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In case it's useful, a few points about Ursula von der Leyen as seen from Berlin:
- Yes, her defense ministry is seen as scandal-plagued, with major equipment problems & a handful of sleaze allegations.
- Yes, her defense ministry is seen as scandal-plagued, with major equipment problems & a handful of sleaze allegations.
- However the gigantic apparatus was long this way & a known as a political "ejector seat" for legions of ambitious pols. No one expected her to hold on this long (since 2013) but she's paid a high price in popularity (2nd from bottom in latest minister ranking).
- A political moderate from Merkel's CDU, she was staunchly loyal to her during the 2015-16 refugee influx. But she cornered the chancellor as labor minister with a drive for boardroom gender quotas after industry failed during a decade of voluntary measures to make headway.
- Von der Leyen as family affairs minister was culturally & demographically transformative for Germany by updating leave policies, particularly to include fathers. Like Schröder's economic reforms they took time to bear fruit but NB: economist.com/europe/2019/06…
- Long seen as Merkel's 1st crown princess (a decade before AKK), she has reportedly disappointed the chancellor in failing to build a power base within the CDU meaning she has pretty much reached the last rung of her political ladder in Berlin.
- Ah yes, and she's a medical doctor and a mother of 7 and speaks native-level French and excellent English which, despite her studies at LSE, she likes to sprinkle with Americanisms presumably picked up while her husband was on the Stanford faculty.
- Some have compared her braininess, occasional prickliness & drive to Hillary Clinton's, driving her pol. career into a wall of preconceptions about women & power. But there are other ways to skin that cat: a string of cabinet appts & now, possibly, an end run to Brussels.
Which of course would be a kind of homecoming: she spent the 1st 12 years of her life in Brussels as her father E. Albrecht was a powerful European politican, there at the v birth of the EU. This gives her a "Stallgeruch" (let's call it pedigree) that may be comforting to some.
- A final thought: while Merkel did a lot to shore up her legacy today with vdL & Lagarde in key posts (the latter is adored by Schäuble & the like), she may have hastened the end of her coalition govt. The Social Democrats, junior partners in her govt & crucial to its survival,
are furious about the #vonderLeyen nomination, despite Merkel's fig-leaf abstention. The European elex humiliated them & this stitch-up feels like another slap. If Merkel is to hold on til 2021, she'll need to give them sthg to save face or limp to the finish with a minority govt
It's a new day & for all concerned abt the messy, purportedly undemocratic #vonderLeyen nom, recommend this from the ever astute @georgloewisch who sees it as a win for Europe, women, Ger-Fr ties, east-west relations, Macron & Merkel (in German) taz.de/Kommentar-von-…
This piece argues that #vonderLeyen, as her German pol star faded in the shadow of an unwieldy ministry, built up a powerful EU & NATO network that spans east & west @SPIEGELONLINE @gebauerspon spiegel.de/politik/deutsc…
