Ursula von der Leyen

Ursula von der Leyen
Official portrait, 2024
President of the European Commission
Incumbent
Assumed office 1 December 2019
Preceded by	Jean-Claude Juncker
Minister of Defence
In office 17 December 2013 – 17 July 2019
Chancellor	Angela Merkel
Preceded by	Thomas de Maizière
Succeeded by	Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer
Minister of Labour and Social Affairs
In office 30 November 2009 – 17 December 2013
Chancellor	Angela Merkel
Preceded by	Franz Josef Jung
Succeeded by	Andrea Nahles
Minister of Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth
In office 22 November 2005 – 30 November 2009
Chancellor	Angela Merkel
Preceded by	Renate Schmidt
Succeeded by	Kristina Schröder
Party roles Deputy Leader of the Christian Democratic Union In office 15 November 2010 – 22 November 2019 Serving with Volker Bouffier, Julia Klöckner, Armin Laschet, Thomas Strobl Leader Angela Merkel Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer Preceded by Christian Wulff Succeeded by Silvia Breher
Lower Saxony Cabinet Minister of Social Affairs, Women and Families and Health In office 4 March 2003 – 22 November 2005 Minister-President Christian Wulff Preceded by Gitta Trauernicht Succeeded by Mechthild Ross-Luttmann
Parliamentary constituencies Member of the Bundestag for Lower Saxony In office 27 October 2009 – 31 July 2019 Preceded by multi-member district Succeeded by Ingrid Pahlmann Constituency Christian Democratic Union List Member of the Landtag of Lower Saxony for Lehrte In office 4 March 2003 – 7 December 2005 Preceded by Gerhard Schröder (1998) Succeeded by Dorothee Prüssner
Personal details
Born	Ursula Gertrud Albrecht (1958-10-08) 8 October 1958 (age 66) Ixelles, Belgium
Nationality	German
Political party	Christian Democratic Union (since 1990)
Other political affiliations	European People's Party
Spouse	Heiko von der Leyen ​ ​ (m. 1986)​
Children	7
Parent	Ernst Albrecht (father)
Relatives	Hans-Holger Albrecht (brother) Carl Albrecht (grandfather)
Alma mater	University of Göttingen University of Münster London School of Economics Hannover Medical School (MD, MPH)
Occupation	Politician Physician Research fellow
Signature
Website	ec.europa.eu/president
Ursula von der Leyen's voice von der Leyen's speech following the Russian invasion of Ukraine Recorded 24 February 2022

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. She is a member of the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its affiliated European political party, 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. She was re-elected to head the Commission in July 2024.^[1]

Albrecht 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, von der Leyen 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.^[2] 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".^[3] In 2023, she was again regarded as the favourite to take the role.^[4]

On 2 July 2019, von der Leyen was proposed by the European Council as the candidate for president of the European Commission.^[5][6] She was then elected by the European Parliament on 16 July;^[7][a] she took office on 1 December, becoming the first woman to hold the office. In November 2022 she announced that her Commission would work to establish an International Criminal Tribunal for the Russian Federation.^[9] She was named the most powerful woman in the world by Forbes in 2022 and 2023.^[10][11]

On 18 July 2024, von der Leyen was re-elected as President of the European Commission by the European Parliament with an absolute majority of 401 members of the European Parliament out of 720. Her absolute majority was strengthened by around thirty votes compared to her election in 2019.^[12]

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