European Independence as Institutional Survival: Digital Diplomacy under Ursula von der Leyen
- Anzhelika Doncheva
- 22 hours ago
- 16 min read
Between 2022 and 2026, political discourse across Europe has become more assertive and security-focused in the wake of Russia’s ongoing full-scale invasion of Ukraine. This shift is particularly evident when applying critical discourse analysis (CDA) to the public messaging of the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen. Her speeches, official statements, and digital communications have placed independence, defense, security, and competitiveness at the center of European political debate. Amid geopolitical turbulence and digital disruption, the European Union’s (EU) ability to maintain political influence and project leadership increasingly depends on how effectively EU leaders frame its geopolitical discourse.
During von der Leyen’s second presidential mandate, her evolving rhetoric on strategic autonomy has sought to strengthen the EU’s institutional position in an international system shaped by state-led agendas and digitally amplified national interests. Her articulation of European independence reflects an effort to preserve the Union’s authority while adapting to a more competitive, state-centered geopolitical environment. This dual movement of asserting autonomy while defending institutional legitimacy poses both a challenge and an opportunity for the European Union.
As the EU seeks to strengthen its political and economic independence, it remains deeply embedded in institutional and economic interdependencies. In this context, von der Leyen uses digital diplomacy to emphasize adherence to trade agreements and respect for territorial sovereignty as foundational principles of European independence. However, this rhetorical shift also reshapes EU-US relations and transatlantic cooperation. While independence may signal an effort to reinforce the EU’s institutional resilience within existing alliances, it may also point toward a gradual diversification away from long-standing dependencies. The central question, therefore, concerns how von der Leyen's public communication constructs the meaning of European strategic autonomy and how her digital messaging reflects an institutional preservation strategy within a state-centered international order.
From the perspective of regional actors, the European Union, through governing bodies such as the European Commission and the European Council, functions as an autonomous actor, exercising authority delegated by its member states to project a more visible and unified presence in global politics. In this institutional arrangement, the EU balances the influence of individual countries, allowing the voices of founding members to carry equal formal weight alongside those of newer member states following waves of EU enlargement. As digital disruption reshapes diplomacy and political communication, the EU’s governance structure helps coordinate collective responses to cross-border technological change, preserving joint political action among member states. Nevertheless, the growing influence of state-led agendas and renewed appeals to national interest place additional pressure on the EU as a committed institutional actor within the international order.
The shift in European political discourse cannot be understood without considering the geopolitical shock triggered by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The war significantly reshaped European perceptions of collective security and exposed structural vulnerabilities in the EU’s economic, energy, and geopolitical dependencies. In response, EU leaders, particularly Ursula von der Leyen, have adopted increasingly assertive rhetoric, emphasizing support for Ukraine, stronger coordination among EU members, and closer cooperation with NATO. This moment also intensified the debate over European independence, as the war's consequences highlighted the need to reduce external dependencies and strengthen the Union’s strategic alliances.
In this evolving geopolitical environment, Ursula von der Leyen’s presidency offers a new progressive vision for EU political leadership. Elected as President of the European Commission in 2019 and re-elected for a second mandate in July 2024, von der Leyen is the first woman to hold this position. According to EU treaties, the President’s role is central to organizing the Commission, setting its policy agenda, and representing it in European Council meetings, G7 and G20 summits, summits with non-EU countries, and major debates in the European Parliament and the Council. This institutional authority positions Ursula von der Leyen as the EU's primary representative on the global stage, articulating the collective interests of all member states and using digital platforms to shape the Union’s public image and influence perceptions among international actors.
At the start of von der Leyen’s second mandate in 2024, two major policy reports significantly shaped the debate on Europe’s economic resilience and strategic position in the global economy. From an economic perspective, the Letta report, “Much more than a Market” (April 2024), emphasized the need to fully leverage the EU’s single market to strengthen the Union’s competitiveness. It also highlighted structural vulnerabilities within the EU amid an increasingly fragmented international trade order, arguing that sectoral reforms are necessary to prevent further economic fragmentation within the Union. Later that year, Mario Draghi’s report, “The Future of European Competitiveness” (September 2024), prepared at the request of President von der Leyen, warned that the EU’s long-term economic strategy can no longer rely on favorable external conditions that previously supported its growth as it pursues economic and policy priorities.
Together, the two reports signaled the need not only to adjust Europe’s political discourse but also to reconsider the Union’s decision-making and policy priorities. Their conclusions quickly drew attention from policymakers, economists, and political analysts. The reports’ recommendations later informed von der Leyen’s 2025 discourse, in which economic competitiveness, institutional resilience, and strategic autonomy were framed as interconnected elements of a broader strategy to strengthen European independence. In this context, the reference to earlier expert analysis allows this initiative to be framed not as a political preference but as a necessary response to identified structural challenges.
By 2026, discourse on European independence had intensified, particularly around economic competitiveness and the development of more self-reliant defense and security policies. From January 19-23, 2026, the 56th annual World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting took place in Davos, Switzerland, providing world leaders with a global platform for economic and geopolitical agenda-setting. Ursula von der Leyen represented the European Union and actively used digital platforms, particularly X, to communicate her key discussion points. During this period, her digital messaging focused on EU-US relations, Arctic security, and Greenland's sovereignty.
The new developments in transatlantic relations have added complexity to the EU’s pursuit of strategic autonomy. Ongoing debates over tariffs and the stability of existing EU-US trade arrangements have underscored the sensitivity of the Union’s long-standing economic partnerships. In this context, von der Leyen’s diplomatic activity also reflected an effort to expand the EU’s external economic engagement beyond transatlantic cooperation. Following the Davos meetings, she traveled to India, where negotiations on the EU-India free trade agreement were successfully concluded, thereby expanding economic cooperation between the EU and the world’s largest emerging market. Shortly before this, the European Commission had also finalized a long-negotiated EU-Mercosur trade agreement with Latin American countries, bringing over two decades of negotiations to a close. These developments suggest that the EU’s evolving discourse on independence is accompanied by efforts to broaden its economic partnerships while navigating the challenges facing existing trade relationships.
During February and March 2026, escalating tensions in the Middle East added another layer of complexity to the European Union’s external environment. As a geographically proximate member state, Cyprus faced direct exposure to regional instability, highlighting the uneven distribution of security risks within the Union. In this context, coordination within G7 and NATO remains crucial to strengthening the overall response to the new geopolitical challenge. As the situation remains unresolved, von der Leyen’s digital messaging has largely focused on reaffirming coordinated responses within the transatlantic security framework as part of a broader crisis management strategy.
The discourse on EU leadership from 2024 to 2026 offers a new context for analyzing European independence from the perspectives of collective security, bilateral cooperation, and existing interdependencies. Today, themes of European security, economic resilience, and geopolitical partnerships remain central to von der Leyen’s digital communication.
Ursula von der Leyen plays a central role in shaping the EU’s institutional actorness through her public communication. A closer examination of von der Leyen’s public messaging on the X platform (formerly Twitter) and Instagram shows that references to European independence rarely appear in isolation. Instead, von der Leyen mentions it alongside a cluster of related terms, such as energy, security, defense, trade, competitiveness, and sovereignty. Together, these concepts frame a broader CDA narrative about the structure of von der Leyen’s political vocabulary during periods of economic and strategic geopolitical instability.
This framing became particularly visible after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine exposed several structural dependencies, including reliance on external energy sources, global market conditions, and a stable transatlantic security environment. Altogether, these factors had previously been treated as manageable, or even beneficial, within the European economic model. The earliest explicit reference to independence in von der Leyen’s digital communication can be traced to the post on the X from May 19, 2022 (Exhibit 1), stating: “The more interdependent we become in Europe, the more independent we become from Russia. The ultimate aim is: an interconnected European market for clean energy”.
This formulation is notable because von der Leyen introduces independence through the language of internal interdependence. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, independence is defined as “a quality or state of being independent: freedom from outside control or support”, while the adjective independent stands for “the condition of not being dependent” across multiple contextual meanings. The same meaning can be traced in von der Leyen’s digital discourse, where she frames independence as a manifestation of internal economic integration and political separation from external negative factors. In this sense, von der Leyen’s European independence, as of 2022, became a rhetorical response to Russian aggression in Ukraine, namely the internal consolidation of European energy markets. At the time, it did not yet represent a comprehensive strategic doctrine for European policymaking.
The subsequent critical discourse analysis suggests that the concept gradually expanded beyond the energy domain during Ursula von der Leyen’s second mandate as President of the European Commission, representing a clear case of recontextualization within the CDA theoretical framework. By 2024 and 2026, references to independence increasingly appeared in her public discussions of economic competitiveness, international trade, and technological capacity. Hence, the language of independence evolved from a sector-specific response to a crisis into a more comprehensive framework for addressing gaps in European economic and strategic self-reliance.
On April 16, 2024, Ursula von der Leyen referred to both the Draghi and Letta reports in her post on X (Exhibit 2), presenting them as “the way for the future” of the EU economy. Prior to this, she had promoted the two reports separately on social media, acknowledging the authors’ individual contributions to the debate on Europe’s competitiveness and economic resilience. In another post on X from September 9, 2024 (Exhibit 3), von der Leyen noted that she had personally asked Mario Draghi to prepare the report on European competitiveness as she entered her second term as President of the European Commission. By requesting the Draghi report and then invoking both reports in her digital messaging, she establishes a discursive sequence in which European vulnerability is first defined through technical expertise and then mobilized to support political action.
By 2025, the rhetoric surrounding European independence had broadened, linking energy policy and economic competitiveness to the need to strengthen EU defense capabilities. This shift became evident in von der Leyen’s communications in the lead-up to her 2025 State of the Union address. In the weeks before the speech, she actively promoted the agenda on her social media, where a post from September 2, 2025 (Exhibit 4) highlighted key points of the upcoming event: “Times are changing. And so is Europe. We already achieved so much together. We have laid the foundations of our common defense industry and tech leadership. And there is so much more to come. Stay tuned for the State of the Union address on 10 September. Let’s shape a stronger Europe together”. Her reference to the Letta report and the single market initiative can be interpreted as an attempt to link analytical diagnosis with political response to strengthen her leadership. Moreover, on September 10, 2025, von der Leyen’s post on X (Exhibit 5), following her State of the Union address, characterized the new era of Europe as one of independence, stating: “Our [European] independence depends on our ability to compete in today’s turbulent times. So we are massively investing in digital and clean tech. Making our business easier. And completing our Single Market. Competitiveness is also about people and livelihoods. So we’ll put forward measures on affordability and the cost of living”.
In both cases, the term “European independence” is paired with the clusters “our common defense industry” and “our ability to compete.” This reflects the strategy von der Leyen pursued in response to challenging times for Europe, aimed at protecting its member states from potential territorial tensions and increasing the EU’s competitiveness in the global market. Her 2025 State of the Union address outlined the following initiatives for the 2025-2029 mandate.
● Competitiveness
● Defense and security
● Ukraine
● Middle East
● European social fairness
● Quality of life
● Democracy and our values
● Global Europe
● EU budget and reform
The order of these initiatives suggests that economic competitiveness, defense and security, and continued assistance to Ukraine are the top priorities for her leadership in the coming years. Moreover, drawing on Fairclough’s concept of intertextuality, von der Leyen’s references to the Letta and Draghi reports construct a causal chain in which expert-defined economic vulnerability legitimizes her State of the Union agenda, framing initiatives such as strengthening the single market as a technical necessity rather than a political choice.
The overlap between these priorities and the language used in 2025-2026 social media messaging underscores continuity between institutional policy agenda-setting and digital communication. On December 17, 2025, Ursula von der Leyen shared a video with her post on X (Exhibit 6), accompanied by the phrase: “From trade to energy and our own defense capabilities. Europe’s era of independence must be unstoppable”. A detailed analysis of the transcript of von der Leyen’s video-recorded speech, published on the European Commission’s official website on December 17, 2025, highlights the centrality of independence as a recurring concept. The term appears 12 times, closely accompanied by clusters such as defense (13 times) and Russia (10 times). At the same time, the relatively limited references (only 1-2 times) to the United States, China, or broader notions of partnership indicate a shift in emphasis away from external reliance toward internal consolidation and self-sufficiency as guiding principles of the EU’s evolving external strategy.
On December 19, 2025, in a separate post on X (Exhibit 7) following von der Leyen’s meeting with the Prime Minister of Denmark, Mette Frederiksen, she again refers to the concept of independence, this time in a more specific formulation as “energy independence from Russia”. In this post, she highlights what she describes as “remarkable work”, accompanied by a series of policy signifiers: “Support for Ukraine. Energy independence from Russia. Defense. Migration. Simplification”. From a CDA perspective, this suggests a transformation in diplomatic communication, reflecting a “rewiring” of diplomacy in which traditional policy language increasingly resembles social media-style expression.
This post also closely mirrors the rhetorical patterns of von der Leyen’s 2025 State of the Union address, in which key policy themes are rendered in a more direct, accessible digital format. At the same time, the combination of energy, defense, migration, and institutional reform in a single statement reinforces the idea that European independence is being articulated as a cross-sectoral objective spanning multiple policy domains. This reflects a broader shift in the EU’s external policy priorities under Ursula von der Leyen’s leadership.
Building on this pattern of digital messaging, von der Leyen’s communication at the 2026 World Economic Forum illustrates how European independence is framed within broader geopolitical narratives, further naturalizing the term. During the event, von der Leyen’s digital messaging focused mainly on EU-US relations and Arctic security, suggesting a need to balance autonomy with rule-based cooperation among allies. This is also important given the EU’s ongoing reliance on U.S. defense capabilities as European security structures gradually develop over the long run.
On the first day of the forum, January 19, 2026, von der Leyen published a detailed post on X (Exhibit 8) about a meeting between the EU delegation and a bipartisan delegation from the U.S. Congress, referencing bilateral discussions on “EU-US coordination of peace in Ukraine, security interests in the Arctic region, and transatlantic trade and investment.” Von der Leyen also repeatedly uses collective language such as “shared efforts” and “major asset for both the EU and US economies.” These formulations align with liberal institutionalist logic, which views cooperation, coordination, and mutual benefit as stabilizing mechanisms in international politics.
At the same time, her messaging asserts a strong sovereignty claim, stating that there is a “need to unequivocally respect the sovereignty of Greenland and of the Kingdom of Denmark.” According to the Cambridge Dictionary, the adverb “unequivocally’ means “in a way that is total, or expressed very clearly with no doubt.” In the context of the recent intensification of political pressure and the lack of clarity surrounding Greenland in statements by U.S. President D. J. Trump, the use of this elevated adverb can be interpreted as a deliberate assertion of unequivocal support for Denmark’s territorial integrity.
Such wording allows von der Leyen to position the EU as an institutional defender of sovereignty norms that continue to operate within democratic alliance frameworks. The post from January 20, 2026 (Exhibit 9) further deepens this positioning. After delivering her address as part of WEF’s daily agenda, von der Leyen shared a series of posts on her X account referencing Arctic security, the EU-US trade deal, and tariffs, stating: “Arctic security can only be achieved together. This is why the proposed additional tariffs are a mistake, especially between long-standing allies. The EU and US have agreed to a trade deal last July. A deal is a deal. And when friends shake hands, it must mean something.”
Her reference to “A deal is a deal” in relation to the trade agreement signed in July 2025 between the EU and the US is expressed in simple, direct, nearly informal language. This simplified formulation appeals to the credibility of political commitments within a liberal economic order, treating them as personal promises to be respected.
Additionally, both posts refer to tariffs. From an economic perspective, tariffs are protectionist measures that can undermine cooperative trade agreements. Initially, von der Leyen described them as measures that “run counter to shared interests” (post from January 19), later labeling them “a mistake, especially between long-standing allies” (post from January 20). By invoking both friendship (“shared interests”, “long-standing allies”) and obligation (“run counter to”, “a mistake”), von der Leyen’s new rhetoric becomes more straightforward. European independence is presented as the capacity to defend agreements and assert strategic autonomy.
Although the outcomes of this forum were primarily discursive, her address at the WEF also referred to the concept of independence, ending with the statement: “Europe must speed up its push for independence – from security to economy, from defense to democracy. Engaging in dialogue with our friends and partners, also with adversaries if necessary. The point is that the world has changed permanently. And we need to change with it.” In this formulation, European independence is presented as a multidimensional strategy that spans diverse and even polar sectors, such as “security - economy” and “defense - democracy,” with the ultimate goal of adapting to the changing order and asserting autonomy on a global scale.
This framing is further reflected in von der Leyen’s digital communication about newly advanced trade agreements. In the weeks leading up to the Forum, EU leaders finalized key trade negotiations with Mercosur countries and India. Together, the new trade agreements and their social media coverage reinforce the idea that autonomy is pursued through diversification of global economic ties. On January 17, 2026, a joint Instagram post (Exhibit 10) by Ursula von der Leyen and the President of the European Council, Antonio Costa, featured EU and Mercosur leaders standing together on stage, with raised hands as a symbol of collective agreement. The post description concluded: “This is the path the EU has chosen to walk together with partners across the globe. Because Europe’s autonomy cannot be built through isolation”. This statement is particularly revealing in discourse terms, suggesting once again that independence is not separation from global partners but a strategy achieved through diversification and expanded cooperation.
A similar framing appears in the Instagram post from January 27, 2026 (Exhibit 11), which features Ursula von der Leyen alongside Antonio Costa and India's Prime Minister, Narendra Modi. The accompanying message, “The mother of all deals is concluded,” highlights the agreement's scale and significance, referring to one of the largest trade partnerships by combined market size. The language carries greater symbolic weight, underscoring the deal's strategic importance.
The developments in the Middle East during February and March 2026 provide an additional test of this evolving discourse. As regional instability intensified, the EU faced renewed pressure to respond to external security challenges while maintaining coordination within the transatlantic framework. In this context, von der Leyen’s digital communication remained consistent with earlier patterns. On March 2, 2026, in an X post (Exhibit 12), Ursula von der Leyen stated: “The situation in the Middle East remains volatile…This afternoon, we will discuss the overall situation in the meeting of the Security College. Because from energy to nuclear, migration to security, Europe must be prepared for the fallout from recent events”. Although independence is not explicitly invoked in this post, the underlying logic remains: the EU must be able to respond to external shocks across interconnected policy areas, including defense and security. The emphasis on preparedness underscores the ongoing challenge of managing uneven distributions of security risks across the Union. Here, the crisis response is closely tied to coordination within the transatlantic security architecture. At the same time, subsequent digital messaging highlights the EU's evolving strategic response.
On March 9, 2026, Ursula von der Leyen’s post (Exhibit 13) featured a video teleconference (VTC) with regional leaders from Jordan, Egypt, Bahrain, Lebanon, Syria, Türkiye, Armenia, Iraq, Qatar, Kuwait, U.A.E., Saudi Arabia, and Oman. In her digital message, von der Leyen used collective language, highlighting that the EU “is committed to partnership, security, and prosperity in the region.” The meeting produced a joint statement, also referenced in the post. From a discourse perspective, the meeting signals von der Leyen's effort to position the EU as a coordinated external actor capable of engaging directly with regional partners, suggesting a more autonomous role.
Ultimately, the critical discourse analysis of Ursula von der Leyen’s public messaging between 2024 and early 2026 demonstrates how social media is strategically used in digital diplomacy for public outreach and to cultivate direct political connections with audiences. The analysis has also revealed the evolution and recontextualization of European independence in her discourse.
Initially articulated by von der Leyen in the context of energy security following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, independence was reframed as a sector-specific technical response to an immediate vulnerability. This shift reflected a process of naturalization, through which a politically constructed objective is now redefined as inevitable. By 2024, this framing expanded into the economic domain, as discussions of competitiveness, technological capacity, and industrial policy became central to the EU’s contemporary geopolitical self-definition. Von der Leyen began using the term ‘independence’ alongside competitiveness-driven economic reform. This can be observed not only in her digital messaging but also in concrete policy initiatives, particularly in the Letta and Dradhi reports. Both highlighted structural vulnerabilities in the European economic model and the limits of reliance on favorable external conditions. This recurrence of new terminology reflects not only naturalization but also a broader response to geopolitical turbulence. In 2025, the definition of European independence in von der Leyen’s discourse began to represent a new European geopolitical strategy, intended to invest more in defense and security capabilities and to diversify international engagement to enable the European Union to sustain itself. However, this shift added additional layers to engagement within existing partnerships. The EU’s ambition to emerge as a more autonomous global trade actor today generates new points of friction, particularly within existing transatlantic cooperation and the constantly growing Asian regional consolidation.
Ursula von der Leyen’s appearance at the 2026 WEF was particularly significant in shaping the understanding of European independence. While tensions over EU-US trade, tariffs, and Arctic security were acknowledged, her rhetoric continued to emphasize shared responsibility, situating independence within the framework of alliance-based cooperation. Combined with the new trade agreements with Mercosur and India, this framing showed that independence was a strategy of economic and political diversification, aimed at reducing reliance on any single external actor. At the same time, recent developments in the Middle East showed how von der Leyen’s rhetoric adapts to address existing gaps in European defense and security, while continuing to rely on U.S. capabilities and positioning the EU as a coordinator of diplomatic and peacebuilding efforts.
After all, von der Leyen’s digital communication illustrates that European independence is framed as a strategy of assertive sovereignty within institutional cooperation. Her messaging presents independence as a process of reducing vulnerability through diversification and internal consolidation. At the same time, this pursuit introduces new tensions between the EU and the US. For the foreseeable future, this evolving interaction between autonomy and interdependence remains central to the discourse on European independence.
EXHIBITS
