Top EU official avoids vote of no confidence

The European Parliament rejected a vote of no confidence in the head of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen. If it had been supported, it would have resulted in the resignation of the entire EC, reports Euractiv.

The vote was opposed by 360 MPs, supported by 175, and 18 abstained. A minimum of 361 votes was needed to uphold the vote.

The motion of no confidence in von der Leyen was officially presented last week, led by Gheorghe Piperi, a Romanian MP from the far-right Alliance for the Unification of Romanians, which is part of the European Parliament's Party of European Conservatives and Reformists group. The initiative was signed by 74 MEPs, mostly from the far right.

The motion criticized the way the head of the European Commission manages recovery funds, her decision to "bypass" MEPs on the issue of the new SAFE defense loan program and her involvement in the scandal over the procurement of vaccines from the US company Pfizer during the Covid pandemic.

However, during the July 7 debate, the focus shifted from von der Leyen's work at the Commission to the role her political party, the European People's Party, plays in the European Parliament under Manfred Weber.

Center-left groups of MPs attack Weber for shifting to the right and starting cooperation with part of the far right.

On the eve of the vote, the Socialists, the liberal group Renew Europe, and the Greens said they would vote strongly against the vote, mainly because it was an initiative of the far right. Von der Leyen also received the support of her party.

"I would recommend the Commission president not to think that those numbers are then comforting because there are a lot of people not voting for this because it's a far-right motion of censure," said Dutch politician Bas Eckhout, co-chair of the Greens group, who voted against the vote.

The EC President herself was not present during the vote, as is in Rome for the Conference on the Reconstruction of Ukraine.

• The European Commission is the supreme executive body of the EU, an approximate analog of the government in the states.