A 60-year-old German Defence minister Ursula von der Leyen has been elected as the European Commission President, and the first female to be occupying the seat.
According to CNN report, Von Der Leyen nomination was approved by 383 votes in a secret ballot on Tuesday evening at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France.
There were 327 votes against her and 22 abstentions. After being elected by a narrow margin of just nine votes over the required 374, von der Leyen called for a “united and strong Europe.”
She will succeed Jean-Claude Juncker, who has served as president since 2014.
The CNN report also stated that
her nomination to replace Juncker was unexpected since von der Leyen wasn’t even a candidate while some have described her nomination as a backroom deal in Brussels.
European leaders nominated von der Leyen to lead the Commission after they failed to agree on any of the nominees put forward by European political parties ahead of the EU elections.
In her campaign before the election on Tuesday, she once more echoed some of her unpopular plans by some where she promised in her speech to the European Parliament that there should be minimum wages across Europe, calculated according to national factors – something that her EPP colleagues reject to a large extent, but the Socialists and Democrats (S & D) have long been demanding.
She also promised unemployment reinsurance – an idea that comes from SPD Finance Minister Olaf Scholz: After that, countries in the crisis get help from a European fund to continue to pay unemployment assistance and thus to cushion economic shocks can.
She also spoke of Renew Europe (RE), such as the abolition of unanimity on foreign policy issues and a conference on the future of Europe, which is about reforming the EU.
Huge task ahead, especially the issue of Britain leaving the Union, which has become an headache to the politicians there, looking for the right man to continue from where Theresa May failed.