State of the Union 2025: A Europe for profits, not for people

EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen’s State of the Union presents a real contradiction.

On the one hand, she spoke about affordability, jobs and the pressures of rising prices.

On the other, the actual substance of her speech leaned toward competitiveness deals with industry and yet more of the deregulation she seems so proud of — the very deregulation that threatens the hard fought for protections of workers, communities and the environment.

Nurses, teachers and firefighters were central to the rhetoric, but only as a backdrop to bigger promises for business. They were name-checked for applause, not offered a plan: no pathway to safe staffing, no commitment on investment, no guarantees on collective bargaining.

Recognition is welcome; without resources and rights, it is not respect.

So who does von der Leyen’s agenda really serve? Based on her own words, it’s certainly not the people who keep Europe running.

There is a better path. The European Federation of Public Services Trade Unions Public Services Agenda is a political alternative to austerity and deregulation: invest in people; fund and staff the services we all rely on; guarantee the rights set out by the European Pillar of Social Rights; and put public services and workers’ rights at the centre of every EU initiative.

Quality jobs

The promised Quality Jobs Act will only matter if it raises standards for all workers, with public service workers fully covered — no carve-outs. This must come with strong collective bargaining coverage in every member state; clear protections against psychosocial risks, rules for digitalisation and AI at work; and an end to abusive subcontracting.

Addressing safe staffing levels is key for quality public services. Hospitals and care homes cannot retain nurses, carers, cleaners or technicians if wages lag, schedules are unsustainable and stress is treated as “part of the job.”

Firefighters face an impossible job if they have to cover large areas with few comrades. And a lack of teachers means overcrowded classrooms and even cancelled classes, leaving children behind.

A serious Quality Jobs Act must support safe staffing standards, paid training, career pathways and retention. It must turn praise for essential workers into enforceable rights.

Anything less reduces “quality jobs” to a headline, while the services people rely on continue to be hollowed out due to austerity.

Poverty, energy and housing

The recognition that people are struggling with the cost of living, energy bills and housing is welcome. But the path chosen will not fix anything if the EU continues to put profits first.

Pledges on an EU Anti-Poverty Strategy and energy affordability will only work if backed by strong public services built on funding from a just tax system.

That means an end to austerity. It means promoting progressive taxation measures — including windfall and wealth taxes — to reduce inequalities, save our democracies and invest in public services.

The ideological blindness to the role European public companies can play in so many areas is extremely problematic

Publicly-owned, sustainable energy systems must be part of the answer; otherwise, families will keep paying while private interests profit, as seen during the energy crisis.

The announced Grids Package and “Energy Highways” need public-interest conditionalities and worker protections, not blank cheques.

An EU Affordable Housing Plan and a first-ever housing summit are welcome steps. The crisis will not be solved by market fixes though. The EPSU’s position: exclude social-housing investment from deficit rules; revise state-aid to enable large-scale public, municipal and cooperative building of homes; curb speculative pressures (including via EU rules on short-term rentals); attach strong social conditionalities to EU funds; and build a sizeable public/non-profit housing stock with decent, collectively bargained jobs for the workers who deliver and maintain these services.

Missing from the speech were commitments to public health or the creation of public digital infrastructures.

People and public authorities are begging for alternatives to the profit-driven US tech companies dominating the provision of IT services. The ideological blindness to the role European public companies can play in so many areas is extremely problematic.

Firefighters

Von der Leyen used her speech to applaud the work of Europe’s firefighters over the last summer, singling out EU level cross-border civil protection and announcing a European firefighting hub in Cyprus. But a roaming EU team is not a long-term sustainable solution. Budgets for firefighting remain stagnant and the challenge will only grow as Europe’s climate becomes more unpredictable.

EU-level cooperation on fires is welcome, but each country must above all have enough responders of its own. If von der Leyen is serious about Europe’s security and preparedness, she must push member states to strengthen professional firefighting services, increase funding, and prioritise prevention through robust regulation – and not weaken it through Omnibus packages.

Europe needs a Public Services Agenda

SOTEU 2025 leaves us with a blunt question: who does the EU really serve — the corporations and wealthy, or the public? If von der Leyen’s answer is “both,” as her name-dropping suggests, then public services cannot remain an afterthought.

EPSU’s Public Services Agenda sets a different course: end austerity; fund and staff public services; raise collective-bargaining coverage; use procurement and state aid to reward fair employers, protect our environment; and hard-wire social, environmental and tax conditionalities into EU spending.

Europe will not win the future by deregulating for competitiveness and by outsourcing social policy to the market. It will win by investing in people and in the services that make rights real. Name-checks are easy.

Delivering funded, well-staffed, high-quality public services is the real test. The commission should choose the people who keep Europe going and adopt a Public Services Agenda worthy of them.