BRUSSELS, Belgium: Ursula von der Leyen has navigated back-to-back crises from Covid to the Ukraine war as head of the European Commission, and stands on the verge of a no-less tumultuous second term, provided she can lock in support from EU lawmakers.
In giving von der Leyen the nod for five more years, EU leaders on Thursday sent a message about their priorities for the 27-nation bloc — putting security first at a time of marked geopolitical uncertainty.
Top of her in-tray is the war in Ukraine, and how Brussels can keep supporting Kyiv in its fight against Russia’s army even as the West braces for US presidential elections in November that could return Donald Trump to power.
Ahead of June elections that kept her center-right European People’s Party as the biggest force in the European Parliament, von der Leyen pivoted away from climate change to position herself as champion of a hawkish new European security outlook.
On that front, the 65-year-old’s past as a former German defense minister should come in handy, as will relationships developed with powerful leaders and corporate bosses.
More contentious may be how she sees through the European “Green Deal,” a flagship achievement of her first term, given it has turned politically toxic, under fire from farmers, part of her own political family, and voters.
Von der Leyen was a relative unknown outside Germany when she was tapped for the top EU job in 2019, in a surprise deal between Paris and Berlin.
The welcome in Brussels, the city where she was born and lived until her early teens, was cool to say the least. She secured the European Parliament’s backing by just nine votes.
This time around it could be tight again in the parliament, with the EPP needing allies to secure a majority vote backing von der Leyen.
They could come, as before, from the leftist Socialists and Democrats and the centrist Renew groups. Or, controversially, from the far-right European Conservatives and Reformists that include the party of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, whom von der Leyen has been courting.
“VDL,” as she is known in EU circles, has her detractors.
During her first term the commission chief worked to expand the bloc’s international role, and also pushed — overstepped, her critics would say — the boundaries of her own job.
She has on occasion infuriated EU leaders, like last October, when while visiting Tel Aviv she backed Israel’s right to defend itself against Hamas without insisting that any military response must be bound by international law.
Operating from the 13th floor of Berlaymont, the commission’s hulking headquarters where she also has her sleeping quarters, she relies on a tight-knit coterie of advisers — a practice that rubs many the wrong way, as does her bulldozing, top-down leadership style.
But von der Leyen has indisputably made her mark in Brussels.
“There were a couple of major inflexion points where she managed to do the things that were needed and made herself visible doing them,” one European diplomat said.
When Europe was brought to its knees by the Covid-19 pandemic, von der Leyen steered a groundbreaking 750-billion-euro ($815 million) recovery plan.
After Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, she resolutely supported Kyiv and set to work on reducing Europe’s energy dependency on Moscow.
Beyond the bloc’s borders, she is said to have built a strong relationship with President Joe Biden, providing an answer to the old question attributed to Henry Kissinger: When the US president needs to speak to Europe, who does he call?
Though the mother of seven — and first-ever woman as commission chief — has long championed women’s rights, von der Leyen’s gender has seldom been an issue in office — save for an infamous incident known as Sofagate.
During a visit to Istanbul in April 2021, the commission chief found herself relegated to a sofa during a meeting with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Charles Michel, her European Council counterpart, when both men took seats in a pair of armchairs.
The scene went viral, and von der Leyen pulled no punches afterwards, telling lawmakers: “I have to conclude, it happened because I am a woman.”
Tested by crises, von der Leyen poised for hawkish second term
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Tested by crises, von der Leyen poised for hawkish second term
Near record number of small boat migrants reach UK in 2025
- The second-highest annual number of migrants arrived on UK shores in small boats since records were started in 2018, the government was to confirm Thursday
LONDON: The second-highest annual number of migrants arrived on UK shores in small boats since records were started in 2018, the government was to confirm Thursday.
The tally comes as Brexit firebrand Nigel Farage’s anti-immigration party Reform UK surges in popularity ahead of bellwether local elections in May.
With Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer increasingly under pressure over the thorny issue, his interior minister Shabana Mahmood has proposed a drastic reduction in protections for refugees and the ending of automatic benefits for asylum seekers.
Home Office data as of midday on Wednesday showed a total of 41,472 migrants landed on England’s southern coast in 2025 after making the perilous Channel crossing from northern France.
The record of 45,774 arrivals was recorded in 2022 under the last Conservative government.
The Home Office is due to confirm the final figure for 2025 later Thursday.
Former Tory prime minister Rishi Sunak vowed to “stop the boats” when he was in power.
Ousted by Starmer in July 2024, he later said he regretted the slogan because it was too “stark” and “binary” and lacked sufficient context “for exactly how challenging” the goal was.
Adopting his own “smash the gangs” slogan, Starmer pledged to tackle the problem by dismantling the people smuggling networks running the crossings but has so far had no more success than his predecessor.
Reform has led Starmer’s Labour Party by double-digit margins in opinion polls for most of 2025.
In a New Year message, Farage predicted that if Reform got things “right” at the forthcoming local elections “we will go on and win the general election” due in 2029 at the latest.
Without addressing the migrant issue directly, he added: “We will then absolutely have a chance of fundamentally changing the whole system of government in Britain.”
In his own New Year message, Starmer insisted his government would “defeat the decline and division offered by others.”
Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch, meanwhile, urged people not to let “politics of grievance tell you that we’re destined to stay the same.”
- Protests -
The small boat figures come after Home Secretary Mahmood in November said irregular migration was “tearing our country apart.”
In early December, an interior ministry spokesperson called the number of small boat crossings “shameful” and said Mahmood’s “sweeping reforms” would remove the incentives driving the arrivals.
A returns deal with France had so far resulted in 153 people being removed from the UK to France and 134 being brought to the UK from France, border security and asylum minister Alex Norris said.
“Our landmark one-in one-out scheme means we can now send those who arrive on small boats back to France,” he said.
The past year has seen multiple protests in UK towns over the housing of migrants in hotels.
Amid growing anti-immigrant sentiment, in September up to 150,000 massed in central London for one of the largest-ever far-right protests in Britain, organized by activist Tommy Robinson.
Asylum claims in Britain are at a record high, with around 111,000 applications made in the year to June 2025, according to official figures as of mid-November.
Labour is currently taking inspiration from Denmark’s coalition government — led by the center-left Social Democrats — which has implemented some of the strictest migration policies in Europe.
Senior British officials recently visited the Scandinavian country, where successful asylum claims are at a 40-year low.
But the government’s plans will likely face opposition from Labour’s more left-wing lawmakers, fearing that the party is losing voters to progressive alternatives such as the Greens.
