What European Commission President promised Ukraine and what status EU is preparing for Canada

A year ago, Ursula von der Leyen’s annual State of the Union address (known as SOTEU, short for State of the Union) was the most combative of her six years as president of the European Commission. Its central message was clear: Europe must confront external threats, and Ukraine must be part of these efforts.

This year’s speech builds on that theme.

The European Commission president has now begun explaining how, in practice, the EU’s joint defence mechanism with Ukraine should work.

Read mpore about Ursula von der Leyen’s address this year, including its Ukraine-related provisions, in the article by Tetiana Vysotska, a European Pravda Brussels correspondent: Patriot, Freya and security: What was chosen this year for the EU’s "main speech" and what was left out. 

As in previous years, Ukraine was given a dedicated section in the SOTEU address. Von der Leyen began with a warning.

"We know that the coming winter will be tough for Ukraine. But we also know that North Korean missiles and Russian drones cannot break the Ukrainian spirit of resistance," she said. According to von der Leyen, "Europe we will give our strongest-ever support to Ukraine over the toughest winter of the war".

In the EU, winter assistance means more than humanitarian aid and electricity supplies. The bloc also plans to help strengthen critical infrastructure to protect and rapidly restore heating and water supply systems for Ukrainians.

Von der Leyen announced that, the previous week, the EU as an institution had approved the purchase of US-made Patriot interceptor missiles for the first time. She stressed that the missiles must now be delivered to Ukraine urgently. The reference is to PAC-3 interceptors for Patriot systems, which are capable of shooting down ballistic missiles.

At the same time, von der Leyen acknowledged a strategic problem: dependence on the United States as the sole supplier of ballistic missile defence systems.

That is why Freya, a missile defence system currently being developed jointly with Ukraine, became the second priority. This is a long-term project intended to build Europe’s own missile defence capabilities and reduce its future dependence on the United States.

The European Commission plans to use the remaining funds from the SAFE programme to establish a separate programme for joint projects with Ukrainian companies. SAFE is an EU lending instrument worth up to €150 billion, created to support joint weapons procurement and expand European defence production.

The new formula for Ukraine–EU defence cooperation can be outlined as follows: Ukraine provides Europe with its battlefield experience and the battlefield itself as a testing ground, along with the speed of development, near-immediate adaptation to "field requirements", and technologies tested on the front lines. Europe, in turn, provides funding, production capacity and opportunities for scaling up – preferably quickly.

It is worth emphasising that virtually the entire security section of Ursula von der Leyen’s speech was built around the Russian threat.

There is now a growing understanding that this threat is real not only for Ukraine, but also for the EU.

Von der Leyen called for the creation of an emergency security protocol – a European equivalent of Article 4 of the North Atlantic Treaty.

For Ukraine, an even more interesting proposal is the creation of a European Security Council. The statement that Ukraine would be included in the council is an important signal.

Regarding sanctions against Russia, von der Leyen this time focused on the need to ensure the enforcement of restrictions already in place, drawing on the disappointing lessons of negotiations over the 21st sanctions package, adopted in July 2026.

The absence of any mention of frozen Russian assets in SOTEU 2026 is surprising.

As European Pravda reported earlier, a new concept for using these assets is currently under discussion. This is why von der Leyen was expected to provide at least a political signal during the 2026 State of the Union address that the EU might revisit the issue of frozen Russian assets.

Another difference between 2026 and 2025 is that last year’s speech addressed the possibility of abandoning the EU’s unanimity principle – against the backdrop of growing frustration with repeated Hungarian vetoes. This year’s address did not touch on the issue.

Similarly, EU enlargement remained a secondary topic in SOTEU 2026, overshadowed by a significantly stronger focus on security.

At the same time, at the beginning of her address, the European Commission president proposed that Canada become the first "EU associate member".