The European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen delivered her 6th State of the European Union (SOTEU) speech yesterday (17 September 2026) in Strasbourg. “In this new world, we must urgently reimagine our partnerships. And build global coalitions for our resilience and democracies,” she told MEPs. «Europe’s belief in cooperation has always been driven by peace. It is our raison d’être,» she also said.

Although the Commission President primarily focused on geopolitical cooperation and the announcement of Canada as the first associate member of the EU, PLATFORMA seized the opportunity to reflect on the concept of reimagination.

For us, reimagining global partnerships means recognising local and regional governments as partners in development — with their unique capacity to mobilise investment, build climate resilience and turn global ambitions into sustainable action in communities and territories.

Across the globe, towns, cities are regions are already building partnerships and coalitions through decentralised cooperation, working together to strengthen resilience and democratic local governance.

As the EU builds new global partnerships, these existing networks and the experience of local and regional governments should be recognised as an essential part of the solution.

No mention of development cooperation

Previous speeches made explicit references to development cooperation, but this year’s SOTEU hid it behind geopolitical cooperation, trade and migration priorities

In a statement shared the day before SOTEU, CEMR Spokesperson on International cooperation and the SDGs Carola Gunnarsson (Sala Municipality, Sweden) made a wish: “Global Gateway will go local. The EU will channel unprecedented investment and development cooperation through towns, cities and regions, acknowledging that sustainable development begins locally.”

Unsurprisingly, this was not reflected in the President’s speech. But together with our partners, we will continue to defend the role of local and regional governments in development cooperation, international relations and global partnerships.