Look at this photo of Ursula von der Leyen’s new team – and tell me the EU doesn’t have a diversity problem | Shada Islam

I have seen how structural racism is embedded in the EU’s institutions. A recruitment revolution is needed

As Ursula von der Leyen sweet-talked and bullied EU leaders to send more women to Brussels over recent weeks, I kept hoping she would also make her incoming team of European commissioners more racially diverse. Thanks to an unexpected twist of fate involving (very) complicated Belgian politics, Hadja Lahbib, Belgium’s foreign minister, could soon make history as the first ever EU commissioner who is also a person of colour.

Lahbib is the daughter of Algerian immigrants who was born and grew up in the Borinage, a coal-mining and industrial region in southwestern Belgium. She must yet, like other commissioners-designate, convince the European parliament that despite some past political mishaps, she’s got what it takes to become the EU commissioner for crisis management and equality, the two – rather unrelated – portfolios she has been assigned. So it is not a done deal yet.

Shada Islam is a Brussels-based commentator on EU affairs. She runs New Horizons project, a strategy, analysis and advisory company.

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