BRUSSELS – "The free world needs a new leader," the EU's foreign chief said on Friday – she didn't name any candidates, but last week shows European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen isn't one of them.
A veritable diplomatic frenzy last week provided the soundtrack to the collapse of the Western alliance, with Donald Trump, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Sir Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron and others taking questions from journalists on the state of the world and Europe's place in it.
But not von der Leyen, on whose watch the Commission has accumulated more political power than at any time in its history – and who, in turn, has concentrated much of that power into her own hands.
Europe now faces its greatest security crisis since the end of the Cold War, but the woman who boasts of having set up a "geopolitical" Commission continues to avoid even minimal scrutiny.
That's not to say she doesn't address reporters – she does – but unlike other leaders in Europe and elsewhere, she rarely allows them to question her when she can avoid it.
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