Mr. Juncker’s wide-ranging speech touched on these themes:

• The favorable circumstances and relatively healthy economic growth across much of the bloc. This means that “the wind is back in Europe’s sails” and that there is “a window of opportunity” for reform, he said.

Economic growth, which stands at more than 2 percent across the European Union, has outstripped growth in the United States, while unemployment has reached a nine-year low, he said.

“Ten years since crisis struck, Europe’s economy is finally bouncing back — and with it our confidence,” he said, a reference to the long, grinding battle to overcome a debt crisis that nearly destroyed the euro currency, prompted the imposition of austerity on millions of citizens and helped fuel a populist backlash that focused anger at the European Union.

• A new European minister for economy and finance. Mr. Juncker suggested that such a minister could be part of the European Commission and could also lead the Eurogroup, a body consisting of finance ministers from the 19 nations that use the euro. That group made many of the decisions regarding Greece during the debt crisis.

The idea, he said, would be for this new minister to coordinate among various European bodies to help countries that are in an economic recession or “hit by a fundamental crisis.”

The goal would be “efficiency” rather to create a new position “just for the sake of it,” Mr. Juncker said.

• Proposals in finance, intelligence-gathering and cybersecurity. Particularly notable was an announcement that the European Union would soon begin far-reaching trade talks with Australia and New Zealand. That could compete with British efforts to strike trade deals with its Commonwealth partners that London sorely wants as it prepares to leave the bloc.