Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, is in Ottawa early this week as the House of Commons reconvenes after a two-week constituency break and will Tuesday address Parliament, her focus likely on the continuing Russian war in Ukraine and CETA.
CETA, the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, presents Canadian businesses with preferential access to and excellent opportunities for growth in the European Union.
But von der Leyen has a very interesting history.
According to Wikipedia, she started studying economics at the University of Gottingen in 1977 but, the year later, at the height of fear of communism terrorism in West Germany, she fled to London after her family was told that the Red Army Faction (RAF) was planning to kidnap her due to her being the daughter of a prominent politician.
She spent more than a year in hiding in London, where she lived with protection from Scotland Yard under the name Rose Ladson to avoid detection and enrolled at the London School of Economics.
At the Munich Security Conference in February 2015, as a member of Angela Merkel’s cabinet, von der Leyen publicly defended the German refusal to supply Ukraine with weapons.
Stressing that it was necessary to remain united in Europe over Ukraine, she argued that negotiations with Russia, unlike with Iraq and the Levant jihadists, were possible.
Merkel saw Ukraine and Russia as a chance to prove that, in the 21st century, developed nations could solve disputes at the negotiating table, not with weapons.
The world now knows what Russian President Vladimir Putin thought of that theory.
Von der Leyen also noted that Russia has an almost infinite supply of weapons it could send to fight Ukraine. She questioned whether any effort by the West could match that or, more importantly, achieve the outcome sought by Ukraine and its supporters.
On the contrary, von der Leyen said that giving the Ukrainians arms to help them defend themselves could have unintended and fateful consequences. “Weapons deliveries would be a fire accelerant,” von der Leyen said.
She agreed with NATO General Philip Breedlove that “it could give the Kremlin the excuse to openly intervene in this conflict.”
And this was before the war had even begun.
It will also be an interesting time for von der Leyen to be in our nation’s capital, with Opposition parties returning to take up the demand for a public inquiry into Chinese interference in the 2019 and 2021 federal elections, both which gave the Liberals a minority government.
While Prime Minister Justin Trudeau admitted there was likely some interference attempted, he said there were enough checks and balances already in play to protect Canada’s intelligence files to the point that no independent or public inquiry was necessary.
As a cabinet member, von der Leyen was, for several years, regarded as one of the leading contenders to succeed Merkel as German Chancellor.
In 2010 she was Merkel’s preferred candidate for President of Germany, but her nomination was blocked by the conservative wing of the Christian Democratic Union.
And, from 2018 until her nomination as European Commission president, she was described as the favourite to succeed Jens Stoltenberg as Secretary General of NATO.
As the newspaper, Die Welt, reported, von der Leyen “is highly respected in the alliance” and that “all the (NATO) defence ministers listen when she speaks.”
In a few days, Canadians will be able to judge whether von der Leyen’s earlier words ring true, or whether she has grown to being as wrong as wrong could be.
