Introducing Europe's New 'Power Women': Can they succeed?

• Author: Engelen, Klaus C.

In a big surprise, Ursula von der Leyen, the Brussels-born long-time member of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's government, was chosen by the European heads of state to lead the new European Commission for the next five years. She is the first woman to become president of the European Commission.

Then French President Emanuel Macron managed to put Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund and former French finance minister, successfully into the competition to succeed Mario Draghi as head of the European Central Bank for an eight-year term, thereby blocking more conservative candidates such as Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann.

Macron also outmaneuvered Germany's Manfred Weber, the European People's Party's "lead candidate" and the European Parliament's leading fighter for the system of Spitzenkandidaten, and thereby succeeded in reasserting the primacy of the European Council over the European Parliament in choosing the European Union's top managers.

As we noted in the Summer 2019 issue of TIE, the "Macron the Kingmaker" narrative ended with "a grand French finale" when, on August 2, 2019, the Visegrad Four countries were able to consummate their part of the bargain. The majority of Eurogroup finance ministers nominated Bulgarian World Bank Group Chief Executive Kristalina Georgieva as Europe's candidate to run the International Monetary Fund. The old tradition that the United States gets the presidency of the World Bank and Europeans get the managing directorship of the International Monetary Fund is still in force.

Among the leaders in the European Council for the past fourteen years was a "power woman" with an outstanding if not historical record: German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has lost some of her negotiating leverage after giving up her party leadership to party colleague Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer. A former governor of the state of Saarland, Kramp-Karrenbauer first became party secretary of the ruling Christian Democrats and then took over the defense ministry from Ursula von der Leyen. Thanks to her low rating in the polls, Kramp-Karrenbauer is struggling in her role as a potential successor to Merkel as German chancellor.

EUROPE'S BET ON "POWER WOMEN"

At a historic juncture, when macho men and autocrats control governments in major economic, political, and military powers around the world--some challenging openly the postwar multilateral order, rules, and institutions as never before--European leaders had the guts to choose women as heads of the European Commission, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund.

European Council President Donald Tusk committed to "making sure this time EU top jobs were more gender-balanced than ever. If there is something on which the leaders lived up to the expectations, it was this."

Considering the frightening economic, political, and strategic scenarios faced by Germany and the rest of the world, the question being asked is whether Europe's new "power women" can succeed.

Can Germany's von der Leyen, as first-ever female European Commission president, supported by twenty-eight EU commissioners and vice presidents and controlled by a fractured new European Parliament, meet Europe's mega-challenges? These include overcoming the damaging fallout from Brexit, countering the destructive U.S. policy upheavals in trade and military security, handling the anti-democratic legal assaults by Visegrad member states that receive record amounts of EU subsidies, and coping with the still-smoldering refugee crisis and its windfall for the growing right-wing political parties.

Can Lagarde, as incoming president of the ECB, come up with changes to the ECB's super-loose monetary policy after eight years of flooding European economies and banking systems with liquidity under outgoing President Mario Draghi? When Lagarde assumes the presidency on November 1, 2019, she will face an unprecedented backlash in Germany and other northern eurozone states against her predecessor's policies of negative interest rates and resuming asset purchases. "Coming to Frankfurt and making 'bella figura' in 'better communicating what the ECB is doing' won't be enough," warns a veteran central banker.

How will Kristalina Georgieva, chosen by the European Council to lead the International Monetary Fund, handle the job at a time when multilateral organizations such as the Bretton Woods institutions, established after the World War II, are being sidelined by big economic powers like the United States and China? At her first IMF annual meeting, Georgieva sounded the alarm, pointing out that the trade war is accelerating a synchronized downswing of the world economy at a cost of $700 billion, or 0.8 percent of next year's global output.

Also, Germany's own "power women"--outgoing Chancellor Merkel and her designated successor Kramp-Karrenbauer--are challenged...