European Union, scandal-ridden Von der Leyen succeeds scandal-ridden Juncker

This 28 September 2015 video says about itself:

Germany: Defense minister faces plagiarism allegations

Germany’s defense minister is facing growing pressure over accusations that her PhD thesis contains plagiarism – a charge which previously cost two former Cabinet ministers their jobs.

Hannover Medical School is to open a formal investigation into the claims surrounding Ursula von der Leyen’s 1990 dissertation.

A five-member commission will now examine the PhD thesis, German press agency DPA reported on Monday.

Von der Leyen, one of the most senior figures in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party, has dismissed the allegations. …

The 57-year-old conservative politician studied medicine at the university, and was awarded a doctorate in 1991.

The website VroniPlag Wiki, which examines the extent of borrowing in German doctoral theses, has recently claimed that it has found elements of plagiarism on 27 pages of the main body of von der Leyen’s PhD work.

The latest allegations follow the resignations of two former ministers, who worked with Chancellor Merkel in previous cabinets, over similar allegations of plagiarism in their doctoral theses.

The then defense minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg resigned in 2011, and former education minister Annette Schavan had to quit in 2013 amid mounting public pressure. Both were stripped of their doctorates.

Today, Dutch NOS TV reports that German now ex-war … sorry, I have to use the euphemism ‘defence’ minister Ursula von der Leyen has become the successor of Jean-Claude Juncker as boss of the European Commission of the European Union.

383 of the 747 members of the European parliament voted for her. Just barely above the 374 votes needed for election. She was the only candidate.

Both Ms Von der Leyen and Mr Juncker are of the European People’s Party. They lost many votes during the recent European elections. This ‘centre-right’ coalition of national political groups includes, eg, parties calling themselves ‘Christian democrat’, and Silvio Berlusconi‘s Forza Italia party in Italy.

Ms Von der Leyen and Mr Juncker have more things in common. Both have been involved in scandals.

Jean-Claude Juncker had to resign as prime minister of Luxembourg because of a Luxembourg secret police scandal. The Luxembourg secret police considered they were not getting enough taxpayers’ money. So, they did terrorist bomb attacks, blaming these on others, in order to get more taxpayers’ money for their ‘war on terror‘.

Juncker was also involved in the LuxLeaks scandal, in which the Luxembourg government helped multinational corporations dodge taxes.

As European Commission boss, Juncker was an anti-refugee hardliner. And a militarist. He hindered exposing European Union corruption.

What will Ms Von der Leyen do as European Commission boss? We don’t know yet, as she started only today. We do know what Dutch Green (GroenLinks) MEP Bas Eickhout thought about her speech to the European parliament today, aiming at persuading the parliamentarians to vote for her. Dutch NOS TV reports that Mr Eickhout thought Von der Leyen’s speech was too vague on fighting climate change and saving nature. ‘I did not hear anything about agricultural policy reform. A bit too much the voice of the German automobile making corporations‘.

We do know something about Ms Von der Leyen’s scandals before she became European Union boss. Like the plagiarism scandal mentioned in the video on top of this blog post. Like her massive increase in German military spending. Like her role in neo-colonial wars in Mali, Afghanistan, etc.