its handling of the permanent border controls in the Schengen area introduced by countries such as Germany and Austria, the Commission is not living up to its role as “guardian of the treaties” – apparently for reasons of political expediency. The only hope left for those affected is to find individual access to the European court system so that the ECJ will be able to deal with the pushback laws in a preliminary ruling procedure. Until then, the lawlessness law in European asylum policy will continue to gnaw away at the foundations of the European constitutional order.

Deals and visions for industry and agriculture

Let’s move on to the economy, which is of course always at the centre of EU politics. At the heart of the debates in Brussels are reforms of the European single market, for which two reports by Enrico Letta and Mario Draghi have made comprehensive proposals in 2024. Ursula von der Leyen’s 100-day promises also include a new “Clean Industrial Deal” to help European companies make the transition to a low-carbon economy, and a “Vision for Agriculture and Food” to strengthen the competitiveness of European agriculture (apparently in response to the 2024 farmers’ protests).

There are two main approaches in this area: One is to cut red tape to reduce the burden on business. However, such deregulation often carries the risk of lowering standards and is therefore likely to be viewed with suspicion by climate activists. The other approach will be to cushion the hardships of the low-carbon transition for industry and agriculture with more public investment. But this, of course, requires money.

Multiannual financial framework: Negotiations begin

The EU’s spending limits are set in advance for long periods of time, usually seven years. Because a lot of money is at stake and each member state has a veto, negotiations on this “multiannual financial framework” (or “MFF” in EU parlance) are always a multiannual exercise in themselves. Although the current framework runs until 2027, the Commission will make its first proposal for the subsequent period already in the summer of 2025.

In the MFF debate, there are a number of contentious issues that are raised almost ritually each time: How high will the overall budget be? Will the budget continue to be financed mainly by contributions from member states, or will more genuine EU taxes be introduced? How much money will go into redistribution mechanisms such as the agricultural and regional funds, and how much will be invested in “issues of the future”?

EU bonds for defence investments?

This time, however, there are also some new key questions. First, von der Leyen wants to change the structure of the MFF, replacing the thematic funds and programmes by a country-focused approach. What member states are allowed to spend EU money on would then be negotiated between the individual governments and the EU. The idea is reminiscent of similar approaches that were controversially discussed during the euro crisis, or of the national recovery and resilience plans after the Covid-19 pandemic. In any case, the details of the Commission’s plans are still quite unclear.

Second, there is also the question of whether part of the EU budget should be debt-financed in future – similar to the NextGenerationEU recovery fund in the 2021-27 MFF. At a Council meeting in April, the Polish presidency wants to discuss a bond-financed EU defence fund that could be used for the planned increase in defence spending. However, some governments, in particular Germany, are still sceptical.

Enlargement and reform: “policy reviews” by the Commission

And what about the institutional reform of the EU? At the end of 2023, the European Parliament famously presented proposals for amending the EU treaties and called on the European Council to “immediately” convene a Convention under Article 48 TEU to deal with the matter. The European Council has so far ignored this request and will probably continue to do so in 2025.

Nevertheless, the heads of state and government adopted a “roadmap for future work on internal reforms” in June 2024. According to it, the Commission is going to present “pre-enlargement policy reviews” in spring 2025, which will assess what internal reforms are necessary for EU enlargement to be successful. These reviews are another thing von der Leyen wants to take care of within the first hundred days of her term of office.

The reviews are also meant to cover areas like the protection of the rule of law and EU governance. So far, however, both the European Council and the Commission president have mainly spoken of reforms to individual policy areas (such as the internal market or cohesion policy), while remaining very vague on all institutional issues. It therefore remains to be seen how ambitious the reviews will really be in the end.

The last window of opportunity in this decade

What is clear, however, is that the period between the German federal elections in 2025 and the French presidential elections in 2027 is likely to be the last window of opportunity to make significant progress on integration in this decade. The fact that the new MFF will be negotiated in the same period should be seen as an opportunity: The more issues that are on the table at the same time in reform negotiations, the more likely it is that package deals can be reached on difficult points.

Still, it seems more realistic that the European Council will miss this window of opportunity and instead get bogged down in debates about minor reforms in the coming months. As a result, discussions about the EU’s inefficiency and its democratic deficit are likely to remain on the agenda. In the worst case, this could itself hamper the enlargement process if, after doing only the bare minimum of reforms, doubts arise in a few years’ time as to whether the EU is really ready to take in new members.

The longer the reform agenda stagnates, the more likely it is that “differentiated” solutions – a multi-tier Europe – will emerge in the coming years, potentially bringing new dynamism but also risks of disintegration. In this case too, the European Council should not let itself be driven by events, but should actively work with the Parliament and the Commission to develop a coherent approach. There are reasons to be intrigued, but also to be sceptical about whether the leaders will succeed (or even try).

But before all that, this blog will be taking its annual winter break until early January. Happy holidays and a prosperous new year to all readers!

Picture: Christmas decoration: Manuel Müller [all rights reserved].