Ursula von der Leyen
Ursula Gertrud von der Leyen (German: [ˈʊʁzula ˈɡɛʁtʁuːt fɔn deːɐ̯ ˈlaɪən] ; née Albrecht; born 8 October 1958) is a German politician, serving as the 13th president of the European Commission since 2019. She served in the German federal government between 2005 and 2019, holding positions in Angela Merkel's cabinet, most recently as federal minister of defence. Von der Leyen is a member of the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its affiliated europarty, the European People's Party (EPP). On 7 March 2024, the EPP elected her as its Spitzenkandidat to lead the campaign for the 2024 European parliament elections.
In this German name, the surname is von der Leyen.
Ursula von der Leyen
Gitta Trauernicht
Mechthild Ross-Luttmann
multi-member district
multi-member district
Gerhard Schröder (1998)
Dorothee Prüssner
Christian Democratic Union (since 1990)
7
- Ernst Albrecht (father)
- Hans-Holger Albrecht (brother)
- Carl Albrecht
(grandfather)
- Politician
- Physician
- Research fellow
Ursula von der Leyen was born and raised in Brussels, Belgium, to German parents. Her father, Ernst Albrecht, was one of the first European civil servants. She was brought up bilingually in German and French, and moved to Germany in 1971 when her father became involved in German politics. She graduated from the London School of Economics in 1978, and in 1987, she acquired her medical license from Hanover Medical School. After marrying fellow physician Heiko von der Leyen, she lived for four years in the United States with her family in the 1990s. After returning to Germany she became involved in local politics in the Hanover region in the late 1990s, and she served as a cabinet minister in the state government of Lower Saxony from 2003 to 2005.
In 2005, she joined the federal cabinet, first as minister of family affairs and youth from 2005 to 2009, then as minister of labour and social affairs from 2009 to 2013, and finally as minister of defence from 2013 to 2019, the first woman to serve as German defence minister.[1] When she left office she was the only minister to have served continuously in Merkel's cabinet since Merkel became chancellor. She served as a deputy leader of the CDU from 2010 to 2019, and was regarded as a leading contender to succeed Merkel as chancellor of Germany and as the favourite to become secretary general of NATO after Jens Stoltenberg. British defence secretary Michael Fallon described her in 2019 as "a star presence" in the NATO community and "the doyenne of NATO ministers for over five years".[2] In 2023, she was again regarded as the favourite to take the role.[3]
On 2 July 2019, von der Leyen was proposed by the European Council as the candidate for president of the European Commission.[4][5] She was then elected by the European Parliament on 16 July;[6][a] she took office on 1 December, becoming the first woman to hold the office. In November 2022 von der Leyen announced that her Commission would work to establish an International Criminal Tribunal for the Russian Federation.[8] She was named the most powerful woman in the world by Forbes in 2022 and 2023.[9][10]
Von der Leyen is a member of the German branch of the European Movement.[214] She is, or has been, also a member of several boards of trustees:
Political views[edit]
Childcare and parental leave[edit]
Ursula von der Leyen assumed her office as Federal Minister for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth in 2005. Amidst protest (particularly from the conservative wing of the CDU), she introduced the Child Advancement Act (Kinderförderungsgesetz), which reserved 4.3 billion euros for the creation of childcare structures throughout Germany.[221]
Von der Leyen also introduced the German Elternzeit, a paid parental leave scheme. Following Scandinavian models, the scheme reserves two additional months for fathers who go on parental leave as well (Vätermonate in German). This part of the law, in particular, attracted protest from some German conservatives. Catholic Bishop Walter Mixa accused von der Leyen of turning women into "birthing machines". Meanwhile, Bavarian colleagues from von der Leyen's sister party, the CSU, complained that men did not need a "diaper-changing internship".[222] von der Leyen successfully influenced public opinion of her reforms with a 3-million-euro PR campaign, which was criticised for using public funds for political advocacy and for employing embedded marketing techniques.[223]
