Pierluigi Mennitti’s in-depth analysis from Berlin on the next president of the European Commission
According to Martin Schulz, “the weakest minister of the German government” has been chosen and it is a scandal that “such a performance is evidently sufficient to become president of the European Commission”. Apart from personal resentments (and Schulz, since he burned his political potential, is a healthy bearer of it) the strongest disappointments for the choice of Ursula von der Leyen as the main office of the European Union come from Germany. Sometimes politics is bizarre: just when everything seemed to indicate to the ambitious German noble a not too honorable way of sunset, the rabbit of rebirth emerged from the cylinder of European indecisions, the unexpected leap towards an exciting European stage.A family of nobles, doctors and traders. But Ursula follows in the footsteps of the political pope
Family and Europe in her destiny. With the probable European assignment, the minister actually crowns a homecoming. And she was born in Ixelles in 1958, a municipality in the immediate Brussels hinterland and in the Belgian capital she lived until 1971, learning French and English. She graduates in Germany, then she embarks on a restless university path that takes her from archeology to economics (and from Germany to England) until she reaches medicine in Hanover, where she finishes her studies.
Albrecht was born, a doctor by profession, of blue blood, Ursula von der Leyen and heir to a family that has already left traces in the history of Germany: from the ancestor Baron of Bremen, who at the end of the nineteenth century laid the solid economic foundations of the family through the textile trade with Russia, to his father Ernst, a politician, of whom Ursula can be considered a true daughter of art. Disappeared five years ago, he was president of Lower Saxony for 14 years, from 1976 to 1990 (and still the record in the region today), before handing over the scepter to the future Social Democratic Chancellor Gerhard Schroder. In the Albrecht family there are also doctors, financiers like his brother Donatus at the head of the Aurelius investment company,
Music is also somehow in the familiar destiny: on YouTube you can still find the video in which a very young Ursula performs with her mother and brothers in an embarrassing television performance for charity, singing a religious popular song. The future president of the Commission is a Lutheran, like Merkel. For those who are passionate about collecting, the vinyl made by the Albrecht family is still available used on Amazon: at the moment 34 euros are still enough.
Of his Ursula added the marriage bond with the doctor and professor Heiko von der Leyen, director of a sophisticated research laboratory in biotechnology that collaborates with the University of Hanover and in turn heir to a rich family of Krefeld silk entrepreneurs, awarded at the end of the eighteenth century with the Prussian noble title. If in the family of origin the minister could count on five siblings, the one she created is no less: seven children, born between 1987 and 1999. After the seven children, the commitment to politics and the rise to the side of Angela Merkel
Von der Leyen’s maternal career also explains his subsequent professional steps. In the 1990s, childcare prevented her from a professional medical career and even the political one had to wait for the end of maternity. Even though you have held the CDU card since 1990, you have to wait until 2001 to see you take up a local position on the Sehnde city council. Then she and a rapid rise in her father’s footsteps. She joins the regional council of Lower Saxony and immediately takes up the position of Minister of the Family, first canceling the assistance contribution for the disabled, attracting the ire of trade unions and associations. These are still the years of the sick Germany of Europe and of the liberal CDU, which presses Chancellor Schroder on the reforms. Angela Merkel is preparing to succeed him and in the electoral campaign of 2005 embarks a staff of rampant forty-year-olds. Among them is Ursula von der Leyen. The gap at the start between Merkel and Schroder is almost 20 points, the Social Democrat also suffers the anger of his electorate for the reforms in the meantime adopted, but the future chancellor eats almost all the advantage by stumbling on the flat tax proposal of Professor Paul Kirchhoff , a somewhat naïve jurist whom Merkel recklessly launches as future finance minister and whom Schroder devours himself accusing him of wanting to favor the rich. The CDU machine swerves but maintains that decimal advantage sufficient to win the elections by a whisker. Merkel and von der Leyen will never forget Kirchhoff’s lesson. Among them is Ursula von der Leyen. The gap at the start between Merkel and Schroder is almost 20 points, the Social Democrat also suffers the anger of his electorate for the reforms in the meantime adopted, but the future chancellor eats almost all the advantage by stumbling on the flat tax proposal of Professor Paul Kirchhoff , a somewhat naïve jurist whom Merkel recklessly launches as future finance minister and whom Schroder devours himself accusing him of wanting to favor the rich. The CDU machine swerves but maintains that decimal advantage sufficient to win the elections by a whisker. Merkel and von der Leyen will never forget Kirchhoff’s lesson. Among them is Ursula von der Leyen. The gap at the start between Merkel and Schroder is almost 20 points, the Social Democrat also suffers the anger of his electorate for the reforms in the meantime adopted, but the future chancellor eats almost all the advantage by stumbling on the flat tax proposal of Professor Paul Kirchhoff , a somewhat naïve jurist whom Merkel recklessly launches as future finance minister and whom Schroder devours himself accusing him of wanting to favor the rich. The CDU machine swerves but maintains that decimal advantage sufficient to win the elections by a whisker. Merkel and von der Leyen will never forget Kirchhoff’s lesson. The Social Democrat also suffers from the anger of his electorate at the reforms adopted in the meantime, but the future chancellor eats almost all the advantage by stumbling on the flat tax proposal of Professor Paul Kirchhoff, a somewhat naive jurist that Merkel recklessly launches as a future minister of Finance and that Schroder devours himself accusing him of wanting to favor the rich. The CDU machine swerves but maintains that decimal advantage sufficient to win the elections by a whisker. Merkel and von der Leyen will never forget Kirchhoff’s lesson. The Social Democrat also suffers from the anger of his electorate at the reforms adopted in the meantime, but the future chancellor eats almost all the advantage by stumbling on the flat tax proposal of Professor Paul Kirchhoff, a somewhat naive jurist that Merkel recklessly launches as a future minister of Finance and that Schroder devours himself accusing him of wanting to favor the rich. The CDU machine swerves but maintains that decimal advantage sufficient to win the elections by a whisker. Merkel and von der Leyen will never forget Kirchhoff’s lesson. a somewhat naïve jurist whom Merkel recklessly launches as future finance minister and whom Schroder devours himself accusing him of wanting to favor the rich. The CDU machine swerves but maintains that decimal advantage sufficient to win the elections by a whisker. Merkel and von der Leyen will never forget Kirchhoff’s lesson. a somewhat naïve jurist whom Merkel recklessly launches as future finance minister and whom Schroder devours himself accusing him of wanting to favor the rich. The CDU machine swerves but maintains that decimal advantage sufficient to win the elections by a whisker. Merkel and von der Leyen will never forget Kirchhoff’s lesson.From an icon of the new conservatism to social policies
She immediately became minister (of the Family) and the press crowned her as the mother of Germany, an icon of the new conservatism, capable of combining the education of seven children and an intense working career. Easy, with the domestic helpers that you can afford, I comment on the Spiegel. In 2005 she also won the Capo Circeo European Prize, a statuette depicting the sorceress Circe for her commitment to Europe and Italian-German friendship. And a recognition that often (not always) went to right-wing political and intellectual personalities, today one could easily say an award that sovereignists would not mind. That year she received it together with Marcello Pera (who published books with Pope Ratzinger), Igor Mann and Joaquin Navarro-Valls. But she then she immediately becomes the standard bearer of the new Merkelism, contributes to giving the modernist turn to the CDU that can finally start the post Kohl season. While conservatives elsewhere engage in ideological battles over the life and sacredness of the family, von der Leyen inaugurates family policies in the name of pragmatism. The minister’s first project is to finance and strengthen nursery schools and reception facilities for children, starting from their first year of age. He gets the accusation of “social democracy” from a bishop of Augusta but social democrats feel the ground is being snatched under his feet. The typical Merkelian policy of removing the water from the mill of competitors will find in von der Leyen one of the most tenacious interpreters of her. She then she introduces Elternzeit, parental leave for fathers and launches into an all-out war on the online pornography front.In the euro crisis, the disputed decision to absorb the unemployed from the south in Germany
In 2009 he moved to the Ministry of Labor. He maintains pragmatic positions on issues such as the minimum wage and Hartz IV subsidies, being careful not to slip into the terrain of state welfare but then moves his head down against Amazon in the scandal raised by an Ard service on the exploitation of seasonal workers hired by Spain, Romania, Bulgaria and Poland. During the Eurozone crisis he worked out together with Schauble an intervention plan to alleviate youth unemployment in Southern Europe, in part to be delegated to Brussels, in part to be managed independently. Also in the deck are bilateral agreements for the absorption of young European unemployed into German companies, a way to cover the labor shortage of German companies and release the pressure on the saturated markets in the south. To the accusation of favoring the brain drain from the Mediterranean nations, von der Leyen contrasts the virtues of internal EU workers’ mobility and says: “I prefer young people to stay and work in Europe rather than emigrate to other continents”. He will close agreements with Spain and Portugal, no news from Italy (then led by Letta and then by Renzi).More thorns than roses at the Ministry of Defense
With the third Merkel government there is the leap to the Ministry of Defense. Von der Leyen has long been considered one of the Chancellor’s probable successors, but her passage to the defense seems to signal that relations between Merkel and her are no longer the idyllic ones of the past. The Armed Forces are a tough nut to crack, in that ministry almost all the last holders, from Franz Josef Jung to Theodor zu Guttenberg, were burned. And in fact, even von der Leyen’s star tarnishes in the spider’s web of stars. She brings a wave of innovation to the barracks, introducing nursery schools, then preaches the modernization of the apparatus, from armaments to training systems. You ask for more resources (not always obtained) to overcome the structural delay of the Bundeswehr, then clash with the leaders on the subject of infiltration by far-right military. It opens the doors of the army to EU citizens, and is less rigid than its chancellor in the clash with Trump on the German share of the NATO budget but does not get the money from Scholz to make words follow deeds. Her latest project looks at closer collaboration between the German and French armed forces as the embryo of a next, necessary European army. Lastly, the controversy over costs for the ministry’s consultants, an alleged scandal still open on which the Greens do not intend to give up. Precisely those Greens who, together with the German Social Democrats, could still prevent them from returning to Brussels through the front door. The battle of von der Leyen is not yet decided, the European parliament could prove to be an insidious obstacle. But in that arena, the former rising star of German politics will try to cash in on his greatest success: leaving the German Defense Ministry unscathed and escaping the end of an announced career. Let’s see if he will be good for Europe.
