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The European Parliament’s endorsement on July 18 of German Ursula von der Leyen for a second five-year term as president of the European Commission marks a bid for continuity in the EU’s executive branch with a seasoned politician whose European tenure has been inextricably bound to the fortunes of the bloc’s political center.
An accomplished scion of the European project’s founding generation of senior civil servants, the Belgian-born von der Leyen built a successful career as an adroit and effective cabinet minister under German Chancellor Angela Merkel before getting enlisted into the EU’s senior echelons five years ago.
Throughout her career, she has broken new ground for women and earned a reputation for hammering out consensus over urgent issues on both the German and EU political scenes. She was the first female German defense minister and the first woman to hold the office of president of the European Commission.
Some of the most urgent challenges currently facing the 65-year-old von der Leyen are questions over diplomatic unity and material support for Ukraine in its defense against Russia, threats to transatlantic relations, divisions over Israel’s nine-month-old war with U.S.- and EU-designated terrorist group Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and tensions over the bloc’s agricultural, industrial, and environmental goals, especially in light of the European Green Deal adopted in 2019.
She is no stranger to the kind of closely fought political bargaining that secured her second term despite a right-wing surge in last month’s European elections, having been recruited into her first term as part of a late-hour deal to offset centrist losses in the 2019 voting.
But ahead of her confirmation with a comfortable 41-seat cushion in the secret ballot in the European Parliament on July 18, she insisted that a centrist approach was essential to prevent the bloc from being “torn apart from the inside or the outside.” She challenged European lawmakers undecided on her reelection with an appeal to let her “lead the fight” against extremist political forces.
“Europe’s democratic center must hold,” she told the main chamber of the European Parliament in Strasbourg on July 18. “I will never let the extreme polarization of our societies become accepted.”
“I will never accept that demagogues and extremists destroy our European way of life, and I stand here today ready to lead the fight with all the democratic forces in this house,” she added.
Early Life
Von der Leyen arguably got a running head start on her European path. She was born in 1958 as one of seven children of Ernst Albrecht, a senior civil servant at the inception in the 1950s of the pillars that came to form the European Union. Albrecht then launched a lofty, though controversial, domestic political career in his native Lower Saxony and beyond.
She initially studied economics but shifted to medicine, graduating from Hanover Medical School in 1987 and working as an assistant physician before moving as a newlywed with a growing family to the United States for four years in the mid-1990s.
On her return to Germany in 1996, von der Leyen rose quickly within the mainstream center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU). She thrived under Merkel’s chancellorship that began in 2005, first as family affairs minister and then labor minister before becoming Germany’s first female defense minister in 2013. Her triumphs fostered widespread speculation that she was a potential successor to Merkel.
Von der Leyen had just taken over as defense minister when Moscow annexed Crimea and sparked armed separatism in eastern Ukraine in 2014, lighting a fuse that would transform the continent when Russia launched its full-scale invasion eight years later.
She responded to the Crimean crisis with some of the loudest and earliest calls for Europe to assume greater responsibility for its own defense, although it took years for Germany’s own defense spending to rise in line with such a goal.
EU Tenure
As president of the European Commission, von der Leyen has steered the EU executive’s tough response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and related threats — unprecedented sanctions, tens of billions in aid to Ukraine, and weapons supplies despite opposition from members such as Hungary — while adopting more flexible approaches on potentially divisive issues including immigration, agricultural and budget policy, and even her own priority of tackling climate change.
She also spearheaded the bloc’s actions to stem the devastating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic that began in early 2020 and eventually killed millions and polarized societies within months of her taking up the leadership of the European Commission, including an unprecedented vaccine-development and -sharing effort. The vaccine crisis generated one of the longest-lasting scandals of von der Leyen’s tenure, over her role in the commission’s contracts with vaccine makers and its efforts to withhold related documents.
In a speech to the European Parliament to make the case for her reelection on July 18, she warned of the current “period of deep anxiety and uncertainty,” saying, “I’m convinced that Europe, a strong Europe, can rise to the challenge.”
She also hinted at a tough line against actions by member states that could undermine EU unity in the face of Russian aggression, calling Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s self-styled “peace mission” via Russia and China an “appeasement mission.”
In her speech, Von der Leyen also listed fresh priorities, including a stiffening of EU borders, a merit-based approach to EU enlargement, a “new EU strategy” for agriculture, and boosts aimed at economic and industrial efficiency. She also demanded an end “now” to the bloodshed in Gaza.
The Process
Von der Leyen is president of the center-right European People’s Party (EPP), which remains the largest grouping in the European Parliament despite gains by far-right parties in last month’s elections.
After her appointment by the EU’s 27 national leaders in late June, von der Leyen needed support in parliament from a simple majority of at least 360 of the 719 currently active seats. She received 401 of 707 votes cast on July 18.
She was expected to rely heavily on the votes of her EPP, as well as deputies from other groups in the parliament, namely the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats and the liberal Renew Europe, despite some likely defections. Last minute horse-trading is also expected to have brought votes from the Greens/European Free Alliance and the more Euroskeptic European Conservatives and Reformists.
The defeat of her candidacy would have sparked a desperate clamber for a replacement with few signs of an easy consensus among the 27 leaders of the bloc’s member states.
The top European Commission post is one of three key institutional presidencies, the other two being the leadership of the European Council, which defines the general political direction and priorities the bloc, and the European Parliament. (The rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union, a body composed of government ministers from each member state, is a largely symbolic one, which mostly entails chairing council meetings.)
The most important functions of the commission’s president are to work alongside the European Council president to set the bloc’s strategic and general priorities, assign portfolios in and guide the “College” of 27 commissioners (one from each member state), and participate in debate among member governments.
But the political independence and executive mission of the commission — to propose and enforce legislation and implement policies and budgets — make its presidency a particularly influential platform.
