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Sunday, 20 September, 2026
State of the Union 2026
Sunday, 20 September, 2026.
The State of the Union (SOTEU) address is an annual speech by the President of the European Commission to the European Parliament, setting the priorities for the Union for the year ahead.
'In this world, Europe has chosen to forge its own path. And a stronger, independent Europe is now emerging.'
Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission
Proposed initiatives
In her speech, President Ursula von der Leyen outlined the main priorities and flagship initiatives for the year to come.
Competitiveness and jobs
Tackling unjustified territorial supply constraints in the Single Market
Proposal on permitting acceleration
Bank competitiveness and simplification package
Transport simplification package
Diversification package / DiversifyEU
European Corporation on Critical Raw Materials
Social and inclusion
Housing simplification package
European Care Deal
European University Alliances 2.0
Skills Guarantees
Security and defence
European Security Strategy
Offshore security and safety for energy installations and operations
International data exchange for police cooperation (Prüm international)
European Instrument for Strategic Enablers
Climate and resilience
Review of the heavy-duty vehicles CO2 standards
Climate Insurance Alliance
European Heatwave Plan
European Water Initiative
Democracy, rule of law and values
Congress of Europe
Emergency Response Framework
Commission Recommendation on banning conversion practices
Letter of intent
President von der Leyen sent a Letter of Intent to Roberta Metsola, the President of the European Parliament, and the Taoiseach Micheál Martin of Ireland, who holds the Presidency of the Council. In it, she detailed the actions the Commission intended to take in the following year by means of legislation and other initiatives.
STATE OF THE UNION 2026 — LETTER OF INTENT
Brussels, 16 September 2026
Dear President Metsola,
Dear Taoiseach Martin,
Next year will mark the 70th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome. The core idea was simple: Europe is stronger when we act together. This still holds today. And there is much to be proud of in how Europe has united to take its future in its own hands in the last few years.
This is all the more important as we look at the dramatically changing world around us. War continues to rage on our continent. We are reaching a number of tipping points, such as on the impact of climate change or progress on artificial intelligence. A competition for industrial capacities
is shaping global competition. And a battle of narratives is seeking to weaken our democracies. Against this backdrop, the fate of Europe must stay in the hands of Europeans.
We have set a clear course and taken major steps to strengthen European independence. Now we need to turn these into results. We need to conclude the legislative work currently on the table, implement what we have agreed and enforce our rules. The time for delivery is now.
Kickstarting Europe’s economy remains our clear focus. We are following up on the Draghi and Letta reports: 54 of the 65 initiatives in the Competitiveness Compass have already been adopted by the College since the start of last year. We are delivering together on the One Europe, One Market Roadmap. From capital markets to energy grids, EU Inc. and public procurement – we need to deliver on these together as urgently as possible.
As part of this, I would like to stress the further steps needed to strengthen our Banking Union. Our responses to various crises over the years have left us with complex crisis management arrangements. That means fragmented funding and inefficient use of capital. We will convene a panel of economists to come up with recommendations for the reform of the European sovereign safety net architecture before the euro summit of March 2027.
2027 will also mark 10 years of the European Pillar of Social Rights, our shared commitment to a fairer and more inclusive Europe. The summit to celebrate this anniversary, jointly organised with President Costa, will be vital to upholding the principles of the Pillar. We will invest in skills and delivering a skills guarantee, continuing our work for a stronger social Europe. Delivering on housing and care will remain a major priority.
We will continue to focus on making business easier and tackling all of the bottlenecks holding back our companies. We will continue to simplify rules and cut burdens, applying a simplicity-by-design approach for all new proposals. We will focus on energy prices and double down on our commitment to clean, secure, homegrown and affordable energy. Against the backdrop of rising prices since the start of the Middle East war, we need to preserve our security of supply. We stand ready in this current context to put forward emergency measures if needed.
We will ensure that European companies compete on a level playing field. Where any country creates unfair trading conditions for the European Union, we will be ready to respond, including by proposing new instruments. We will also continue to focus on diversification, in particular in key sectors for our supply chains and economy. We will keep creating new opportunities for European businesses by strengthening our position as the world’s leading trade power. We will build bridges with dynamic economies across the Americas, Asia, Africa and the Gulf.
This summer has left Europeans in no doubt about the impact of climate change. Droughts, heatwaves, wildfires and floods have again shown the growing cost that climate change has for our people, our economies and our security. The EU Civil Protection Mechanism has shown European solidarity in action. We need to strengthen prevention, preparedness and response before next summer. Europe needs both climate mitigation and climate adaptation, and they need to strengthen each other. We need to step up climate adaptation, notably by putting forward measures to address water scarcity and the growing climate insurance gap.
Artificial intelligence is fast becoming a foundational layer for our economy and security. Europe’s stance is clear. We need to work with partners and industry to address risks of AI, but also ensure that we draw the greatest benefits for our society and industry. We want to make the most of AI to improve our society, our quality of life and our productivity. At the same time, we need to address the risks of this powerful new technology.
In a more dangerous and uncertain world, Europe must take greater responsibility for its own security. We need to turn higher defence spending into stronger European capabilities. The European Security Strategy will set out how we prepare for the threats ahead. Our support for Ukraine – Europe’s first line of defence – is unwavering. We will continue to push for a comprehensive, just and lasting peace, deepen defence cooperation, support Ukraine on its path towards EU membership and keep up the pressure on Russia, notably by strengthening our approach to sanctions enforcement. We will continue to work for peace and stability in the Middle East.
But Europe faces other challenges too. This summer has shown how quickly pressure can build up at our borders, against our critical infrastructure and through hybrid attacks. We need to prepare better to protect European borders.
We will make the Pact work on the ground. We will deepen cooperation with partner countries, fight smuggling more effectively and improve returns. We will modernise the Schengen visa framework and keep Europe open to talent. We will also step up cooperation against organised crime and
terrorism, better protect critical infrastructure and strengthen our response to hybrid threats. A safer Europe needs stable and democratic neighbours. That is why enlargement matters for our security. Candidate countries have made important progress. As enlargement moves forward, the Union is getting prepared too.
We will also protect our democratic space. We will strengthen our resilience against foreign interference and disinformation and do more to protect children online. We will continue our work for a true Union of Equality, including by following up on the European Citizens’ Initiative on conversion practices.
To match the ambitions I have set out in this letter, Europe must have the means to act. Delivering on the next Multiannual Financial Framework will therefore be a central political task. We will work together to reach an agreement in time, including on new own resources, so that the Union has the resources it needs, and the new programmes can start from 1 January 2028. Our priorities reinforce each other. A stronger economy gives Europe more freedom to act. Stronger security protects our economy and our way of life. And when Europe delivers, it earns the trust it needs to act.
Europe is stronger when we act together. Now we must make it count.
Ursula von der Leyen
Maroš Šefčovič
Saturday, 19 September, 2026
In News terms, there is no 'Global' concept, Stupidity and Ignorance when Broadcasting thereof see to it that no Worldly Audience can Ever Exist. But this is not the same as your news content being dull, uninteresting and flat.
Saturday, 19 September, 2026.
There is no 'Global' News Agenda, but if there was it wouldn't be British or American.
Saturday, 19 September, 2026.
We aren't seeing any change in the Worlds keeping at the moment, especially on this nonsense about Greenland and Denmark, what we are seeing is one NATO member country propping up the Government of a foreign state because they have lost all credibility internationally.
Remember, you say you murdered the head of state of a deeply religious country in Iran, keep that in mind for the future, along with the other crimes that you purport are normal, they are not normal.
And so when the next paid-for monkey tells you how popular you are in a largely fictitious public realm, monkey says as monkey does.
There is no good Nationalist, that is not also indeed a dead Nationalist.
To you in America, we know you are in a hypo-state of self-congratulation and self-forgiving hypermania, and we know you do believe militarism is the route to global domination, but the world is far too large for you to survive your grandiose leanings.
Sunday, 13 September, 2026
East & West is a public concept, Billionaires have nothing to say, nor contribute.
Sunday, 13 September, 2026.
In America $1 Billion investment in Education gets you 26,700 jobs, Healthcare 17,200 jobs, Defence only 11,200 jobs, When a politician tells you the Defence Industry is an important investment, that isn't a politician.
Sunday, 13 September, 2026.
Saturday, 12 September, 2026
Terrorism, tɛrərɪz(ə)m [British English], tɛrəˌrɪzəm [U.S. English], n, a state of terror; government or coercion by terror.
Saturday, 12 September, 2026.
There is no Global War on Terrorism, there is only the foreign policy culture, enactment and political ruse environment of the U.S. Federal Government, opinion globally is spread variously between the U.S. Government being an imperial entity that broadly brought the attack on 11th September 2001 on itself due to its historical behaviour, that the U.S. Government is likely to have had some secretive influence or direct hand in the events of 11th September 2001 and then creating the subsequent conditions for driving its military and imperial reach abroad, or that the U.S. is a foolishly open state with no coherent safeguards in place to protect against this kind of attack due to the irresponsible and largely foolish arrangement of their internal economic systems. In the minority, is the largely 'western' transatlantic media led belief system that the U.S. is a democracy and was viciously attacked on 11th September 2001, and the subsequent foreign policy enactments of every U.S. Federal Government since then has been based on deliberate cruelty and illegality for no other purpose than that the U.S Government can prevent these types of attacks in the future by exaggerating its power on the World stage.
What the Peace see's here, irrespective of the true historical cause, is a burgeoning Authoritarian American state being birthed from within a Democracy, which of course has happened before, within the U.S culture is a belief that this kind of Authoritarian system of Government cannot survive in the U.S, and others would argue that the U.S is already and has been for the majority of its history an economically fundamentalist state, political fundamentalism and Authoritarianism is always operating in these kinds of environments. The U.S. Republican movement is a very clear and obvious characterisation of this type of Authoritarianism, and the U.S Republican parties recent actions abroad has betrayed that this is a cultural problem specific to the Republican and Democratic political parties in that country, both of which are Authoritarian and tend to overtly rely on their military for effect.
Typically, the idea, which is completely repugnant to most of the World, that your Government may kill, carry out assassinations, attack public populations and their infrastructure in other foreign nations, for no other reason than improving your electoral prospects in your own nation state, is, fundamentally and absolutely true confirmation Authoritarian behaviour and habit is fully in play.
Criticism of any Governments behaviour from the International Community, the rest of the World, is not opposition, nor offensive behaviour, it is just kind, worldly and wise advice highlighting your mistakes and errors from that part of the International Community that is far older and wiser than you are. Opposition to that criticism is, itself, again Authoritarian behaviour that does itself no good.
At present the current U.S Government is Authoritarian in nature, led by a poisonous belief that the U.S. is in decline and that adopting a ruse of being entirely without reason and logic will be enough to seize the resources of foreign states to grease the American pocket, and to hell with the beliefs of those in the rest of the World, the larger part of the American population is aware of it and also aware that counterweight needs to be in place to prevent the entire country from sliding into a completely self destructive course.
As for the rest of the World, well that's where normal people live.
Normal people believe that the entirety of the American political system is at fault, and that fault lies with only two political movements, the Republican and Democratic political parties. What your Presidents look like, what they say, how they behave is entirely uninteresting.
Normal people are your future.
Tuesday, 8 September, 2026
Indeed, it was Absolutely the most Beautiful Summer I Ever did know. Here's Too Many More of them.
Tuesday, 8 September, 2026.
There are no circumstances in which the Russian Federation would attack another NATO, EU or western European state, but there are private sector media organisation published within the UK and US, and less so in the European Union that release stories about NATO being attacked by the Russian Federation. From a public perspective we simply assume that these stories originate from private sector security contractors or privately operating members of the military of western states, operating in whatever capacity offers least detection or suspicion on the day. We don't take them seriously of course, we certainly would take them seriously if they published under their own names with raw data proving a plan by the Russian Federation to actively attack a European or 'western' state, but we all know that raw data doesn't exist of course, and so too neither do the people involved in sourcing the story to the private sector media.
But of course none of this is actually interesting, its just the cycle of propaganda that lives its life around International events such as these, few people actually care.
No, of far more interest is what does Ukraine look like at the end of all of this?, what does the Russian Federation look like?, what does Europe look like?, what are the consequences of the loss of such a huge area of Ukrainian land for the Ukrainian people and what does all of this mean economically for these countries and the wider region?, how will things change for the entire World?, what does trade and agriculture look like? investments and economic discipline/planning? Travel, transport, security, international freight forwarding, international commodity supply?, trade, defence, international finance and on an on it goes.
You cannot watch almost a third of a country as large as Ukraine simply change International hands and expect that there are no changes that you can perceive right around the corner.
I'm afraid that Ukraine is now a lost cause for those whom oppose the Russian Federation.
It is time for everybody to think about what comes next, and that only involves the people and Government of the Russian Federation and the people and Government of Ukraine.
As far as Europe and 'western' Governments and their people are concerned, you need to move on.
We all have so much more to do with our time than listen endlessly to complaints about the next great conflict or whom is worse than whom.
Monday, 7 September, 2026
Enough of this nonsense, what are you; a donkey!
Monday, 7 September, 2026.
The European Union is making some rather obvious political errors of judgement at present, all centered around the foreign policy definition they are following, with regards to Ukraine and the Russian Federation.
We don't want to get involved in this at the moment as it spills over into issues with the English Parliament and generally just creates an unpleasant situation that isn't a necessary part of what we are doing at present. Save to say that the public will accept definitions of foreign policy which are reasonable, and sensible. It isn't true that just because you perceieve a foreign policy meaning that that meaning will automatically land kindly in the public sentiment in useful form.
Ultimately, we would prefer the European Union and the English Parliament center its foreign policy definition on a reasonable reading and assessment of the situation and not simply come to rely on what some party political policy wonk feels the public will soak up as a modal message.
The Russian Federation is directly adjacent to the European Union as is Ukraine, there should be no issues with how the European Union and Russian Federation interact with the wider region, it is in your collective interests to be openly non-confrontational and centered politically on solutions rather than long-standing grievances.
We have already passed our opinion on the dangers of using the security environment to service specific political agendas and demands, our opinion is, don't do that.
Closure of German General in St. Petersburg and Goethe centers: Russia's response
Monday, 7 September, 2026.
Russian Foreign Ministry
MOSCOW, September 7. /TASS/. In response to Germany's unfriendly actions, Russia is closing the German Consulate General in St. Petersburg and the Goethe cultural centers, according to a statement from the Russian Foreign Ministry.
TASS has compiled the main details of Russia's retaliatory measures.
Measures taken
– In connection with Germany's unfriendly actions to close the Russian Consulate General in Bonn and the Russian House of Science and Culture in Berlin, the German Charge d'Affaires in Moscow has been informed of retaliatory measures, according to a statement from the Russian Foreign Ministry.
– Russia is revoking its consent to the operation of the German Consulate General in St. Petersburg.
– It must cease operations no later than September 18, and all its employees must leave Russia.
– Furthermore, Russia is closing the German Goethe Cultural Center.
– Its employees have been ordered to leave the country by September 13.
Germany's Responsibility
– The head of the German diplomatic mission received corresponding notes, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
– The Foreign Ministry stated that responsibility for the consequences of the latest round of escalation in bilateral relations lies entirely with the German government.
Worsening Relations
– On September 1, the German government officially placed responsibility for the drone incident at Leipzig/Halle Airport in early August on Russia and announced the cessation of the Russian House, the closure of the Russian Consulate General in Bonn, and other measures.
– Russia’s ambassador to Germany Sergey Nechayev resolutely rejected all accusations put forward by Germany, calling them unsubstantiated and absurd. The diplomat reported that the Russian House staff are required to leave Germany within seven days.
– Russian President Vladimir Putin pointed out that Germany's new anti-Russian decisions, taken under the pretext of the drone incident at Leipzig Airport, are yet another grave mistake by the German authorities, contrary to the interests of their people. In his opinion, these decisions are linked to the domestic political situation in that country and, in particular, the difficult situation of Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
Courtesy of TASS, the Russian Agency.
The State of the Nationalists.
Monday, 7 September, 2026.
We have today, Monday 07th September 2026, taken the step of banning the English and Welsh 'Reform' quasi-political movement from this site, we will not be publishing any content produced by the 'reform' political party, nor engaging in any activity which promotes the 'reform' political party. We have taken this action due to the practice of 'reform' accepting donations from foreign sources or providing an environment in which funding from foreign sources is encouraged or normalised, a political practice which is illegal under UK election law.
We note the frequency with which the 'reform' political party have made statements encouraging the domestic UK populace to support and provide psychological aid for foreign political organisations, specifically the US 'republican' movement, an organisation which is also a banned group.
We remind others that a Government that abducts, illegally, foreign heads of state, or murders or claims to have murdered a foreign head of state, is an enemy of Democracy not a friend. Here at the Peace, we have a naturally existing tendency to make our judgements based on skill, political trade-craft and experience, qualities we feel some small part of the populace of Democracies have lost or had taken away from them.
We note the likelihood that private sector media organisations, especially those with a U.S. social media presence, are likely culprits, at this point specifically the U.S. Sky News Corporation, GBNews, Times Radio and Talk Radio. Sky News is already banned here. GBNews is a parasitic fascist far-right sympathising so-called media organisation. Times Radio is part of the Murdoch owned News International (owner of the US Registered Sky News Corporation) and Talk Radio, another far-right leaning so-called media Murdoch organisation with highly dubious published content.
Three out of the four of these organisation are actively engaged in disseminating far-right wing ideologies and psychologically dubious content. Almost all of the content disseminated by those organisations is stridently anti-socialist and anti-regulative. Almost all of the content those organisations publish is factually incorrect or laced with far right wing bias and deception. It is hardly surprising that the United Kingdom spends so little of its time being productive when the media environment is filled up with completely useless political content that serves no public purpose whatsoever, and encourages the public to believe in political fairy tales, tall stories and things which are obviously and routinely untrue.
I am particularly concerned with one aspect of far right behaviour, and that is that Socialists believe that debate is the best way to settle difference of opinion, and that everybody is reasonable in a fairly held democratic contest, however, what I am seeing looks more like a foreign agenda being forcefully, and violently, enforced in a territory that has no appetite for the accepting of those values.
Here at the Peace, American political and cultural authoritarianism is not something we fear, nor are surprised with, authoritarianism is bound to rear its ugly head if the person whom occupies the American seat of Government has an authoritarian and fundamentalist personality.
The Equal Earth map projection map of The World.
Saturday, 5 September, 2026. World
Courtesy of Geocart map projection software, via Wikipedia Online Encyclopedia.
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