As defence minister, Ursula von der Leyen championed a networked, active German role in the world
Appearances can be deceptive, however. Where Mrs Merkel is more straightforward than she sometimes seems, her erstwhile protégée is more enigmatic. And that is grounds for open-mindedness about her prospects as the first woman to be commission president goes about building her team of commissioners with national governments, who formally propose its members.
For one thing, her background is not as smooth as it sounds. Her father was once an outsider in his own party. He took on the right-wingers who dominated his state branch and transformed it into one of the party’s most liberal outposts. “There was the Lower Saxonafter Ernst Albrecht,” notes Alexander Clarkson of King’s College London.
Her toughest assignment came when in 2013 she moved into the Bendlerblock, the grand complex housing Germany’s defence ministry and long considered the ejector seat of German ministerial careers. Her record there is at best mixed—Germany’s armed forces remain woefully under-equipped—but better than it looks.
All of which could mean that choosing her for a five-year spell at the Commission’s helm is a gamble. The vote on July 16th was deceptive. Mrs von der Leyen’s narrow majority said less about her authority than about the strategic feints, procedural grumbles and face-saving measures ofs from across the spectrum. Such is today’s fragmented and febrile European politics.
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