3 September 2024: Ursula Von der Leyen was re-elected as President of the European Commission for a new mandate on 19 July. During the European Parliament plenary prior to her election, she presented her Political Guidelines for 2024-9, based on the common ideas discussed with the European Parliament and the European Council’s Strategic Agenda for the upcoming mandate. The full guidelines are available here [1], with a summary of the key relevant points below:

1. General EU policy:

• There will be a Commissioner for Defence, a Commissioner for the Mediterranean and a Commissioner for Enlargement.
• There will be a Vice-President for Implementation, Simplification and Interinstitutional Relations.
• She is willing to enlarge the EU and include Ukraine.
• Keep working on skills in the EU and gender equality
• Have better relations with the regions and include them in policymaking.
• Encourage relations among Commissioners and their respective Committee in the EP.
• Upcoming report from Mario Draghi on competition.

2. Single market:

• Complete the single market in different sectors.
• Reduce administrative burden especially for SMEs.
• Ensure high level of data protection and support companies by improving open access to data, notably to support SMEs to fulfil their report obligations.
• Add a single market dimension to the report to address rule of law issues, affecting companies, especially SMEs, operating across borders.

3. Transport:

• Proposal of a single digital booking and ticketing regulation to ensure that Europeans can buy one single ticket on one single platform and get pax rights for the whole trip. 
• Reach climate neutrality by 2050 through a technology neutral approach in which e-fuels have a role to play through a targeted amendment of the regulation as part of the foreseen review.

4. Investment:

• Unlock the financing needed for the green, digital and social transition to maximise public investment and leverage and de-risk private capital investments through working closely with the EIB.
• Put forward risk-absorbing measures to make it easier for commercial banks, investors and venture capital to finance fast-growing companies.

5. Border control:

• Make the EU the most advanced travel destination in the world with fully functional European digital border management.