Pedro Poza Maupain Aarhus (Denmark)
Aarhus (Denmark)
Updated Sunday, February 25, 2024-01:24
Profile Baroness, with seven children and a castle: this is Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission
Politics Ursula von der Leyen and Monika Hohlmeier: Sánchez's noble 'girlfriend' and her dark side
Supermutti, Supermami, they called Ursula von der Leyen in Germany
when she was Minister of Family between 2005 and 2009
.
It was not be for lowerly.
Dr. Von der Leyen, because she also
has a degree in Medicine,
had seven children, five girls and two boys.
When the eldest, David, entered the Government, he was 18 years old.
The little one, Gracia, only 6.
Those were the times when
the
mutti
par excellence
(that's how they referred to her in the Christian Democrats CDU, the party of both)
was Chancellor
Angela Merkel.
She is the mother of the country,
she understands herself, because
she had no descendants
.
Von der Leyen will now go one step further:
she aspires to be re-elected
as president of the European Commission, the
most prominent position in the EU,
which she has held since 2019. She is
Europe's
Supermutti .
Even then, when she was a minister, she did not dislike the nickname:
"Mom refers someone who cares
, who knows a lot and who can be trusted."
In that interview with the
Tagesspiegel
newspaper she also expressed
her admiration for Angela Merkel
in a way that would serve her perfectly well today to describe herself:
"She is organized and gets to the point
. She knows what goals she wants to achieve and that tenacity is needed to achieve them."
Ursula von der Leyen with her childrenGETTY
Of course, the similarity between the two remains there
.
Merkel, daughter of Protestant pastors
, came from the former GDR, she was the
living image of sobriety
and she never had children.
Ursula's family, the Albrechts, belong to the
lifelong haute bourgeoisie
.
Her wedding in 1986 to Heiko, whom she met while they were both studying medicine, also turned her into an aristocrat: a
Von der Leyen, nobles and textile magnates
, the masters of the city of Krefeld.
The president's father,
Ernst Albrecht, was Prime Minister of the Lower Saxony region
between 1976 and 1990. When he was diagnosed with
Alzheimer
's disease in 2003 , it was Ursula, Supermutti, who took responsibility for
his care until his death
in 2014 .
.
Of course, we should not forget
the glamor that Von der Leyen exudes
and that contrasts so much with Merkel's austerity.
The list of politicians and foreign ambassadors who have highlighted her charm after meeting her is endless.
Ask Pedro Sánchez, with whom,
despite not sharing ideology
, she maintains an
excellent relationship.
To the point that when she addresses him in a speech she does so with a friendly
"dear Pedro."
The entire family in an image from 2005EFP
In the halls of Brussels, her hometown, the president moves with unusual naturalness.
It is not in vain that
his father
, before leading Lower Saxony, was one of the
first senior officials of the European Economic Community
(EEC) after its foundation in 1958. The family lived in the Belgian capital until 1970. Hence
Von der Leyen speaks Fluent French and English
, unusual among German politicians.
Her critics,
however, maintain that the 65-year-old president is
a lot of facade and little content,
although during her time at the head of the Family Ministry she garnered praise for
her feminist perspective:
"I want to promote equality:
well-prepared women
should to be able
to occupy management positions even if they have children
. "
She extended daycare hours to facilitate conciliation and
introduced the paternity leave subsidy,
an initiative that raised blisters in the most rancid sectors of her own party.
She fared worse as
Minister of Defense, a position she held between 2013 and 2019
after four years as head of Labor.
Her greatest milestone, while other problems occurred, was
creating daycare centers for the Armed Forces.
Necessary, not priority.
What the Army needed, according to its detractors, was not a
Supermutti
.
Ursula and Heiko von der Leyen
today live on a farm with horses in Burgdor
f, near Hannover.
Idyllic, but not quite: In September 2022, a troublesome wolf, registered as GW950m, killed his beloved Dolly, a 30-year-old pony.