Women to head top EU institutions for first time

Two women have been backed by the EU’s leaders to head the European commission and European Central Bank, breaking with more than 60 years of male dominance at the top of the bloc’s institutions.

After three days of tortuous negotiations, Germany’s defence minister, Ursula von der Leyen, received the support of heads of state and government to replace Jean-Claude Juncker as president of the commission in Brussels. And the French managing director of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, will move to Frankfurt to take over from Mario Draghi as the first female president of the ECB.

Von der Leyen, 60, who speaks fluent English and French and studied at the London School of Economics before taking a medical degree, is now the European commission president designate. She will only formally become the first female head of the EU’s executive branch if she wins the support of a majority of MEPs.

The president is proposed by the European parliament and nominated by the European council of leaders of the EU member states. They lead the commission's work in implementing EU policies, chair the weekly commission meetings and set its policy agenda. They also represent the EU at European council meetings, G7 and G20 summits and at bilateral summits with third countries.

The role was held by Jean-Claude Juncker from November 2014 until July 2019, when the German defence minister, Ursula von der Leyen, was nominated to replace him.

France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, proposed her to lead the commission after Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Italy rejected the candidature of the former Dutch foreign minister Frans Timmermans over his previous criticism of populist governments which fail to protect the independence of their judiciary.

Von der Leyen, a gynaecologist who only came to politics in her early 40s, regularly emerges in opinion polls as one of Germany’s most popular politicians.

The mother of seven introduced improved maternity and paternity benefits as Germany’s family affairs minister and drove forward boardroom gender quotas.

She has been working to increase funding for the country’s armed forces in her most recent government role although she has been mired in controversy over the awarding of contracts and has faced criticism about gaps in military readiness.

Von der Leyen was brought up in Brussels as the daughter of Heidi and Ernst Albrecht, the latter of whom was a senior German politician who worked in the commission in the 1950s. She has in the past spoken of her aim of a “United States of Europe – along the lines of federal states like Switzerland, Germany or the US”, and has backed a future European army or “army of Europeans”.

On Brexit, she has fully supported the commission’s position on the Northern Irish backstop, and criticised the “hollow promises” of those who campaigned for the UK to leave the EU.

The 28 heads of state and government, of which only five are women, were under pressure to break the male monopoly on the top jobs although there was never any certainty this would happen.

The debate over the future leadership proved extremely difficult, with the leaders talking through the night on Sunday, and needing to meet again on Monday and Tuesday to find the right gender, geographical and political balance for the five top jobs soon to be vacant.

Belgium’s prime minister, Charles Michel, 43, has been chosen to replace Donald Tusk as president of the European council. Spain’s foreign minister Josep Borrell, 72, will become the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs.

The European parliament is expected to elect its own president in a vote in Strasbourg on Wednesday, with the main political groups likely to support the former prime minister of Bulgaria, Sergei Stanishev, 53, an MEP for the Socialists and Democrats political group, as part of a delicate division of jobs among the parties.

Von der Leyen, who has worked alongside the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, since 2005, is a member of the centre-right Christian Democratic Union and pan-EU European People’s party.

Lagarde was the French finance minister in President Nicolas Sarkozy’s Republican administration.

Michel, who is in a caretaker role while Belgium’s politicians seek to negotiate a new federal government following May’s election, is a member of the Renew Europe political group formed out of a combination of the former liberal group in the parliament and French MEPs from Macron’s La République En Marche party.