Nobody actually knows how she got the job. The person who runs the EU, the most powerful organisation in Europe, is appointed via a secret process decided in me

Nobody actually knows how she got the job. The person who runs the EU, the most powerful organisation in Europe, is appointed via a secret process decided in meetings with no public agenda and no published minutes. The closest I've ever seen to an explanation was one well known senior MEP's claim that "the next head of the EU must be a woman". Same thing as Kamala Harris. von der Leyen in turn then insisted that 50% of the Commissioners be women. Constitutionally, the head of the commission does not get to pick the commissioners, the countries do, but if there's one thing I've learned about the EU over the years it's that it's a big fan of law as long as the law is convenient for its own goals. Given it writes those laws that's usually pretty easy, but the moment the rules go against what it wants politically they are very suddenly ignored, often to a breathtaking scale. Observe how von der Leyen blatantly lied about the contents of the redacted contract to the whole world. She was only caught because the Commission suck at PDF. It's hard to imagine it's the first time she has boldly lied like that.