BRUSSELS — A potentially imminent vote of no confidence in European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is almost certain to fail, but would at the same time compound her embarrassment over the Pfizergate scandal.
Romanian right-wing lawmaker Gheorghe Piperea has filed a motion of censure against von der Leyen over her secret texts from 2021 with Albert Bourla, the chief executive of pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, during discussions on getting vaccines to Europe at the height of the coronavirus pandemic.
Piperea has secured the required support of 70 MEPs to hold the no-confidence vote, a low bar compared to the two-thirds majority of votes cast in the 720-seat Parliament that would be needed for the motion to actually succeed.
If passed — an outcome that is considered highly unlikely — the motion would lead to the resignation of the entire Commission and trigger the complex process of appointing 27 new European commissioners from member countries.
Piperea said on social media that his motivation was to bring transparency to the “Brussels bureaucracy.”
“It will be sensational to see how Ursula von der Leyen justifies the accusations in the motion, especially since the Court of Justice of the European Union recently ordered the Commission to publish details of its negotiations on the contracts with Pfizer,” he said.
The Parliamentary authorities are currently assessing the admissibility of the request. If approved, a debate and a vote would be scheduled for the plenary session in the second week of July.
As part of this process, von der Leyen would need to appear in order to defend herself, followed by a debate, in which political group leaders would express their views.
Despite recent political turmoil, with the Socialists and liberals accusing von der Leyen of aligning with the far right to water down green reforms, the EU’s centrist majority that supported her presidency has little appetite to support Piperea’s drastic measure.
The center-right European People’s Party (EPP), the Socialists and Democrats and liberal Renew Europe confirmed to POLITICO they will vote against any such motion. The Greens, meanwhile, are unlikely to support bringing down the Commission via a far-right motion.
Iratxe García Pérez, chair of the S&D group, said: “We won’t support any extreme-right initiative.”
Even The Left group lawmakers, typically critical of von der Leyen, suggested they were likely to vote against the motion. “We don’t work with the far-right groups who have been lately de facto supporting von der Leyen’s agenda and then pretending to be mad at her,” a group spokesperson said.
The motion has garnered support from MEPs from the far-right Patriots for Europe and Europe of Sovereign Nations groups. It has also notably received backing from some EPP MEPs, likely the Slovenian delegation, which previously voted against von der Leyen’s re-election last summer.
But the EPP at large — von der Leyen’s own party — would naturally vote against, having slammed the no confidence vote as “irresponsible” and “disgraceful to the citizens who cast their votes just one year ago.”
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