- Europe Greens: Ska Keller on the verge of stepping down
- Anton Hofreiter: ‘The crisis makes pragmatists of us all’
- Media Freedom Act: Can the Commission preserve freedom of the media?
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The #SOTEU hashtag will be trending on Twitter today, at least in the EU bubble. In her State of the (European) Union address, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will present her agenda for the coming months, dressed up in euphonious, sometimes pathetic words. We gave you a taste of her speech in the European Parliament here. In tomorrow’s edition, we will go into more detail.
For the Greens, Ska Keller will respond to von der Leyen’s speech. For six years, she has led the group together with the Belgian Philippe Lamberts, and was also the top candidate in the European elections. Probably not for much longer, as Markus Grabitz has learned: In the party, it is expected that the politician will announce her retirement from the front row of the European Greens in the next few weeks.
More from the Greens, this time from the Bundestag: Anton Hofreiter has been chairman of the Europe Committee since December. In an interview with Falk Steiner and me, the former parliamentary group leader talks about the importance of nuclear power plants for European solidarity, a new edition of the EU recovery fund and the work of Ursula von der Leyen.
The Commission President was zealous to keep the tension high before her speech: All legislative proposals adopted by the Commission yesterday remained under lock and key. Nevertheless, Corinna Visser has already taken a closer look at the draft European Media Freedom Act.
I wish you an interesting read and a nice day!
Till Hoppe
Feature
Europe Greens: Ska Keller on the verge of stepping down
Ska Keller has been the most important Green politician at EU level since 2016. Together with Belgian Philippe Lamberts (59), she has led the group for six years. She was the top candidate for the European Greens in 2019 and also ran for first place for the German Greens in the same year. In the European Parliament, she also ran to become parliamentary president in 2019. She gave an engaging speech but could not prevail against David Sassoli, the Socialist candidate. Now she is giving up.
The politician is expected to announce her retirement from the front row of the European Greens in the coming weeks. She will unlikely run again for a seat in the European Parliament. She herself is shrouding herself in silence. Multiple requests from Europe.Table to comment on the reports went unanswered by Keller.
The disappointment in the group, which comprises 72 members and thus makes up the fourth-largest group in the Strasbourg Parliament, is palpable. To the outside world, Keller seems her usual self these days. When she takes the floor in plenary, she radiates self-assurance. She speaks English without an accent, she smiles and appears confident when she delivers a rhetorically skillful speech.
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