Statement by President von der Leyen with Friedrich Merz, Federal Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany

European Commission - Statement Statement by President von der Leyen with Friedrich Merz, Federal Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany Brussels, 9 May 2025 A warm welcome, Federal Chancellor, dear Friedrich. I am delighted that you have wasted no time and travelled straight to the institutions in Brussels, and on Europe Day. That speaks for itself. We had an excellent exchange. We both agreed that whatever we are addressing right now needs to have an urgency mindset. Topics that we raised were, for example, competitiveness, a key priority of this Commission. To increase and improve the competitiveness of the European Union, we discussed four different points. The first is that it is crucial to close the innovation gap. This requires adequate funding, but it also requires a conducive environment with a guarantee of freedom of research and freedom of science, which we are able to deliver. Second topic: We looked at the difficult topic of energy prices. We have structurally too high energy prices. We need to lower them. And for that, we need to invest massively in interconnectors, in grids and in storage. We do not lack energy. We have a lot of energy production, specifically low-carbon energy. But we lack the capacity to store it and the grid. We also looked at our capital market. We need a deep and liquid functioning capital market for the whole European Union. In other words, our companies, wherever they enter the Single Market and the single capital...