(CN) — In a sign of strengthening cooperation between France and Germany and growing determination to steer a troubled Europe into brighter days, Europe's 28 national leaders agreed to nominate two high-profile women to lead the European Union. If approved by the European Parliament, it would be the first time women are in charge of the EU's key institutions.
On Tuesday evening, the European Council, the EU's policy-making body composed of the EU's 28 heads of state, announced the nomination of Ursula von der Leyen, the center-right German defense minister, as the next president of the European Commission, the EU's executive arm.
The European Council also picked Christine Lagarde, a former French finance minister and head of the International Monetary Fund, for the position of European Central Bank president. The central bank oversees Europe's finances.
The nominations come during an intense period in which new leaders for EU institutions are chosen after May elections for the European Parliament. The elections, which take place every five years, were a watershed moment because Europe's two ruling groups, the conservatives and socialists, saw their majority broken for the first time. The conservatives, though, held onto enough votes to remain the parliament's biggest party, leaving them entitled to fulfill the EU's top jobs.
The nominations must be approved by the European Parliament, the EU's only directly elected institution. Although the council's picks are rankling some in the parliament, the nominations are expected to go through because the parliament wields less power than the council, an assembly made up of elected national leaders.
The nominations were a victory for Europe's two biggest countries and their leaders: conservative German Chancellor Angela Merkel and liberal French President Emmanuel Macron. In January, the two leaders re-signed a bilateral agreement to work together on security and defense to make the EU stronger.
Macron backed the candidacy of Von der Leyen, a longtime ally of Merkel's. She was considered somewhat of a surprise nomination, in large part because she was not officially in the running for the position.
Still, she's a well-known politician in Europe. She has a long career, having served since the beginning of Merkel's steadfast chancellorship that began in 2005. Before becoming defense minister in 2013, she served as the German minister for family affairs and then as labor minister.
In the past, she was viewed as a possible successor to Merkel, but her political ambitions in Germany were damaged by criticism of her efforts to modernize the German army, the Bundeswehr. Germany is seeking to build up its army, but those aspirations have been fraught with problems.
Von der Leyen is a 60-year-old Brussels-born daughter of a former high-ranking European Commission civil servant from Germany and she is the mother of seven children. She is often likened to Hillary Clinton in her manners and is known for a tough, can-do spirit. She is a physician by training and is married to a physician of aristocratic origins; she is fluent in French, English and German.
If approved by the European Parliament, Von der Leyen would become the first female president of the commission and only the second German to hold the top position. The only German at the helm of the commission was Walter Hallstein between 1958 and 1967, back in the early days when the EU was still forming.
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