Ursula Gertrud von der Leyen (listen (help·info); née Albrecht, 8 October 1958) is a German politician. She is the President of the European Commission.
She had served as Minister of Defence of Germany from 2013 to 2019. She is a member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU).
Von der Leyen is the only minister to have been in Angela Merkel's cabinet since she took office in 2005, first as Minister of Family Affairs and Youth from 2005 to 2009, then as Minister of Labour and Social Affairs from 2009 to 2013, before becoming Minister of Defence in 2013.[1]
German politician Ernst Albrecht was her father.
On 2 July 2019, von der Leyen was nominated by the European Council to the position of President of the European Commission.[2][3] With a close majority, she was elected by the European Parliament on 16 July.[4] She is the first woman to hold the office[5] and the first German since the commission's first president, Walter Hallstein.[6]