Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Polish president Andrzej Duda to hold ‘broad talks’; French president and EU leader looking to ‘reset’ ties with Xi Jinping
After more than 1,200 days in charge of the European Commission, which forms and enforces policy for 450 million Europeans, Ursula von der Leyen is in the final third of her term. It has been a tumultuous period: she took office in 2019 with ambitious pledges to tackle the climate emergency, but was soon confronted by a once-a-century pandemic and the biggest war on European soil since 1945.
In previous crises “the EU realised that it is still very much a legislative machine, and there was no headquarters, no general to lead the crisis management”, said one senior EU official. “Now in two consecutive crises, Covid and Ukraine, we have the headquarters and we have the general.”
