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Ursula von der Leyen: Nominated unanimously by the CDU board

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Liesa Johannssen / REUTERS

Ursula von der Leyen is aiming for a second term as President of the EU Commission. The CDU politician explained this at a meeting of the party leadership in Berlin, as the news agencies dpa and Reuters learned from the CDU federal executive board. She was then unanimously nominated by the CDU board. Von der Leyen said she was looking forward to the joint election campaign, it was said.

The post of EU Commission President must be filled after the European elections in June. As a rule, a candidate from the European party family that performs best in the European elections is appointed. The EPP is clearly ahead in surveys so far. There is therefore a good chance that von der Leyen can remain president.

As President of the EU Commission, von der Leyen has been in charge of around 32,000 employees since December 1, 2019, who, among other things, make proposals for new EU laws and monitor compliance with the European Treaties. The 65-year-old also sits at the table as an EU representative at almost all major international summits such as the G7 or G20. The US magazine Forbes recently named von der Leyen the “most powerful woman in the world”.

She was already considered the ideal person for the job at the top of the commission, at least on paper, in 2019. Von der Leyen was born in Brussels in 1958, the year that Walter Hallstein became the first and, until von der Leyen, the last German head of the Commission. Von der Leyen's father, the later Lower Saxony Prime Minister Ernst Albrecht, worked for this commission. The daughter went to the European school, which is why she speaks French and English well.

Von der Leyen's term in office so far has been shaped primarily by the corona crisis and the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine.

Before moving to Brussels, von der Leyen was, among other things, Defense Minister under then Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU). The mother of seven children has a doctorate in medicine and has also served as Federal Minister for Family Affairs, Labor Minister and Social Affairs Minister in Lower Saxony.

czl/dpa/Reuters