Patriots for Europe, the European Parliament’s third-largest group, said it would support another motion of censure against European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, regardless of which party tabled it.
“We would support any motion of censure of no confidence against the Commission President, left, right or centre,” said Anders Vistisen, Danish MEP with the Patriots group.
The comments came the day after the European Parliament rejected a motion of censure against the EC President. That vote, held in Strasbourg on 10 July, saw 175 MEPs vote in favour, 360 against, with 18 abstentions and 166 not taking part. Vistisen, interviewed by Brussels Signal on 11 July, was among the MEPs who backed the motion.
“We knew there was not enough support to remove her,” he said. “It was more a signal to the European electorate that this verdict she got in the European Court of Justice … needed some political consequences. We think the consequence should be that the Commission President resigned.”
Vistisen said Patriots MEPs voted as a bloc. He criticised the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR, right-of-centre), which initiated the procedure but saw some members, particularly those aligned with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party, abstain or stay away.
“I think they felt caught between a rock and a hard place,” Vistisen said. “They didn’t want to vote against their own Commissioner. It’s not only the Commission President, it’s the whole Commission.”
The motion was tabled in response to a European Court of Justice ruling against von der Leyen, which found she had failed to disclose text messages exchanged with Pfizer during the Covid-19 pandemic. It was brought by parts of ECR, with support from Patriots and The Left.
Several MEPs from the Socialists and Democrats (S&D), Renew Europe and the Greens/EFA chose not to take part in the ballot despite their groups’ official opposition to the motion. In many cases, abstention or absence served as a form of protest.
“The motion will fall and Ursula von der Leyen will stay but with very weak legitimacy,” MEP Gheorghe Piperea, who initiated the motion of censure, told Brussels Signal earlier in July. “The abstentions are a hidden motion of censure.”
Although the motion failed, the vote exposed growing tensions around von der Leyen’s second term and foreshadowed difficult negotiations over the European Union’s next long-term budget, due to be presented on 16 July.
The S&D, which officially opposed the motion, reportedly did so after receiving assurances from von der Leyen that the European Social Fund would be protected — a claim later disputed by the European People’s Party (EPP), von der Leyen’s group.
Farmers’ associations have also announced renewed protests in Brussels over proposed changes to the Common Agricultural Policy in the upcoming budget.
Each political group that defended the EC was now expected to demand concessions in exchange for its support, setting the stage for a complex and politically charged budget negotiation.
Vistisen said future attempts at censure should avoid politically charged language and instead focus on issues of governance.
“This time the Left used the wording of the resolution as an excuse not to vote her out,” he said. “Next time around, we should be able to get a more substantial vote against von der Leyen’s Commission.”
He added that the Patriots were now focused on building alliances to challenge what he called “a very unhappy coalition” backing the EC.
“We want more internal coordination with the other groups to achieve a common goal of a more common sense Europe, less Federalist Europe, and a Europe for the people,” he said.
The full interview is available on our Youtube channel.
