{"id":464796,"date":"2026-09-11T15:09:54","date_gmt":"2026-09-11T13:09:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2026\/09\/11\/discorso-sullo-stato-dellunione-ceuta-gli-incendi-e-le-ingerenze-esterne-i-temi-alla-plenaria-del-parlamento-europeo\/"},"modified":"2026-09-11T16:57:18","modified_gmt":"2026-09-11T14:57:18","slug":"state-of-the-union-address-ceuta-the-wildfires-and-external-interference-the-topics-on-the-agenda-at-the-european-parliaments-plenary-session","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2026\/09\/11\/state-of-the-union-address-ceuta-the-wildfires-and-external-interference-the-topics-on-the-agenda-at-the-european-parliaments-plenary-session\/","title":{"rendered":"State of the Union address, Ceuta, the wildfires and external interference: the topics on the agenda at the European Parliament\u2019s plenary session"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels \u2013 The State of the European Union, the current situation in Ceuta, this summer\u2019s wildfires, the protection of European democracy from external interference and hybrid threats, and children online: these are some of the topics on the agenda for the European Parliament\u2019s plenary session, which will open on Monday 14 September in Strasbourg and run until Thursday 17. The session will also be attended by the Prime Minister of Canada,<\/strong> Mark Carney<\/strong>, who on Thursday (17 September) will deliver a speech on EU-Canada relations<\/a> against a backdrop of growing geopolitical tensions<\/strong>. Today (11 September), during the press briefing ahead of the plenary session<\/a>, the spokesperson for the Socialists, Utta Tuttlies<\/strong>, stated that Carney \u201cis standing firm against Trump\u2019s high-handedness<\/a> and defending its citizens\u201d and that, for this reason, her group has long been calling for \u201cstronger cooperation\u201d with the North American country, \u201cthe strengthening of EU partnerships, and the consolidation of the rules-based international order.\u201d <\/p>\n

The highlight of the plenary session will be on Wednesday (16 September), when the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen<\/strong>, will deliver the State of the Union address<\/a>, the so-called SOTEU. This is a key annual event at which the head of the European Commission will outline the political and legislative priorities for the coming year, followed by a debate with MEPs. The spokesperson for the European People\u2019s Party, Pedro L\u00f3pez de Pablo<\/strong>, stated that: \u201cIf we consider all the events of the summer, the state of the Union appears precarious,<\/strong>\u201d as \u201cthe situation is dire.\u201d Among the causes, according to de Pablo, are \u201cthe \u2018invasion\u2019 of Ceuta, the drought, the heatwaves and, to top it all off, the interest rate rises by central banks<\/a>.\u201d <\/p>\n

Ceuta Chapter. On Tuesday (15 September), MEPs will hold discussions with representatives of the European Commission and the Irish Presidency of the Council about the humanitarian and security situation in the exclave<\/a>. This will be followed on Thursday (17 September) by a vote on a resolution dedicated to this issue. The spokesperson for Patriots for Europe, Alonso de Mendoza Asensi<\/b>, described the situation as \u201c<\/span>a total disaster,\u201d as \u201cthe Spanish city is still in chaos.\u201d Asensi recalled that last week von der Leyen visited Greenland<\/a> \u201cto defend its sovereignty\u201d and asked: \u201cWhen will she come to Ceuta?<\/strong>\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n

Also on Tuesday, the European Parliament will debate and vote on recommendations aimed at strengthening the Union\u2019s resilience to foreign interference<\/a> and other threats \u201cin an increasingly hostile global context.\u201d The report drawn up by the Special Committee on the European Democracy Shield<\/a> (EUDS)<\/strong>\u2014a temporary body of the European Parliament set up to protect the Union\u2019s democratic processes\u2014proposes concrete measures to tackle malicious interference, hybrid attacks and disinformation campaigns<\/strong>. MEPs are expected to back the creation of a centralised EU body tasked with countering such threats, equipped with a clear mandate and budget. According to the spokesperson for the Conservatives and Reformists Group, Michael Strauss<\/strong>, the proposal goes \u201ctoo far.\u201d His group believes that \u201cthere is no clear legal basis in the Treaties for such measures\u201d and that there is a risk of \u201cproblematic EU involvement in the electoral processes of Member States.\u201d During a briefing with the Italian press, also held today (11 September), the MEP for the Patriots, Paolo Borchia<\/strong>, urged that the debate be framed \u201cin terms of solutions rather than taking sides or attempting to exploit the debate for electoral gain.\u201d Across Europe, \u201ccitizens are expressing a preference for movements whose positions run counter to those of Brussels\u201d, and the response is to bring \u201cforeign interference\u201d into the picture. According to Borchia, this represents \u201cthe undermining of the expression of the will of the people.\u201d  <\/span>The spokesperson for the Renew group, Linda Aziz-Rohlje<\/strong>, does not share this view; she reiterated that \u201ccountries such as Russia, China, and Iran want to divide us, frighten us, and weaken our support for Ukraine.<\/strong>\u201d So far, however, \u201cEurope\u2019s response has been too slow and too fragmented\u201d and the time has come to \u201cchange course\u201d through \u201ca strong, unified plan that provides for greater protection of our democracy, clear rules, and concrete consequences for those who attack us,\u201d she emphasised. 
With regard to hybrid threats, MEPs will discuss\u2014and vote on\u2014a series of proposals on the same day (16 September), aimed at strengthening the EU\u2019s response to hybrid threats originating mainly from Russia<\/a>. MEP (S&D) Brando Benifei<\/strong> has called on his colleagues to tackle this issue “rationally,<\/span><\/span> <\/span>but also with great care,” <\/span><\/span>because \u201cthis is about the future and <\/span><\/span>the safety of our citizens,\u201d he explained.<\/span><\/span> 
Following a summer marked by record temperatures and drought<\/b><\/a> in many Member States, as well as a large number of fires that have burnt almost 700,000 hectares<\/a> of woodland, on Tuesday MEPs will discuss with the Commission and the Irish Presidency of the Council the possible actions the EU can take to prevent, prepare for, and respond to increasingly frequent extreme weather events<\/a>. The Greens\u2019 spokesperson, Pia Kohorst<\/strong>, emphasised that this year there have been \u201c35,000 excess heat-related deaths\u201d and that \u201cthe economic costs of these heatwaves are also skyrocketing and continue to rise.\u201d For this reason, her group expects the Commission President to \u201cdeliver a strong and unified response\u201d in the State of the Union address and to outline \u201cher climate action plan.\u201d From the ranks of the Left, it was pointed out that \u201cseven years ago, Europe launched the Green Deal to lead the fight against climate change,\u201d but that today \u201ca clear lack of preparedness is becoming apparent.\u201d The spokesperson for the sovereigntists, Vijay Monany<\/strong>, on the other hand, made it clear that he and his group share \u201cthe emotions stirred by the forest fires that have occurred in Europe, but we also reject the exploitation of such emotion to exacerbate and inflame the debate.\u201d The Italian MEP from the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group, Ruggero Razza <\/strong>(FdI), has criticised the Commission\u2019s actions, in particular because it had called for \u201cpursuing the path of a European industrial partnership to build aircraft that would be useful in fighting forest fires,\u201d but the appeal went unheeded. The Left\u2019s MEP, <\/span>Valentina Palmisano <\/b>(M5S), pointed out that \u201cItaly is one of the countries most exposed to the risks of climate change, to increasingly intense heatwaves, prolonged droughts, floods, and forest fires that destroy entire regions.\u201d It would therefore be \u201cessential to increase the funds allocated to the European adaptation strategy in the next multiannual budget, as well as to support cities and local communities in tackling the increasingly severe impacts of climate change,\u201d she explained. 
<\/span>Finally, with regard to the impact of social media on minors, on Thursday (17 September) MEPs are expected to call on platforms to ban practices and tone down designs that are addictive. Green MEP Ignazio Roberto Marino explained that, together with his group, he had presented \u201c<\/strong>a study on the mental health of young people across the 27 Member States.\u201d<\/strong> The findings revealed that suicide resulting from incidents of online violence \u201cis the leading cause of death among teenage girls.\u201d For this reason, \u201cwe will put forward a parliamentary proposal to the Commission on how to help our young people,\u201d he announced.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Von der Leyen will outline the priorities for the coming year. A spokesperson for the European People\u2019s Party said: \u201cGiven all the events of the summer, the state of the Union appears precarious\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7908,"featured_media":464733,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25681],"tags":[7112,13160,279,15191,4404,34935,305,26643,11977,28291,929,21424,16333,16219,28353,5612,25284,32253,19880,21657,26326,29238],"class_list":["post-464796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-brando-benifei","tag-canada","tag-cina","tag-discorso-sullo-stato-dellunione","tag-ecr","tag-europa-nazioni-sovrane","tag-european-commission","tag-party-popular-european-en","tag-federazione-russa","tag-ignazio-marino-en","tag-iran","tag-paolo-borchia","tag-parlamento-europeo","tag-partito-dei-verdi-europei","tag-patriots-for-europepatriots-for-europe","tag-plenary-session","tag-renew","tag-ruggero-razza","tag-socialists-and-democrats","tag-the-left","tag-states-united-en","tag-valentina-palmisano"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7908"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=464796"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":464797,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464796\/revisions\/464797"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/464733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=464796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=464796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=464796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}