The president of the European Commission (EC), this Thursday, has overcome two new motions of censure before the European Parliament, one from the left and another from the extreme right, which lost the votes cast that they needed to move forward. The motion presented by the Patriots for Europe achieved 179 votes in favor, 378 against and 37 abstentions, while that of the Left achieved 133 in favor, 383 against and 78 abstentions. To prosper, they would have needed 396 favorable votes out of the 594 cast.
Both motions criticized the Commission’s management of the and the trade pact of the community bloc with Mercosur, while the Left motion also focused on the .
The instrument of the motion of censure, which had only been used 12 times from 1972 until before this past summer, has gained popularity in recent months. Von der Leyen has already brought down her team after the two initiatives this week and after an ultra-conservative MEP presented another motion in July.
The respective 378 and 383 votes against this Thursday’s motions of censure are a relief for the head of the Community Executive, since they are around twenty more than the 360 who rejected (thus showing implicit support) the July motion of censure.
Furthermore, the motion has obtained only four additional votes in favor (179) with respect to the ultra-conservative attempt (175) to bring down the European Commission in the summer, an initiative that came from an MEP from a smaller group and without official support from the leadership of his political family.
A dozen deputies from the groups that theoretically support Von der Leyen’s mandate (popular, social democrats and liberals) and the Italian delegation of the Left, the 5 Star Movement, voted in favor of the far-right motion.
Six other deputies from the “Von der Leyen coalition” did the same in the Left motion, which was also supported by 52 deputies from the three ultra-conservative and extreme right groups (including, for example, ) and 23 not affiliated with any political family. Vox, for its part, indicated that it would not go with the Left “not even to sign an inheritance.”
In any case, the formations that have made the leader escape from this double trap warned Von der Leyen that their support is not unconditional and urged her to cut off “those who deny climate change”, “sexist violence” and “applaud (Benjamin) Netanyahu’s genocidal plan”, in reference to the right-wing forces.
“Legitimate” concerns
Von der Leyen, who was not present in the chamber this Thursday, did go to the European Parliament accompanied by her team of commissioners last Monday to defend her management and did so with a more conciliatory tone than the one she used last July. Although she did not go into the substance of her opponents’ criticism of trade pacts or the situation in Gaza, the German again insisted on the need for pro-European forces to remain united in the face of external threats and offered dialogue to those with “legitimate” concerns.
In the case of the Spanish parties, MEPs from PP, PSOE and PNV have supported Von der Leyen against both motions, while Vox has voted in favor of the motion presented by its group and has chosen not to vote on the impeachment proposed by the left. For their part, the representatives of Podemos, Sumar, ERC, Bildu and BNG have criticized the community president by supporting the initiative presented by the left, a group in which Podemos and Bildu belong. In the case of the far-right motion, some of these parties have decided not to vote and others have rejected it.
After the vote, Vox MEP Jorge Buxadé pointed out that, although the Patriots’ motion has failed, his political family “is the future of Europe” and considered Von der Leyen’s legislature “totally over” along with the “defeat and division of the two-party system.” “We have five years ahead of us to make a total change to the policy of this European Union (…). There are so many reasons to put Ursula von der Leyen in the motion that we could put one every two months, which is the only limit that I think is established for us. But we are a serious party,” he noted.
For his part, the Commons MEP – who has signed and supported the Left motion – acknowledged that they knew that the attempt to overthrow the Commission was not going to succeed and that “not all battles are fought to be won.” “There are battles being fought to avoid being complicit, to keep decency alive in the midst of barbarism and to record that the Commission’s authoritarian drift occurs without our consent,” Asens said.
The Comuns deputy said that his objective by signing the motion was to “state” his opinion and not make it seem that Von der Leyen’s only opposition came from the extreme right, but he ruled out joining more similar initiatives for the moment.
