STRASBOURG, France — Ursula von der Leyen on Thursday survived a no-confidence vote in her leadership of the European Commission.
A majority of members of the European Parliament, who voted on a motion submitted by the hard-right, backed the Commission president. If she had lost the vote, von der Leyen and the rest of her Commission would have had to stand down, throwing the EU into chaos.
360 MEPs voted against the motion, with 175 in favor and 18 abstaining. Out of 720 MEPs, 553 showed up to cast a ballot. The motion would have needed 357 votes to pass.
Despite having the support of her own European People’s Party as well as the Socialists, the liberals of Renew, and the Greens, many MEPs from these groups did not show up to vote.
While von der Leyen, as expected, lives to fight another day, her troubles are far from over. The vote — the first such no-confidence attempt since 2014 — exposes increasing political opposition to a Commission president who, like much of Europe, seems to have drifted to the right, putting her at odds with two of the major parties that brought her to power.
Von der Leyen may have survived but political families from across the spectrum used the procedure to air their grievances against the Commission, whether on transparency and the over-centralization of power, backtracking on the Green Deal, or accusations of violating the EU’s institutional procedures.
It has also shaken up the coalition of parties that support von der Leyen’s second term, with the Socialists and liberals increasingly at odds with the Commission president.
In the run-up to the vote, both groups threatened to abstain over their concerns that the Commission is drifting to the right.
However, the liberals backed down, saying they did not want to take part in the extreme right’s “games” with Europe’s stability, according to a Renew spokesperson.
The Socialists followed suit on Thursday evening after securing a concession from von der Leyen on the EU’s long-term budget, which the Commission is slated to present next week.
The Commission president promised the center-left she would keep the European Social Fund, which is meant to tackle poverty and support vulnerable groups, as part of the budget, despite earlier indications that it would be dropped.
Among Socialists and Democrats, said Parliament Vice President Katarina Barley, many are determined that this will be the “absolute last chance.”
Gheorghe Piperea, a Romanian lawmaker from the right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), who brought the motion against von der Leyen, told POLITICO that he expected the motion to fail, but that the exercise was healthy for the EU. He added that he expects the move to “open Pandora’s box” by showing that “it is possible” to challenge the Commission president.
Von der Leyen should brace for “several” more censure efforts, Piperea said.
The EPP disagrees. “The day we return from holidays, we would almost have forgotten about this,” predicted EPP vice-chair Siegfried Mureșan.
This article has been updated.
The post Von der Leyen wins vote of no-confidence appeared first on Politico.
