It’s decision day in Strasbourg as the next European Commission president will be elected. A vote will take place at 6pm this evening and so far, things are looking up for German Ursula von der Leyen. In a 30-minute speech in Strasbourg earlier today, the defence minister said: “Exactly 40 years ago, the first president of the European parliament, Simone Veil, was elected and presented her vision of a united Europe.
“It is thanks to you, and to all the other European icons, that I present to you today my vision of Europe.
“And 40 years later, it is with great pride that it is finally a woman who is the presidential candidate of the European commission.”
According to reports, Ms Von der Leyen has managed to convince “a large majority” of the socialists to support her.
The message came after a series of eleventh hour meetings with parliament chiefs on Monday.
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But who is the outspoken nominee to be European Commission president?
Ursula Gertrud von der Leyen, 60, is a German politician who has served as Minister of Defence since 2013.
She is the first women in German history to hold the office and is a member of the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU).
Ms Von der Leyen is currently the European Council’s proposed candidate for President of the European Commission.
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She joined the CDU in 1990, and became active in politics in 1999, entering local politics in 2001 in the area of Hanover.
From 2003 to 2005 she was a minister in the state government of Lower Saxony, serving in the cabinet of Christian Wulff.
Following this position, she was appointed Federal Minister of Family Affairs and Youth in the cabinet of Angela Merkel in 2005.
At the federal election of 2009, Ms Von der Leyen was elected to the Bundestag, Germany’s Parliament as the Minister of Labour and Social Affairs, a position she had until 2013.
As Germany’s defence minister she chairs the EPP Defence Ministers Meeting, which gathers EPP defence ministers ahead of meetings of the Council of the European Union.
Former British Secretary of State for Defence Michael Fallon noted in 2019 that she had been “a star presence” in the NATO community and “the doyenne of NATO ministers for over five years.”
On July 2, 2019, the outspoken politician was proposed by the European Council as their candidate for the office of President of the European Commission.
If elected by the European Parliament tonight, she will be the first woman to hold the office and the first German since the Commission’s first president, Walter Hallstein.