German polyglot Ursula von der Leyen's was nominated as European Commission chief on Tuesday (July 2) and, if confirmed by the European Parliament, would the first woman to lead the Commission.
Born in Brussels, von der Leyen, 60, has top notch European credentials. A fluent English and French speaker, she worked closely with Paris to promote European defence projects. But she has also had a had a tough time as German defence minister.
Her tenure has been marked by scandals over the awarding of contracts and right-wing extremism in the Bundeswehr, criticism about gaps in military readiness, and a crash between two German Eurofighter jets last month in which one pilot was killed.
Last year, a scathing internal report by Germany's Federal Audit Office, leaked to the media, cited dozens of irregularities in hiring outside advisers in contracts worth hundreds of millions of euros in total.
Her nomination on Tuesday was part of a package to break a summit stalemate over who should run the EU's top institutions.
But Germany's Social Democrats (SPD), junior partner in Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition, rejected the package. As a result, Merkel abstained in voting - the only EU leader not to back the deal.
A mother of seven who has lived in Britain and the United States, von der Leyen grew up surrounded by politics. Her father, Ernst Albrecht, was a state premier for the state of Lower Saxony from 1976 to 1990.
Autor: gf / Źródło: TVN24 News in English, Reuters