Ursula von der Leyen came to the post of President of the European Commission five years ago with a less than glittering reputation. Martin Schulz, her compatriot and former President of the European Parliament, described her as the ‘weakest minister’ in Angela Merkel’s government. There was a strong sense that she had been booted upstairs after her failures as German defence minister, which included running down the armed forces to the point where some soldiers had to take part in a Nato exercise with broomsticks in place of guns. Even the junior partners in the then ruling coalition in Germany declined to back her candidacy.

With such low expectations she would have had to perform very badly indeed if she were to disappoint. It is perhaps fair to say that she is less of joke candidate this time around, as she stands for a second five-year term in the job. Nevertheless, she will carry significant baggage.

There was the farce of the EU vaccines procurement, which left the EU lagging behind the UK in administering Covid vaccines in the early months of 2021. The EU, it turned out, had failed to negotiate contracts which made European deliveries a priority, and so found itself waiting in a queue. Von der Leyen compounded the error by attempting to enact an emergency clause in the EU withdrawal agreement which would have blocked the export of vaccines from the EU to the UK. She rapidly backed down after complaints from Ireland that it would have meant re-erecting a hard border with Northern Ireland, something which months earlier the EU had insisted could not be contemplated.

There was the the bust-up, too, with Poland’s former Law and Justice government, which many in Poland and elsewhere in the EU saw as institutional over-reach. Poland was threatened with having Covid recovery funds withheld after offending the EU’s liberal-minded masters by passing socially conservative laws on abortion and gay marriage – issues which surely ought to be beyond the remit of a trade bloc and a perfectly legitimate matter for the elected government of a member state. It is not all of her doing, but von der Leyen has presided over the Commission at a time of growing Euroscepticism in many member states, including a victory for Geert Wilders in last year’s Netherlands’ general election, the rise to power of Georgia Meloni in Italy and the likely victory of Marine Le Pen’s National Rally in the European Parliament elections in June.

Then there is the EU’s Green Deal, which suffered a loud battering last month after farmers from several countries drove their tractors to Brussels to object to regulations which they say are putting them out of business. Von der Leyen backtracked on such measures as trying to cut meat consumption by EU citizens and some environmental laws.

But no one can say that she has done nothing for the farmers. Quite the oddest incident in her presidency was her announcement last September of a review into conservation laws regarding wolves. ‘The concentration of wolf packs in some European regions has become a real danger for livestock and potentially also for humans.’ Many people would agree with that, even if some conservationists were outraged at the sudden pullback from the powerful rules of the EU Habitats Directive, which have not previously been known to put farmers above rare species. But then a possible inspiration came to light: it turned out that von der Leyen had had a 30-year-old pony, Dolly, which had been mauled to death by wolves.

The wolves don’t seem quite yet to be circling for von der Leyen herself, and she may very well win another term. But the EU she leads in one which is fractious and economically stagnant. Last year she appealed for Britain to rejoin the EU to ‘solve the problems of Brexit’. It is an unenticing invitation given the EU’s own problems.