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 anniversary of the German Commission President taking office. In her term of office to date, Europe has already changed dramatically, and the Commission head 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 advocated during the euro crisis.