Looking down today’s batting order at the COP26 summit, Steerpike’s eye alighted on the name of Ursula von der Leyen. A failed German defence minister, kicked upstairs to her current post of President of the European Commission: who better to save the world than a superannuated Eurocrat?
And, with exquisite timing, the Daily Telegraph has this afternoon released an audit of VDL’s jet-setting tours of Europe. The EU’s top official ordered ‘air taxis’ for 18 out of her 34 official trips since taking up the role in December 2019, despite a pledge to turn the bloc carbon-neutral by 2050.
The shortest of the journeys was a 31-mile hop between Vienna and Bratislava, a journey which takes 68 minutes by public transport. On other occasions a team of European commissioners, including the president, have twice chartered private planes for the 31-minute flight to Strasbourg, for meetings in the European Parliament.
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