# The Guardian view on Ursula von der Leyen’s first 100 days: the steepest of learning curves

In a  on Sunday to mark 100 days since the beginning of her second term as European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen erred on the side of understatement when asked whether she still considered the US to be an ally. The answer was yes, she replied, before adding that “we have our discussion points without question”.

Hard to argue with that. Regarding the war in Ukraine, international  and existential questions concerning the future of European defence and security, the geopolitical landscape bears no resemblance to the one that Ms von der Leyen looked out upon on 1 December. As Mr Trump and his “America first” outriders have confounded cherished assumptions about the , they have also sought to  authoritarian nationalism in EU member states.

In France and Germany, the fabled engine of European integration, this has been uncomfortably akin to knocking at an open door. In Paris, days after Ms von der Leyen reassumed office, Michel Barnier’s shortlived government  when Marine Le Pen pulled the rug from under it. In Germany, well before Elon Musk and JD Vance championed its cause, the far-right Alternative für Deutschland party had reached historically high levels of support that would see it finish comfortably  in February’s snap German election.

As Ms von der Leyen put it on Sunday: “Our European values, democracy, freedom, the rule of law are under threat.” The response, from Brussels and in national capitals, needs to be both robust and more expeditious than is often the case in the labyrinthine world of EU policymaking. Happily, the initial signs are positive.

The move last week by EU leaders to disapply the bloc’s fiscal rules to military spending, potentially freeing up £670bn, is a significant step towards achieving greater strategic autonomy from Washington. It followed the unveiling of extraordinarily radical proposals in the same week by Germany’s chancellor-in-waiting, Friedrich Merz. Bypassing a constitutional  on state borrowing, these are designed to facilitate not only far greater spending on defence, but also on the modernisation of a stagnating economy.

After decades in which EU economic policy has been skewed by Berlin’s traditional debt aversion – shared with other  member states such as the Netherlands and Denmark – this is a very  direction of travel. As Ms von der Leyen navigates the rest of her five-year term, its time has come again.

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