Introduction
On 2 July 2019, the European Council nominated Ursula von der Leyen as President of the European Commission. She was not a Spitzenkandidat under the European Union’s own lead-candidate system. She had not campaigned across member states. European voters had never been asked to consider her for this role.
Her nomination followed weeks of institutional deadlock after the May 2019 European elections. The officially presented candidates, including Manfred Weber and Frans Timmermans, failed to secure sufficient support among heads of government. Negotiations stalled. The process collapsed. Von der Leyen’s name emerged as a last-minute compromise.
At that moment, her public record was already fixed. It was not disputed or incomplete. It was documented.
She had just concluded six years as Germany’s Federal Minister of Defence, a tenure that had already been the subject of repeated parliamentary scrutiny, audit reports, and media investigation.
Despite this record, on 16 July 2019 the European Parliament confirmed her appointment by 383 votes to 327, a margin of nine votes above the required majority.
She assumed office on 1 December 2019 as President of the European Commission.
The question is not rhetorical. How did this happen?
Germany’s Defence Ministry
Ursula von der Leyen served as Germany’s Federal Minister of Defence from December 2013 until July 2019. During this period, the operational readiness of the Bundeswehr deteriorated in ways that were repeatedly documented by Germany’s own oversight institutions.
In its annual reports between 2017 and 2019, the Bundesrechnungshof warned that rising defence expenditures were not translating into improved operational capability. The 2018 report explicitly stated that the Bundeswehr’s material readiness had not improved despite increased funding.
Internal readiness reports, discussed in the Bundestag Defence Committee, showed persistent shortages of spare parts and maintenance capacity. In October 2017, parliamentary briefings confirmed that none of Germany’s submarines were operational at that time. Similar failures affected combat aircraft and transport helicopters across multiple years.
NATO readiness targets were repeatedly missed. Warnings accumulated through formal channels. Parliamentary questions multiplied. Audit findings were published. Corrective recovery did not follow.
A defence ministry exists to maintain control under pressure. When pressure instead exposes decay, and that decay persists, governance itself has failed.
Failure that persists despite warning is not error. It is choice by continuation.
The Consultant Model
Between 2015 and 2018, the German Ministry of Defence dramatically expanded its reliance on external consultants. Strategic authority migrated outward. Internal expertise weakened. Oversight thinned.
In 2019, the Bundestag established a parliamentary inquiry into procurement practices during von der Leyen’s tenure. The investigation documented contracts awarded without proper tendering and a systematic breakdown of internal controls.
During the inquiry, it was established that official ministry phones had been wiped of emails relevant to procurement decisions. This deletion occurred within the ministerial chain of responsibility. No personal enrichment was proven, but loss of control over documentation and accountability was formally recorded.
This moment matters because it reveals method rather than accident. Authority was not reclaimed. Responsibility did not consolidate. It dissolved.
From this point onward, von der Leyen was no longer merely presiding over failure. She was normalising governance without traceable responsibility.
That pattern did not end at the national level. It scaled.
The European Commission
As President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen occupies one of the most powerful executive roles in the European Union that is not directly elected by voters. The Commission initiates legislation, enforces compliance, coordinates sanctions, manages the EU budget, and represents the Union geopolitically.
The position is structurally insulated from electoral removal. Political risk is absorbed elsewhere.
This architecture existed before her presidency. Under her tenure, it hardened.
Decision-making centralised. Transparency narrowed through legal classification. Responsibility dispersed across procedures, collective language, and institutional distance.
Von der Leyen does not merely function within this system. She reinforces and stabilises it.
What failed at the national level reappeared at continental scale, not as incompetence, but as governing method.
COVID
During the COVID pandemic, the European Commission assumed centralised responsibility for vaccine procurement. This marked an unprecedented concentration of health authority at EU level.
Contractual terms were classified. National parliaments were excluded from full oversight. Negotiations occurred through informal channels, including direct exchanges between von der Leyen and the Pfizer chief executive.
When access to these communications was later requested under EU transparency rules, the Commission stated that the messages were unavailable because they had not been archived.
On 26 January 2022, the European Ombudsman issued a formal finding of maladministration.
At this point, coincidence ends.
Crisis expanded executive authority. Transparency contracted accordingly. Records disappeared. Oversight lagged. Power moved faster than accountability.
Von der Leyen was not peripheral to this process. She was its central executive figure.
What appeared first in defence procurement now governed public health at continental scale.
Consequence
When the same governance pattern repeats across defence, health, and geopolitics, consequence becomes structural.
Europe now operates through mechanisms that allow escalation without electoral mandate, strategic alignment without public debate, and decisions whose risks are externalised to populations who cannot revoke them.
This is not leadership failure. It is institutional loss of restraint.
In geopolitics, loss of restraint is destabilising by definition.
Closing Reflection
This is why Ursula von der Leyen’s record matters.
Not because she is uniquely flawed.
But because she exemplifies what the European system now selects, promotes, and protects.
A figure who advances through failure.
Who governs without correction.
Who exercises authority without owning consequence.
When authority expands while responsibility dissolves, danger becomes structural.
