Surprise in Brussels: Federal defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen is to be President of the EU Commission. It is regarded as a versatile politician, even if your Reputation got the last scratch. A Portrait.
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Who is Ursula von der Leyen?
She was born over 60 years ago in a suburb of Brussels, their political path could lead you to suddenly be back in the Belgian and European capital. On Tuesday, the EU heads of state conjured up – and heads of government, the German Minister of defence Ursula von der Leyen out of the hat and nominated you as the successor to EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.
You would be the first woman on this Post. But the EU Parliament will decide in the week from the 15. July in Strasbourg. Especially social Democrats and the greens strongly criticised the personnel. Von der Leyen was “not acceptable” and her nomination “deeply disappointing”, it said. Your confirmation is thus not merely a matter of form.
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Your first 13 years of his life, of the Leyen in Brussels. Her father, the later lower Saxony Prime Minister Ernst Albrecht, was working in a leading Position in the European economic community (EEC) and the European community (EC), the predecessor institutions of the EU. Also speaks English and French, von der Leyen, unlike many of their Berlin Cabinet colleagues fluently, and was always safe on the international stage.
In the Federal cabinets of Chancellor Merkel, various Ministerial posts held by the Leyen. You always went with a similar enthusiasm to the new task, questioned Existing, whirled structures and provided with your assertiveness sometimes even for quiet anger in the coalition factions.
Family, Work, Defense
First of all, seven times that of the mother from 2005 until 2009, Minister for the family was and sat with her for the well-established Berlin-based policy for part of the unconventional kind of clear signals. So you put the so-called parents money on the Track, and brought strong financial support from the Federal government and the nationwide Expansion of child-care on the way.
2009 – in the second Merkel Cabinet was the trained Doctor, von der Leyen Federal Minister for labour and social Affairs. Four years later, in December 2013, she moved to the top of the defence Ministry, whose leadership she kept even after the complicated black-and-red formation of a government after the Federal election in 2017. Hardly one of their exclusively male 17 predecessor made it into this office six years.
Until the change to the top of the Ministry of defense, the Federal government passed the political career of the ambitious politician, smooth and well-flawless. She was usually loyal to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, for she was always a reliable support in the Cabinet and the CDU-party days. Some saw in her already, Merkel’s successor.
Ready to fight: Von der Leyen (center) in 2008, in an action for international women’s day
The Maker
As the Minister of defence of the many construction sites in the military went to von der Leyen quickly: The troops suffered, and suffers from obsolete and defective equipment, poorly planned armament projects and a serious lack of specialists. So you won by strong – and media – pressure to increase the defence budget. And under the slogan of “turnaround staff” stopped the first German defense Minister to the downsize in the military: for the First time since the reunification of the band grew again.
Among other things, they abolished the rigid limit of 185,000 soldiers. Von der Leyen, defence policy, made visible to an Element of German foreign policy. This corresponded to the international fight against the terrorist organization “Islamic state”, in the German armed forces in a number of areas involved.
“We came out of a Phase, where the Bundeswehr has long been shrunk,” said von der Leyen in may 2017, on the situation of the Bundeswehr. And called the two from your point of view a positive change of course: “The security situation has changed so that many tasks are on the German armed forces, from Syria, Iraq, Mali, over the entire Mission in the Mediterranean sea, to the aid to refugees and the protection of the Eastern border. At the same time, I shot together with the armed forces, so to speak, the Tanker once – namely, the reversal of the trend Material, the trend of contact personnel and the finances.”
Missteps and scandals
In the past few years, however, as an “on-maker got out of the Leyens” numerous scratches. Blame it on some personnel decisions, but also various scandals. And also your important defence projects have been delayed. “The States in the area of Procurement, the German armed forces are no mandatory qualifications for the highest Executive Job in the European Union,” said the Green defense expert Omid Nouripour, the Brussels people compared to the German wave.
In addition, during her tenure as Secretary of defense right-wing extremist activities in the army and degrading practices in the training of Soldiers known to have been. Clearly and more clearly than any of their predecessors would have done – distanced the Minister from the force.
For some, a symbol-image of the Bundeswehr: the sailing school ship Gorch Fock in the dry dock
With your statement, the armed forces have an “attitude problem”, playful trust in the soldiers. Most recently, she lurched at the question of whether there is a future of the sail training ship “Gorch Fock”. And it is clear that freedoms had an Ex-consultant who had made von der Leyen, to the Secretary of state and, in turn, a variety of expensive consultants to the Ministry repeatedly. Meanwhile, a Committee of inquiry of the Bundestag deals with this “consultant affair”; of the Leyen would probably have to testify in December.
Brussels Plus Points
The gloss of the Leyens faded noticeably. Nevertheless, longtime observers see a variety of plus points for the 60-Year-old to the Brussels parquet.
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It successfully worked on the structure of the EU defence Union. “The European army as a long-term goal and the NATO are not opposites, but, in my opinion, two sides of a coin, because it is important that the Europeans within NATO, a strong pillar, to the credibility of NATO to maintain, but also to have a strong European voice,” she said. To said the claims by US President Donald Trump, after a major military Engagement of Germany and Europe, she said: “I think that’s a fair claim.”
In 2016, they are made in a very difficult Phase for the rapid establishment of the NATO Mission, which is supported in the Aegean sea, the Greek and Turkish coast guard and the European border protection Agency Frontex and the fight against the tractor forward should bring.
Von der Leyen each task to trust yourself certainly. As of 2010, had to name her after the sudden resignation of German President Horst Köhler of the CDU quickly for a successor, was her Name also in the race. Now your path leads, perhaps in a completely different direction.