SOTEU 2026 confirmed a disappointing direction for Europe: food, agriculture and farmers have been completely ignored, instead of giving them the central place they deserve in Europe’s vision for the future.

This disappointment was, unfortunately, expected. President von der Leyen referred to farmers and agriculture, but they remained marginal in a political vision overwhelmingly dominated by defence, security and military correlated terms.

“Is it acceptable that the speech contains dozens of mentions of these terms and only three vague references to agriculture and farmers and none to consumers?” commented Luigi Scordamaglia, President of Eat Europe. “This confirms an increasingly evident weakness: the failure to recognise the central role of food, nutrition and agriculture in shaping Europe’s future and the connection between food, nutrition and citizens’ health,” he concluded.

Food and agriculture are not simply economic sectors. They affect every European citizen, every day. Adequately financing them is about health and prevention, rural territories, consumer rights, culture and identity.

“Protecting health cannot mean dealing only with disease once it occurs,” said Luigi Scordamaglia. “Europe must have the courage to promote healthy food and diets while addressing unhealthy dietary patterns and the growing consumption of ultra-processed foods that – due to the EU’s unacceptably cautious stance – are undermining citizens’ health. Prevention begins with what Europeans eat every day.”

Food is also part of Europe’s heritage and identity. This makes the treatment of Geographical Indications particularly concerning. Referring to Parmigiano Reggiano PDO simply as “Parmesan cheese” risks weakening a system that Europe has spent decades building to protect geographical names, traditional know-how and the value created by generations of producers.

A GI is not a generic description. It represents quality, origin, tradition and territory.

The same lack of ambition applies to transparency regarding origin. Telling consumers merely whether a product comes from the “EU” or “non-EU” is not real transparency. Consumers have the right to know whether their food comes from Italy, France, Spain or another Member State, rather than simply being told that it comes from somewhere within a Union of 27 countries.

Europe still lacks the political courage to take this step. If it truly believes in consumer information, it must move beyond the generic “EU/non-EU” formula and recognise the value of indicating the Member State of origin.

Origin is not a technical detail. Origin is information. Origin is identity. Origin is value.

Europe rightly debates defence, energy, technology and competitiveness. But its future cannot be defined only by weapons, industrial capacity and geopolitical competition. It must also be defined by what Europeans eat, how that food affects their health, how it is produced, and whether citizens have the right to know where it really comes from.

Putting food at the centre does not mean looking backwards. It means recognising one of Europe’s greatest assets and making it part of its future.

SOTEU 2026 was an opportunity to do so.

That opportunity was missed.