Why von der Leyen will win the parliament battle but risks losing the war
Warning shot
Ursula von der Leyen this week faces the first no-confidence vote in a commission president for over a decade, with a foregone conclusion but unclear ramifications.
Context: Brought by a Romanian far-right MEP who secured the necessary 72 signatures in the European parliament, the censure vote is ostensibly about von der Leyen’s handling of private text messages exchanged with a pharmaceutical CEO during the Covid pandemic.
The vote, which will take place on Thursday after an in-person debate in the Strasbourg chamber later today, will almost certainly fail. The biggest parties have said they will support her; few want to be associated with those who are championing the motion.
But many lawmakers who will vote to support von der Leyen are still looking forward to making her squirm at today’s debate, and hope she interprets the mere staging of the ballot as a clear shot across her bows: a warning signal to a leader who has pushed her strong-handed leadership of the EU’s executive to a point of testing the spirit — if not the letter — of the bloc’s laws.
There is little love lost between the parliament and von der Leyen’s Berlaymont. Many MEPs see her regime as aloof and dismissive of the bloc’s legislature. Senior commission officials in turn believe the chamber to be unproductive, obstructive and self-aggrandising.
For example, von der Leyen’s decision to use emergency powers bypassing parliament to legislate the recent €150bn loans-for-arms scheme has triggered a move by the chamber to bring legal action against the commission.
Additionally, the increasing use of support from hard-right parties to push through legislation is straining the ties between the coalition of the centre-right, liberals, and socialists that voted her into power.
MEPs will not bring down von der Leyen’s commission this week. But they will send her a few unsubtle reminders that it's a lot harder to run the EU if you choose to do it while picking a fight with the parliament.