Eurobloat #0185 • September 2025
September is the month the project gathers to admire itself, and 2025 was no exception, with a State of the Union address whose answer to every ill was more Europe, even as two separate motions to sack the Commission were being drafted in the same building.
Folly of the Month: the annual sermon, in which the cure is always more Europe
On 10 September Ursula von der Leyen delivered her State of the European Union address, calling for a "new Europe" that would take charge of its own defence, technology, energy and democratic future. Whatever the question, the answer from the rostrum is the same: more competence, more centralisation, more Brussels. It is a speech the Union could deliver in its sleep, and increasingly seems to.
1. Two motions to sack the Commission
While the President spoke of unity, both the left and the right tabled motions of censure against her Commission on 11 September, with the votes due in October. The applause in the chamber was, shall we say, conditional.
2. Chat Control, back on the menu
Privacy campaigners warned that the plan to scan everyone's private messages had returned yet again. Like a bad meal, it keeps being served no matter how often it is sent back.
→ eff.org
3. Even the Parliament resists the centralising of the farm fund
MEPs came out against the Commission's plan to fold farm spending into a single mega-fund, demanding it leave direct support for small farmers alone. When your own Parliament fights your power grab, it is quite the power grab.
4. Now regulating your old jumper
The Parliament backed binding food-waste targets and extended producer responsibility for "fast fashion". Brussels has progressed from the single market to the contents of your wardrobe and your bin.
5. The 2035 engine ban, quietly going into reverse
At its third automotive dialogue, chaired by von der Leyen on 12 September, the Commission put the review of the car CO2 rules on the table, opening the way to unpick the combustion-engine ban it had trumpeted only two years earlier. The flagship green policy lasted about as long as the applause that greeted it.
6. A 90% target, padded with foreign carbon credits
Work advanced on amending the Climate Law to set a 90% cut by 2040, with up to a thirty-third of it bought in as international credits under the Commission's proposal. The headline is heroic; the small print outsources the heavy lifting.
7. Simplifying the two-trillion-euro shopping trip
The Parliament moved to "simplify" the rules on roughly €2 trillion of annual public procurement, while keeping every social, environmental and local box to tick. Simplification, Brussels-style, leaves the boxes exactly where they were.
8. Eyeing a digital tax it cannot legally levy alone
The Parliament's economists mused about a unilateral EU digital tax, conceding it may not be viable without an international deal. The appetite to tax runs well ahead of the authority to do so.
9. Appointing itself guardian of democracy
Among the debates was a "European Democracy Shield" to protect the continent from foreign interference. The institution famed for ignoring its own referendums now offers to defend everyone else's democracy.
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