By Jan Strupczewski and Yves Herman
BRUSSELS, Sept 16 (Reuters) – The head of the European Commission will call on Wednesday for European Union solidarity in tackling climate change, artificial intelligence and competition from China, arguing no single EU country can handle these challenges on its own.
In her annual speech to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will set out priorities for the 27-nation EU for the year ahead.
Von der Leyen, now in her second five-year term at the helm of the EU executive arm, will stress the need to maintain European independence in various sectors, including energy, raw materials and clean technologies, officials said.
To achieve that, EU countries will not only need to work together, but also have strong partners like Canada, whose Prime Minister Mark Carney will be in Strasbourg and deliver his own address to the EU assembly on Thursday.
Von der Leyen is likely to say that while Canada cannot become a member of the European Union, the EU wants to bring it as close as possible to the bloc because it shares Europe’s values and could help the EU become less dependent on China for raw materials and their processing, officials said.
She is likely to note that she was in favour of negotiations with China on how to bring down the unsustainable €1-billion-a-day EU trade deficit, but that these talks had to bring results soon, or the EU would have to resort to other steps to protect its economy.
Officials said she was expected to point out that the EU is already experiencing the effects of climate change like no other continent. The bloc will need to stay its ambitious course on mitigating climate change but step up efforts to adapt to it, drawing on experiences from the last three months when the continent was hit by unprecedented heat waves and wildfires.
She is likely to say EU leaders will have to do more to address citizens’ concerns that artificial intelligence is a threat to jobs and cybersecurity and make sure Europe’s economy benefits from AI.
Von der Leyen is also to talk about migration to the EU and the need to learn from crises like the events in Ceuta at the end of July, possibly through increasing the role of the EU border agency Frontex, officials said.
(€1 = $1.15)
(Reporting by Jan Strupczewski; editing by David Gaffen)
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