European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen comfortably survived a vote of no confidence on Thursday, as an amazing variety of European Union lawmakers rejected a censure motion against her.
The motion contained a mixture of allegations against von der Leyen, including text messaging privately with the chief executive of vaccine maker Pfizer in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, misuse of EU funds and interference in elections in Germany and Romania.
The motion was defeated in a 360-175 vote against it, with 18 lawmakers selecting to abstain during a plenary session on the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France. Von der Leyen wasn’t present for the vote.
The vote has been a lightning rod for criticism of Von der Leyen — who led the EU drive to search out vaccines for around 450 million residents in the course of the pandemic — and her European People’s Party, or EPP, which is the most important political family within the assembly.
They’re accused of cozying as much as the hard right to push through their agenda. The EU parliament shifted perceptibly to the political right after Europe-wide elections a yr ago.
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“We won’t vote with the far-right and we don’t support this motion. This vote was little greater than a far-right PR stunt from Putin-loving populists,” Greens group President Terry Reintke said in a press release after the poll, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Nevertheless, she added: “We’re able to construct pro-European majorities, but we is not going to be played by the EPP of their desperate deregulation agenda and their desire to consistently form anti-European majorities with the far-right.”
The censure motion, the primary on the European Parliament in over a decade, was brought against the European Commission president by a gaggle of hard-right lawmakers.
On the eve of the vote, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said on Facebook that it might “be the moment of truth: on one side the imperial elite in Brussels, on the opposite patriots and customary sense. There isn’t any getting out of it, it is crucial to choose.”
He posted: “Madam President, the essence of leadership is responsibility. Time to go!” Von der Leyen’s commission has continuously clashed with Orbán over his staunchly nationalist government’s moves to roll back democracy. The European Commission has frozen Hungary’s access to billions of euros in EU funds.
The second biggest group, the Socialists and Democrats, has said that the censure motion was a result “of the EPP’s irresponsibility and the double games.”
During debate on Monday, S&D leader Iratxe García Pérez said to the EPP: “Who do you should govern with? Do you should govern with those who need to destroy Europe, or those of us who fight day-after-day to construct it?”
The EPP has notably worked with the hard right to repair the agenda for hearing von der Leyen’s latest commissioners after they were questioned for his or her suitability for his or her posts last yr, and to reject an ethics body meant to combat corruption.
© 2025 The Canadian Press