After Merz declined EU officials decided that protocol dictated that neither Commission President Ursula von der Leyen nor European Council chair António Costa nor external affairs commissioner Kaja Kallas should attend...

Civil society activists tell Africa Confidential that European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is reluctant to confront Germany's chemical industry with BASF its global market leader...

Under European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen's Security Action for Europe (SAFE) programme and bilateral cooperation pacts up to €150 billion will be available in long maturity loans to EU countries to boost their defence spending to at least 2% of GDP...

On March 1 2026 President Ursula von der Leyen met Rwanda's President Kagame in Brussels to reaffirm the partnership and sign a Joint Declaration on Critical Raw Materials Value Chains...

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen arrived in South Africa several days before the G20 summit and promised €750 million (US$870m) in new investments to make batteries for electric vehicles and increase production of vaccines and other pharmaceuticals in South Africa (AC Vol 66 No 6 Targeted by Trump – Africa and Europe draw closer)...

The Lobito Corridor from Angola to Zambia's copperfields was the first example cited by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at the Global Gateway Forum in Brussels in October a two-day event attended by South Africa's president Cyril Ramaphosa and Rwanda's president Paul Kagame demonstrating that large-scale infrastructural investments attract interest...