EU Nominates Von der Leyen for EU Commission, Lagarde for European Central Bank

July 2, 2019 (EIRNS)—The European Council of 28 heads of state and government of the failing European Union reached an agreement on nominations for four of the five top jobs in the European Union at its special Jun 30-July 2 meeting. They proposed German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen as EU Commission president; IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde as president of the European Central Bank; Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel as president of the EU Council; and Spain’s Foreign Minister Josep Borell Fontelles as High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. The fifth nomination, the President of the European Parliament, has not yet been announced.

The agreement over the four names came after the first package concocted by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron, which envisaged tapping Belgian Social Democratic Hans Timmermans as EU Commission president, was rejected by 11 nations, led by Italy and including the Visegrad Group of Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic.

Those happiest about von der Leyen’s nomination will be the Bundeswehr, after she transformed the nation’s defense into one whose planes don’t fly, submarines sink, and tanks can’t shoot. However, with a German heading the EU Commission, Germany’s image, already identified with austerity policies, is not likely to improve. Von der Leyen has strong anti-Russian and anti-Chinese views—surprise to no one.

Von der Leyen’s nomination is apparently compensation for the fact that the Bundesbank’s Jens Weidmann did not get the ECB Presidency as expected. Apparently, Weidmann’s recent public “conversion” to loose money policies did not convince his opponents, who want to be sure that Draghi’s “euro über alles” policy is continued. Nevertheless, Christine Lagarde’s nomination is quite extraordinary, because she is the second French citizen to become ECB president, out of only four since the ECB’s creation. The IMF’s role in the brutalization of Greece is an albatross around her neck.

It is not clear whether the European Parliament will approve the nominations, since on paper the gang of four only have the votes of the conservative faction. Merkel’s government coalition was split by the SPD opposition and thus, the German government abstained in the EU Council vote today, although Merkel personally sponsored the nominations. According to some reports, Merkel is relying on the “gender” issue, with Lagarde and Von der Leyen, as an element of persuasion.