Eventful year gives new leaders baptism of fire

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen struck an optimistic note as 2020 drew to a close. It was the first year, or 13 months to be exact, since she took office on Dec 1, 2019.

A former German defense minister, von der Leyen was ambitious, rolling out a Green Deal after 11 days in office. She pledged to make the European Union the first climate-neutral continent by 2050 and vowed to advance the EU's competitiveness, digitalization, rule of law, and building a geopolitical commission.

COVID-19, which hit many EU member states hard since spring, made pandemic response the top job on her plate for most of that year.

"Today, we start turning the page on a difficult year," she wrote in a tweet on Dec 26 as COVID-19 vaccines were dispatched to 27 EU member states for the next day launch of a vaccination program for the EU's 450 million people.

The European Commission has tried hard to coordinate the pandemic response of its member states and has secured contracts for more than 2 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines.

But it had failed to rally member states to work together when the pandemic was rapidly spreading in the spring. Some states unilaterally shut their borders and others imposed restrictions on protective medical equipment exports.

Michele Geraci, a former undersecretary of state of Italy's Ministry of Economic Development, said unfortunately the EU faced a pandemic that no one was expecting.

"As a European and true supporter of the development of Europe and a prosperous and peaceful continent, I am disappointed at the slow speed of response, the divisions within the EU and the resulting lack of any meaningful action to help fight the health and economic crisis," he said.

After prolonged and tough negotiations, von der Leyen and United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced on Christmas Eve they had reached an agreement on future trade relations between the EU and the UK, narrowly avoiding a no-deal Brexit scenario that both sides were keen to avoid.

EU ambassadors voiced no objection on Dec 25 to the 1,246-page deal, which is still to be approved by the European Parliament.

Besides a pledge on carbon neutrality by 2050, EU leaders agreed in a summit on Dec 11 to set an ambitious target to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 55 percent instead of the previous goal of 40 percent by 2030 from 1990 levels.

During the summit, EU leaders also sealed a deal for the bloc's historic 1.8 trillion ($2.2 trillion) budget-and-recovery package, including over 1 trillion euros in its 2021-27 long-term budget and 750 billion euros in a recovery fund known as Next Generation EU to fight COVID-19.

"Now we can start with the implementation and build back our economies," European Council President Charles Michel tweeted after the deal was reached. "Our landmark recovery package will drive forward our green& digital transitions," he said.

Hungary and Poland had threatened to veto the deal, which links the fund to a country's rule-of-law situation. They later agreed to a compromise brokered by Germany, which held the presidency of the Council of the European Union in the second half of 2020. The deal stipulated the measures will not be used until countries have a chance to challenge its legality at EU's top court.

The European Commission's Autumn Economic Forecast in November forecast growth of 4.2 percent in 2021 for the 19-member eurozone. For 2020, it expects the economy to shrink by 7.8 percent. For the 27-member EU, the economy is forecast to contract by 7.4 percent in 2020 before growing 4.1 percent in 2021.

Migration system

The European Commission also made proposals in September to revamp its migration system, which has divided its members in the past. The proposal seeks to build confidence and strike a new balance between responsibility and solidarity, the commission said.

EU leaders were among the first to congratulate Joe Biden on winning the 2020 US presidential election after their apparent displeasure with many policies of Donald Trump's administration.

"After a rocky four years, it is time for a fresh start," EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in December. But he noted it does not mean "we will always agree or that we have identical interests" with the United States.

EU leaders repeatedly talked about "strategic autonomy".

The EU has pushed to preserve the Iran nuclear deal. "Full and effective implementation by all remains crucial," Borrell wrote in a tweet in late December after meeting with foreign ministers from China, Russia, Germany, France, the UK, and Iran.

Ding Chun, director of the Center for European Studies at Fudan University, said the new EU leadership has presented a "pragmatic and can-do" attitude.

Shada Islam, head of the New Horizon Project, a Brussels-based global strategy and advisory firm, originally gave the new EU leadership a grade of "B" for its management of an EU which is divided over values and overall future direction, but then upgraded it to "A-" after the conclusion of a China-EU investment treaty on Dec 30.

"All in all, VDL managed to steer the EU ship through very choppy waters. She deserves to be congratulated for that," she said of von der Leyen.