To keep rising, Mrs von der Leyen must avoid mistakes. Hence she can seem over-rehearsed in conversation. But she also needs a vision for German leadership. She compares the European Union to a family, perhaps with her own teeming dinner table in mind. Such a community cannot have one leader. But when it is pulled apart by centrifugal forces, it needs “a centripetal force, coming again and again as the uniter”. This, she thinks, is Germany’s role. She may end up playing it herself.
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