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She was always there, but never in the foreground.

She didn't have the right to vote, but her voice had weight.

At the marathon summit in July, at which the EU agreed on a 1,800 billion euro financial package, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen usually sat at the negotiating table with the heads of government.

This Tuesday marks the first year that the German Commission President took office.

In her term of office to date, Europe has already changed dramatically, and the head of the Commission has laid the foundations for it.

Von der Leyen remained in the background, but the German politician's Europe became visible at the July summit.

It is a Europe that, when in doubt, is much closer to what France has been demanding for many years.

And far from what Leyen's former boss Angela Merkel had championed during the euro crisis.

Even during the euro crisis, Germany led the camp of countries that insisted on budget discipline.

Angela Merkel had now moved closer to France's side - only the “thrifty four”, Austria, the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden fought for budget discipline.

In the end, the heads of state and government decided for the first time what French politicians have been demanding for many years, which many capitals, especially Berlin, have long resisted: A kind of European state budget, the 750 billion euro EU reconstruction fund in the Corona crisis .

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In order to finance the reconstruction fund, the EU Commission is to for the first time incur large amounts of debt on the financial markets and channel the money raised there as transfers and loans to the member states.

For the first time, the EU can act like a national finance minister.

The amount of the fund is limited and it should initially remain a one-off reaction in an exceptional situation.

But the first politicians such as ECB boss Christine Lagarde are already calling for the fund and the ability to borrow to be retained in the longer term.

On Monday, for example, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) stated that while the recovery fund is not the euro-zone budget the IMF has long called for, “a positive experience with the recovery fund could help build political support for it, ultimately introduce a budgetary capacity. "

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“Budgetary capacity” describes the competences of national finance ministers: to incur debts, to collect taxes and to spend the money.

For critics, it is the entry into a European “debt union”.

In the course of the Corona crisis, a new European dynamic has emerged.

This paradigm shift was driven by the European capitals, but von der Leyen set the course in the background.

In the spring, for example, after the corona virus had arrived in Europe and the continent was in lockdown.

It quickly became clear that Europe was headed for the biggest economic crisis since the Second World War and that companies and workers needed unprecedented state aid.

Italy, Spain and France quickly called for solidarity at European level.

Germany initially fended off the demands, especially those from Paris for euro bonds, i.e. common European debts with unlimited liability.

But after a 500 billion euro package of aid loans was put together in the spring, political pressure continued.

He came mainly from Italy, where left and right populists fueled anti-EU sentiment in the country with their rhetoric.

The mood there was so hostile to the EU that there was no fear of an Italexit in Brussels and elsewhere;

an exit of Italy from the EU - which would have meant the end of political union and monetary union.

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Soon there was talk of concrete sums, sometimes over 2,000 billion, sometimes over 500 billion, and for the first time there was also a discussion about letting possible EU corona aid run through the EU budget, which is administered by the European Commission.

The routine and efficiency of an existing authority spoke in favor of this.

But it was also clear that if the EU Commission were to suddenly distribute several hundred billion euros in addition, its influence would increase significantly - and with it that of Commission President von der Leyen.

250 billion euros credit on top

When Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron finally got together in May to present their 500 billion plan for Corona aid, von der Leyen was not connected.

But it was also her plan.

Merkel and Macron had coordinated with the Commission President in advance and when she presented the Commission proposals for Corona aid shortly afterwards, they made a perfect fit on the Merkel-Macron proposal: In addition to the 500 billion in transfers, 250 billion euros in loans should come .

The Commission was therefore able to add a little more to the Franco-German proposal without hurting the governments involved;

Loans would eventually be repaid by the recipients.

The Commission's proposals were also the basis for negotiations at the marathon summit in July.

The summit agreement not only secured support for the countries hit particularly hard by Corona.

Suddenly hundreds of billions of euros were available with which von der Leyen was able to finance the two central goals of her presidency: the European Green Deal and the digitization of the European economy.

Is the economy actually getting greener?

The summit resolution expressly provides that a large part of the money should flow into both policy areas.

Suddenly the two fit together: the politician's huge ambitions and the budget she has available - even if the reconstruction fund and long-term budget are currently being blocked by Poland and Hungary.

In any case, only the next few years will show what von der Leyens Europe will look like: Whether it will remain so divided that the EU countries will continue to fail to reach agreement on key issues such as migration.

Whether the European economy is actually becoming greener, more digital and at the same time more competitive.

And whether the reconstruction fund really remains an historical exception - or the first step towards a permanent European budget.