Von der Leyen: Growing anger, a no-confidence vote ― and trouble ahead

BRUSSELS ― Thursday’s vote of no confidence in Ursula von der Leyen crystallizes growing political opposition to a European Commission president who has drifted to the right and is increasingly at odds with two of the major parties that brought her to power.

Just the fact she has been forced to go to the European Parliament and defend herself over her handling of vaccine purchases during the pandemic — a scandal that became known as “Pfizergate” — marks a grim milestone for the 66-year-old leader who had, until now, managed to remain aloof and avoid the cut-and-thrust of daily politics.

As lawmakers gather in Strasbourg on Thursday to vote on a motion submitted by hard-right politicians, von der Leyen theoretically — but only theoretically — faces having to step down. Such a move would also bring about the fall of her whole Commission.

In this sense, the stakes are reminiscent of when Jacques Santer’s Commission faced a vote of no confidence in 1999. The motion failed, but Santer and his entire team were forced to step down weeks later when the Party of European Socialists formally withdrew its support.

The 2025 version carries faint echoes of those days: A center-left party is furious with the Commission president, and the specter of a scandal hangs over the proceedings.

Guaranteed to fail

But echoes don’t mean history will repeat itself. However angry they may be over von der Leyen’s rightward turn, the leaders of the liberal Renew and center-left Socialists and Democrats groups in the Parliament have both said they will not back the no-confidence motion.

As for Manfred Weber, who leads von der Leyen’s powerful conservative EPP group, he has ordered his lawmakers to be present in the Parliament to show “unanimous” support for the Commission president. Given that the motion needs a two-thirds majority to pass, it’s essentially guaranteed to fail.

Even so, the vote itself carries a powerful warning for von der Leyen.

For one, lawmakers have now learned how easy it is to bring a motion of no confidence. (Just 72 votes are needed.) Because the motion was brought by lawmakers from the populist right, it was easy for centrist parties to dismiss it in order not to abet the far right, whom Weber has called the “puppets of [Russian President Vladimir] Putin.”

But this would not be the case if another disgruntled faction, say S&D or the Greens, decided to bring their own motion of no confidence ― whether triggered by von der Leyen’s unwinding of green targets or some other scandal that has yet to crop up. Getting to a two-thirds majority would still be difficult, but such motions don’t need to pass in order to inflict political damage.

Indeed, the second big threat for von der Leyen is losing the support of the liberals and the S&D, either fully or in part. While this would not automatically force her to resign, it would make enacting her legislative agenda much harder at a time when former European Central Bank Governor Mario Draghi has warned Europe faces “slow agony.”

On migration, for instance, von der Leyen’s Commission is headed for another big clash with the Parliament. The center left has said it doesn’t want to back a new directive facilitating migrant deportations, with Denmark’s social democrat Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen acknowledging that passing the so-called returns directive will be “very, very difficult.”

Yet von der Leyen has no choice but to move forward with it under pressure from national leaders.

In other words, the political clash on display Thursday is not the end of von der Leyen’s political troubles with the European Parliament.

It may only be the beginning.