European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen comfortably saw off a vote of no-confidence in the European Parliament on Thursday.
Ostensibly a response to her refusal to release text messages exchanged with the Pfizer chief executive at the height of Covid , the motion was put down by several dozen far-right MEPs. It included criticism of the EU’s Covid recovery funds, the legal basis of a €150 billion defence fund, as well as unsubstantiated claims of interference in recent elections in Germany and Romania.
It was, however, a proxy for broader growing criticism, even if only 175 members of parliament backed it, while 360 voted against. It had earlier galvanised support more widely among centre-ground MEPs angered over her drift to the right and a range of other issues. Among these was her strong support of Israel over Gaza, willingness to dilute carbon targets, her lack of transparency, and her willingness to break taboos, along with her European People’s Party (EPP), the largest parliamentary group, by engaging with the recently- expanded far-right.
Although she was not thought likely ever to be defeated by the two thirds necessary, which would have also brought down her whole commission, the president overcame threats from the centre-left Socialists and Democrats (S&D) group with a last minute pledge to safeguard in the forthcoming budget the European Social Fund, a key employment and training mechanism. The centrist liberals of Renew, including Fianna Fáil, also backed her, with the exception of abstaining Barry Andrews who remains furious at her Gaza stance.
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Parliament vice-president Katarina Barley, of the Socialists and Democrats warned, however, that many MEPs are determined that this will be the “absolute last chance” for von der Leyen. Hugely contentious challenges like immigration and the next budget face the parliament whose lawmakers have rediscovered how easy it is to procure the 72 votes needed to move such a motion, which would have a far greater prospect of success if proposed by a mainstream parties..
In 1999, there was a no-confidence vote against Jacques Santer’s commission. Although defeated, it was a prelude to the forced resignation of the entire commission only months later.
In her speech defending her position von der Leyen cast her motion squarely as part of “an age of struggle between democracy and illiberalism”. But her critics point to her enthusiastic embrace of Italy’s right-wing prime minister Giorgia Meloni and the EPP’s willingness in the parliament to vote on occasion with the far right.
“Strength only comes through unity,” von der Leyen insisted to MEPs on Monday. But there was a strong element of wishful thinking in the assertion. It was not a declaration of reality.
