IMAGE BY OVOODOCORVO
Call me Ursula. Von der Leyen rebranded ahead of
elections.
Commission president’s team wants you to get to know
the person behind the office.
Ursula von der Leyen has a new campaign website in
bright hues, along with a new logo and laden with a new 'Ursula 2024' slogan. |
APRIL 29,
2024 4:00 AM CET
BY BARBARA
MOENS
Think you
know Ursula von der Leyen? Think again.
With the EU
election just over a month away, von der Leyen’s team wants to transform the
image of the European Commission president from a tough crisis-manager-in-chief
to a more personal and warm mother and grandmother who wants her family to grow
up in a safe Europe.
It’s a
return to the family-forward and fun roots of the European People’s Party’s
lead candidate, who has, since 2019, steered the bloc through the pandemic and
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent cost of living crisis.
Back in
2008, when she was the German family minister, von der Leyen let actor Hugh
Jackman pull her out of a trashcan. It’s a stark contrast to the past five
years, where she has become known for her self-discipline and for sleeping at
the Commission’s headquarters while working long hours and weekends.
Now, she
has a new campaign website in bright hues, along with a new logo — a circle of
golden stars that references the flag of the European Union — and laden with a
new ‘Ursula 2024’ slogan.
The
“personal” element is key, Alexander Winterstein, the campaign’s chief
spokesperson, told reporters on Friday.
“People
know her as Commission president,” said Winterstein. “What people may know less
about is who she actually is as a person … Who is Ursula von der Leyen?”
Statements
on the campaign website are signed with von der Leyen’s handwritten autograph
and on the website, she states that “as a mother of seven, I want my children’s
children to grow in a safe, prosperous Europe.”
Will this
new image of von der Leyen be on display during Monday’s Maastricht debate, the
first debate between the lead candidates for the presidency of the European
Commission? That’s where von der Leyen will have the opportunity to directly
confront her challengers, including Anders Vistisen, the lead candidate of the
far-right Identity and Democracy group.
While the
strategy to focus more on her personality and her family may surprise the
Brussels bubble, it is not entirely new for von der Leyen.
Before
making a surprise entry into European politics in 2019, the Brussels-born
medical doctor’s personality and family life were well-known in German
politics. She joined the first cabinet of former Chancellor Angela Merkel in
2005 as family minister after becoming labor minister in 2009. She took over
the defense ministry in 2014, which was largely seen as a failure.
Throughout
those years, von der Leyen regularly talked about herself and her family of
seven children, particularly in her early years as family minister. Opponents
criticized her for putting her family on display and using them for her own
political advantage, they said.
In her
early political years, von der Leyen openly discussed the difficulties of
combining a career and parenthood as she was fighting for public daycare as a
family minister. To this day, improving mothers’ ability to stay in the
workforce remains a politically sensitive topic in German society.
In doing
so, she potentially drew inspiration from her father Ernst Albrecht, a former
German politician and top European civil servant, who regularly used his family
in his campaigns. At one point, he even introduced his family on a TV show to
let his wife and their children sing.
It’s
unlikely von der Leyen will go this far.
“This is
not a US-style presidential campaign,” said a spokesperson for the campaign who
was granted anonymity to speak openly about the campaign. “For example, you
won’t see the family.”
Still,
“Ursula” has a few weeks left to pull off the transformation to #ProudGrandma.
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