Keys of the motion to the commission: an ultra attempt without visos of prospering but damages von der read

The European Parliament (PE) will discuss this Monday and vote next Thursday a motion of censure against the European Commission (CE) that presides. The initiative has no signs of prospering but, to do so, would force the resignation in block of the entire community executive and the election, again and country to country, of the corresponding commissioners, which. The key is in the vote of the two thirds of the total suffrages cast in the hemicycle (361), which are needed to get it forward.

The severity of the possible consequences and the damage that the process does to the image of German politics contrast with the minority origin of the proposal, raised by an ultra -right, populist and antieuropa, Gheorghe Pipper, of the Alliance Party for the Union of Romanians (Aur). Basically, he wants to wear out the image of von der Leyen and, incidentally, of the community institutions (of which he charges). In addition, it helps the leader of his training, who lost the elections in May, when he was the favorite. The candidate Proue Nicușor Dan won the second round of the elections.

The motion began being backed by 74 Eurodiputados but has remained at a minimum possible of 72 (10 % of the 720 MEPs), after two withdraw their signature this week. Now the debate itself remains, on Monday late in the afternoon, the three days of uncertainty and vote at the end, Thursday, at noon.

The reasons

The motion promoted by criticism, above all, the lack of transparency of the president of the commission with, during the pandemic and negotiation with this pharmacist for the purchase of vaccines against the Coronavirus.

The case dates back to 2023, when the North American newspaper Brussels’s refusal denounced before European justice to reveal the content of those messages. The existence of them was revealed by Bourla himself in an interview to this medium in 2021, but community services, which initially did not admit that they exist, they indicated after their content was not relevant and were erased, so it was not possible to share them. He Times He repeatedly asked them to inform citizens, without result.

The commission was changing speech and that, today, generates lagoons: it initially alleged that the messages did not qualify as “documents”, according to their internal regulations, due to their ephemeral character, so he did not have to keep them, but maintained the ambiguity about their existence and, at the same time, denied its importance. This generated suspicions that it simply did not really look for them, despite the rules that apply to EU administrations regarding transparency obligations.

Brussels closed in May of that year the first agreement with to have 900 million vaccines against the Coronavirus for the entire EU, in the 2021-2023 period, and a purchase option for another equivalent game, so the operation could reach the purchase of up to 1.8 billion doses. This is the largest contract that the EU has ever signed, according to the European Court of Accounts.

Already in 2022, the EU Ombudsman urged the community executive to inform the messages between Von der Leyen and Bourla, for the sake of the transparency rules that apply to the commission, and warned that when it comes to the right of public access to EU documents “it is the content that matters and not support or the form”, thus discarding that the simple fact of being text. Irrelevant.

We jump to May this year, when the General Court of the European Union. He claims “credible explanations”, says that the EC “did not comply” with his obligation to explain well what happened to that content, if it had been a voluntary or automatic destruction, or if the president’s mobile phone had been replaced in that time interval, perhaps.

While expected to see what is the call to order, it is undeniable that it is an important political setback for the former German defense minister. The commission, which has two months to appeal, will probably have to reconsider access requests, proper searches and present new legal arguments about that information. And the process may force the reform of certain internal administrative practices.

Moment of weakness

The intentions of the Pipetteous Europarliamentary are clear and, therefore, not even the left, the group that has been the most critical with the call Pfizergatehe has supported the motion. They know it is an advertising and Europhobic maneuver to put the stick in the Brussels wheels.

The ultra Romanian denies the greatest and insists that his motivation is only to provide transparency to the “Brussels bureaucracy.” “It will be sensational to see how Ursula von der Leyen justifies the accusations in the motion, especially because the Court of Justice of the European Union recently ordered the commission to publish the details of their negotiations on contracts with Pfizer,” he said.

This theater does not remain for discomfort to what is going to live this week: it is already quite hard for a court to draw the colors to the EC so that it also has to arroster a whole debate in the community Parliament, when things are not especially good between von der Leyen and the hemicycle.

“The relationship between the European Parliament and the Von der Leyen Commission does not go through its best moment, weighed after Brussels have excluded the MEPs of the negotiation of the European Fund of 150,000 million euros to finance joint purchases in defense or suspended negotiations on the future European Law against Ecoposture,” explains EFE.

But what would be needed for the motion to come out, no matter how much in four seats are today of extreme right. Not even the groups in which they agglutinate have voted evenly to this initiative. It has been made with the list of those who voted in favor of the process and has exposed, for example, that they have not gone to one in the group of conservatives and reformists (ECR, jointly led by brothers of Italy of Giorgia Meloni and the Law and Justice party of Poland), in which 31 deputies of 79 who have gone against Von der Leyen. Interesting, because the Italian is the one who takes the reins and we are talking about shooting at the foot, directly.

The complete list of signatories includes ECR legislators, the European Popular Party (PPE, to which the president of the CE) belongs, patriots in Europe (in which the Spanish Vox is), the group of extreme right Europe of the sovereign nations and a handful of members of the Eurocamara non -affiliates. At the time of the vote, now it is being studied how to proceed.

The center groups (popular, social democrats and liberals) renewed their support for von der Leay their team of commissioners less than a year ago and have made it clear since they will be with it. Nor is the greens like to get against and either on the left. “We do not collaborate with the extreme right groups that have de facto supported the Von der Leyen agenda and then pretend to be angry with it,”.

The answer, Thursday.