While the party she herself is a member of praised the speech, other parliamentary groups remained sceptical about Ursula von der Leyen's priorities.
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00:00 Members of the European Parliament had mixed reactions to Ursula von der Leyen's State of the European Union speech.
00:07 She herself hails from the biggest European party, the European People's Party,
00:12 and the leader of their parliamentary group, Manfred Weber, expressed support for the implementation of the Green Deal.
00:18 He also welcomed the investigation into Chinese electric car makers' subsidies.
00:24 With China we have to see the unfair behavior on the market, the subsidies the Chinese are paying.
00:30 And that's why we have to protect ourselves, we have to use our methods, our tools we have to protect our market.
00:36 And what we see currently in the electric vehicles field is obviously financed by subsidies by the Chinese.
00:43 That's why yes to trade, but let's not be naive.
00:47 The second largest group, the Socialists and Democrats, were critical of what von der Leyen said in relation to migration,
00:53 in particular when she stressed the need for more agreements like the one signed with Tunisia.
00:58 For MEP Pedro Marques this practice leads to human rights violations and also helps to finance an authoritarian regime in Tunis.
01:05 The S&D group also missed any meaningful reference to current social issues.
01:10 I have to say this clearly from the group.
01:12 For us it was bluntly absent from this speech all the social dimension of the current situation.
01:21 There are millions of families suffering with inflation, with the cost of living, with the cost of housing.
01:26 And we had no word from von der Leyen on concrete policies towards these European families.
01:33 The liberals from the Renew group said that von der Leyen should have highlighted the fight to save democracy and rule of law in Poland and Hungary, much more.
01:42 But the group leader welcomed the Commission's call for a renewed effort at enlargement
01:46 and von der Leyen's coupling of the issue with internal reforms of the bloc.
01:50 I really wish that we move forward on enlargement.
01:53 But this means that the EU should work on its institutions, its capacity to decide at 32, at 33, and also all the rules on the rule of law that I mentioned.
02:06 There are still countries with a lot of corruption that need to be settled first.
02:11 There are countries on which we still need to reform the judicial system.
02:15 Unsurprisingly, the Eurosceptic far-right in the European Parliament rejected the speech altogether.
02:24 After Brexit, there could have been a European Union that would have been more modest and reluctant.
02:31 But we saw a European Union ever since that is more radical and more extremist than ever before.
02:38 The speech was the last such grand self-reckoning from President von der Leyen before Europeans go to the polls in June and the mandate of her European Commission will end.
02:49 (whooshing)