Ursula von der Leyen is poised to become the next president of the European Commission — the first woman to assume the role.
Ursula von der Leyen, the German defense minister, speaks to journalists after being elected president of the European Commission on July 3, 2019, in Strasbourg, France. The beleaguered German defense minister is poised to become the next president of the European Commission — the first woman to assume that role — even though she was not even among the candidates running for what is one of Europe’s most important jobs.
The EU, whose raison d’etre is to try to avoid being as splintered as it was this week in hopes of standing upand growing global powers such as China, was facing a crisis of confidence because of the logjam when Von der Leyen’s name was suddenly pulled out of a hat by an unlikely consortium of French President Emmanuel Macron and four Eastern European leaders.
Some Germans also bristle about her sunny optimism and envy her success in combining career and family. Von der Leyen has served in a variety of roles in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Cabinet since 2005, including as family minister and labor minister. She was sometimes mentioned as a candidate to succeed Merkel, but there was little support in the conservative party for Von der Leyen, whose policies were often more in line with the rival center-left Social Democrats.
Instead, 27 of the 28 EU national leaders voted for a relatively obscure German minister whose career ambitions have been repeatedly foiled. Merkel had to abstain in the vote for Von der Leyen because her center-left coalition partners in Berlin declined to back it. Her strong command of three of the EU’s most important languages and the fact that she was born in Brussels, the European capital , are compelling entries on Von der Leyen’s resume that could prove beneficial leading the commission, which was created in the aftermath of World War II to keep the peace on a continent ravaged by wars.
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