“The first woman president of the bloc’s executive arm was a relative unknown outside Germany when she was tapped for the top job in Brussels”
PARIS – Ursula von der Leyen, expected to be confirmed as European Commission president for a second term on Thursday, is one of three women in the five top European Union jobs.
That number is set to rise to four if, as expected, Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas is confirmed as the bloc’s new foreign policy chief in a vote expected this autumn.
Here is an overview of the four women and their male colleague, future EU council chief Antonio Costa:
Von der Leyen: president
The first woman president of the bloc’s executive arm was a relative unknown outside Germany when she was tapped for the top job in Brussels and barely made it over the line, voted in by the European Parliament with just nine votes to spare.
Her first term was marked by back-to-back crises, from COVID to the Ukraine war.
The 65-year-old German Christian Democrat, who served in all four of former chancellor Angela Merkel’s Cabinets, including as defence minister, has championed a hawkish stance on European defence.
While she has rubbed some European leaders up the wrong way with her abrasive style, the mother of seven has undeniably made her mark on the job.
Her gender has rarely been an issue, except when she was relegated to a sofa during an April 2021 meeting in Istanbul with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and EU Council President Charles Michel, both of whom helped themselves to the armchairs.
“Would this have happened if I had worn a suit and a tie?” von der Leyen asked rhetorically afterwards.
Kaja Kallas: tapped for top diplomat
Estonia’s outgoing “Iron Lady” Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, a fierce Kremlin critic, has been picked for the EU’s next foreign policy chief but her nomination has yet to be put to a vote in the European Parliament.
The 47-year-old lawyer was first elected to parliament in 2011 for the liberal Reform Party founded by her father.
On her watch Estonia, which borders Russia, has made a point of distancing itself from its Soviet past, by for example removing Soviet-era war monuments.
She has pushed for Europe to build up its defenses in the face of Russian aggression and to supply more weapons to Ukraine.
If approved by parliament she will succeed Spain’s Josep Borrell, who followed in the footsteps of two women: Italy’s Federica Mogherini and Catherine Ashton of Britain.
Roberta Metsola: parliament speaker
Center-right Maltese lawmaker Roberta Metsola, 45, is only the third woman to head the European Parliament.
On Tuesday, she secured a second two-and-a-half-year term despite some lawmakers expressing reservations over her opposition to abortion, which remains illegal in predominantly Catholic Malta.
The first woman president of the European Parliament, France’s Simone Veil who held the job between 1979 and 1982, fought a long battle to legalize abortion in her country.
Antonio Costa: Council chief
Portuguese Socialist ex-premier Antonio Costa, 63, bounced back from corruption allegations over which he resigned last year to be tapped for president of the European Council, which groups the leaders of member states.
A former lawyer he was chosen because of his experience as a pragmatic and skillful tactician with a history of clinching deals.
In November, he abruptly resigned after eight years as prime minister, implicated in a probe into his administration’s handling of energy-related contracts.
A Portuguese court has since said there is no evidence he committed a crime but the case, which is ongoing, continues to cast a pall over his career.
Lisbon-born Costa has family roots in Goa, Portugal’s former colony in India.
He will succeed Belgian Charles Michel on Dec. 1.
Christine Lagarde: ECB chief
The first woman head of the European Central Bank, 68-year-old Christine Lagarde arrived in Frankfurt after weathering the financial crisis at the French finance ministry in 2007-2011 and the International Monetary Fund in 2011-2019 — the first woman to hold both jobs.
She has proven herself as an unflappable crisis manager, from the financial sector meltdown in 2008 to the Greek and Argentine debt crises.
Her stellar career was blemished in 2016 when she was convicted by a French court of negligence over a massive 404-million-euro ($442-million) state payout to a businessman Bernard Tapie when she was finance minister.
In January, the trade union representing staff at the ECB released a survey showing most employees were unimpressed by her performance against inflation.
She is in the job until 2027.
