EU’s von der Leyen survives no-confidence votes in parliament

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By Philip Blenkinsop

BRUSSELS (Reuters) -European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen comfortably survived two bids to remove her when the European Parliament rejected no-confidence motions from hard-right and left groups on Thursday.

EU lawmakers rejected the two motions of censure with 378 members of the 720-strong parliament expressing support for von der Leyen in the first vote and 383 in the second.

Von der Leyen said in a post on X that she deeply appreciated the support and that her team of commissioners would work closely with the parliament to tackle Europe’s challenges.

The results were slightly better for the EU executive chief than in July, when 360 lawmakers voted against a motion brought by mainly far-right lawmakers, although below the 401 votes for von der Leyen’s re-election for a second term in July 2024.

Although the motions of censure had almost no chance of reaching the two-thirds majority required to unseat von der Leyen, some lawmakers said they could expose more general disquiet over her leadership and destabilise the EU assembly, whose backing is required to pass legislation.

Parties outside the mainstream have realised that previously seldom-used censure motions are easy to trigger after the 2024 elections swelled the far right to more than 100 lawmakers, with only 72 required to back one.

Both censure motions criticised von der Leyen for accepting an unbalanced tariff deal with the United States and proposing a trade agreement with South American bloc Mercosur, which critics say threatens farmers and the environment.

The U.S. and Mercosur deals will be put to votes in the European Parliament in the coming months, with the outcomes unclear.

(Reporting by Inti Landauro and Philip Blenkinsop, editing by Bart Meijer and Ros Russell)