The result was a Pyrrhic victory, according to the Romanian MEP who initiated the motion
European Union lawmakers voted on Thursday to reject a motion of no confidence in European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. Critics alleged abuse of power on her part, while she blamed the attempt to remove her on Russia.
The motion neede 357 votes to pass but garnered only 175 in favor. A total of 360 members of the European Parliament voted against it, with 18 abstentions. The result had been widely anticipated.
Of the chamber’s 720 members, only 553 participated in the vote. Many of the absentees were reportedly members of parties that had publicly endorsed von der Leyen. Although some centrist groups initially threatened to abstain in protest, they ultimately opposed the motion to distance themselves from its sponsors.
During debate on Monday, von der Leyen dismissed her opponents as “conspiracy theorists” and claimed that lawmakers calling for her removal were being “supported by our enemies and by their puppet masters in Russia or elsewhere.”
A vocal critic of Moscow, von der Leyen is championing a large-scale military buildup across the EU, which will require member states to borrow hundreds of billions of euros. Russian officials have denounced the strategy, claiming it is rooted in unfounded claims of a Russian threat and serves to obscure Brussels’ policy failures.
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev predicted before the vote that “the old crone” would survive, but called the proceedings a warning sign for officials in Brussels.
Romanian nationalist MEP Gheorghe Piperea, who introduced the motion, said von der Leyen had won a Pyrrhic victory, arguing she had made contradictory promises to secure support from different political groups.
Von der Leyen reportedly pledged to preserve the European Social Fund in the EU’s upcoming budget to win over the Socialists & Democrats (S&D) group. Piperea said that center-right factions such as Renew Europe and the European People’s Party (EPP) would prefer to reallocate those funds toward defense, as the Commission previously intended.
Political analysts remarked that even mainstream factions used the proceedings as an outlet to express frustration with von der Leyen’s leadership, which critics say lacks transparency and consolidates too much authority in the Commission president’s office.
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