Ursula von der Leyen succeeded Jean-Claude Juncker as President of the European Commission in December 2019, making her the first woman to hold the position.
"It's like coming home for me," she said of her newly appointed role. Von der Leyen, who was born in Brussels, is primarily in charge of Brexit negotiations (which are still ongoing), new EU laws, trade deals, and rule enforcement. In a nutshell, she is in charge of legislation affecting over 700 million Europeans.
She made one thing clear almost immediately after taking office: she supports the fight against climate change by promising a "European Green Deal" in which greenhouse gas emissions will be zero by 2050.
Von der Leyen was the former German defense minister before taking on her current position. She was Angela Merkel's longest-serving cabinet member, serving from 2005 to 2019. When she assumed her new position, she appointed a team of 27 EU commissioners, including 12 women at the top table.
Von der Leyen was not the first choice for the most powerful position in the EU. She was not particularly popular in her previous role among Germany's armed forces, and she only emerged as a candidate for Commission chief after initial compromise deals fell through.
After a political stalemate over other candidates, she was eventually nominated by EU member states and backed by the European Parliament.
Despite growing up in an influential family home as the daughter of the long-serving Prime Minister of Lower Saxony, Ernst Albrecht, she always fought her way into the upper echelons of politics with great willpower and inexhaustible energy.
UvdL, as she is known in Berlin's political circles, is a strong woman: a fully qualified physician, a mother of seven children, a skilled dressage rider, and one of Germany's most experienced female politicians.
In her first state of the union speech as EU commissioner, the 63-year-old spoke out strongly against Poland's anti-LGBTQIA+ policies in September 2020. "Being yourself is not your ideology," von der Leyen told MEPs in Brussels at the European Parliament. "It's part of your identity," she explained. "So let me be clear: LGBTQI-free zones are humanity-free zones." And they are not welcome in our union."
Despite her family's influence, she entered politics relatively late. Ursula moved to London to study economics in order to distance herself from her domineering family. This, however, was not what she desired. She interrupted her studies in London and returned to Hanover to study medicine. She met her future husband while attending university there.
Ursula von der Leyen had developed nearly perfect English skills as well as a deep understanding of America and the Anglo-Saxon mentality during her time abroad. She worked in a hospital for five years in Hanover.
Finally, in 2003, von der Leyen made the leap into politics. This was the beginning of a meteoric career. On her first attempt, she was elected to the Lower Saxony state parliament and appointed State Minister for Health and Social Affairs despite her inexperience.
This was only the start. Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, quickly recognized her potential. As Berlin's Minister for Family Affairs, von der Leyen successfully fought for the right of children to public day care and the integration of work and family life. After beginning a long campaign for female quotas in German management and supervisory boards four years later, as Federal Minister of Labor, she continued to rise.
Ursula von der Leyen had long been regarded as the frontrunner among potential successors to Chancellor Merkel. As a result, Merkel presented her with her most difficult challenge to date by appointing her to the most difficult position possible in Berlin in 2013: Minister of Defense. Suddenly, UvdL's popularity began to dwindle. Von der Leyen was never able to form a meaningful relationship with the soldiers.
Mrs. von der Leyen is known to be a workaholic. The most powerful woman in Europe was accustomed to spending her days at work. Her position does not come with an official residence, so when she isn't travelling for work or visiting her family in Germany, von der Leyen sleeps in a 270-square-foot room right next to her desk.
That unusual decision came in handy when the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic in March 2020, 102 days into her term. With fierce disagreements over border closures and tense negotiations on an economic rescue package, it appeared that the EU was about to fall apart. "We were in crisis mode," she recalls.
Others see her as a moral voice, not just a consensus builder. She was the first Western leader to visit Ukraine following the Russian invasion last April, addressing President Zelensky as "dear Volodymyr" and handing him an initial questionnaire to join the EU. "Your struggle is our struggle," she explained. She demanded accountability for Russian war criminals in Strasbourg the following month, insisting that President Vladimir Putin must "pay a very high price" for his brutality.
For now, maintaining balance in Europe appears difficult. In the midst of the chaos, she struggles to see the big picture, whether it's imagining how the next few weeks or months of war will play out, or imagining where her own career will go after her term at the Commission expires in 2024. She is instead preoccupied with the here and now; “It is stressful and a lot of pressure,” she says. “But whenever I feel like, I’m exhausted, I’ve had it, my next thought is: the people in Ukraine cannot say, I’m exhausted, I’ve had it. I am here to manage this crisis. Then we’ll see.”
