BRUSSELS (The Brussels Times/ BBC News Europe) – The new president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen announced on Sunday that she would leave for the capital of Ethiopia, Addis Ababa, on Friday (6th December 2019).
This will be her first trip outside the European Union (EU). She will meet Nobel Peace Prize winner Abiy Ahmed and African Union representative Moussa Faki Mahamat.
“I decided to go to Africa for my first trip outside the EU. I will go to Addis Ababa on Friday to meet African Union representative Moussa Faki, Nobel Peace Prize winner Abiy Ahmed and Ethiopian president Sahle-Work Zewde, the only woman at the head of an African country,” she announced during an interview with Brussels press agencies on Sunday. “I will be back in Brussels on Sunday,” she added.
Ursula von der Leyen took up her new position on Sunday, a month later than planned. She got straight to work with a series of telephone calls to heads of G7 and G20 member countries.
She spoke to the Chinese, South Korean, Indonesian, Australian and Turkish heads of state.
Von der Leyen will go to Madrid on Monday (2nd December) for COP25, where she will speak about her “Green Deal” for the EU, which she promised to deliver during the first 100 days of her mandate.
“My stay in Madrid will be short. It will just be a run-down of what we are planning. But Madrid will be the launch of the Green Deal,” she explained.
Ursula von der Leyen became the President of the European Commission on 1st December 2019. On 2nd July 2019, she was proposed by the European Council as the candidate for the office of President of the Commission. She was elected as the President by the European Parliament on 16 July 2019, with 383 to 327 votes. She will be the first woman to hold the position and the first German since the Commission’s first president, Walter Hallstein.
Mrs. Von der Leyen has promised to push for the EU to play a bigger role in social welfare, to tackle poverty, and has stressed that she would stand up for women’s rights.
She has also pledged in the past to allow a further extension of the UK’s withdrawal date from the EU “should more time be required for a good reason.”
Source: The Brussels Times/ BBC News Europe