Why Ursula von der Leyen is the ‘world’s most powerful woman’
Caroline de GruyterThe president of the European Commission has earned the title bestowed on her by Forbes magazine
Now, this has long been an aim of policy, that then German defence minister should be the most powerful person around. We’ve had several multi-year and international loud discussions about whether this would be so.
But actual power? This is someone sitting atop a bureaucracy trying to run 500 million people in detail – the sort of detail that tries to regulate the energy consumption of vacuum cleaners. There’s not, in fact, much power there. There’s an awful lot of pulling on levers but they tend not to be connected to anything very much…..
Enough power to inconvenience 500 million people, is a lot of power.
The guardian are thinking of the entirely fictional Ursula van der Lion.
This is the same woman who single handedly almost destroyed the German military.
It’s a low bar.
Not much power in the vacuum cleaners, you mean?
“There’s an awful lot of pulling on levers but they tend not to be connected to anything very much…..”
That’s a bit outdated – they should be using digital “Fly By Wire” technology these days…
@salamander Perhaps an untrue story, but during her time in charge of defence, German soldiers would joke “where is von Stauffenberg when you need him?”
The EU seems determined to institute the Japanese culture of window watchers, but as deliberate policy!
Where’s this gravy train, and how do I get on?