The pressure is mounting on European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. On Wednesday, a group of right-wing MEPs announced that they had secured enough support to table a no-confidence against von der Leyen over concerns about her leadership style, lack of transparency and growing accusations of bypassing democratic norms within the EU’s institutional framework.
The initiative, launched by Romanian MEP Gheorghe Piperea, stems from the ongoing “Pfizergate” scandal, which escalated in May when the EU General Court issued a landmark ruling against the Commission for failing to disclose text messages exchanged between von der Leyen and Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla during negotiations in 2021 for the purchase of up to 1.8 billion doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine at a mind-boggling cost of €35 billion.
The motion was supported by 74 MEPs from various cross-party groups — 32 from the conservative ECR group, 23 from the sovereigntist ESN group (formed on the initiative of the AfD), 4 from the Patriots for Europe Groups, 14 independents and even 1 from the EPP, von der Leyen’s own group. The vote is expected to take place in July 2025, though an exact date has not been set.
While the motion has little chance of succeeding due to the high bar of a two-thirds majority —the EPP has the relative majority in the Parliament — this nonetheless represents a serious political hurdle for von der Leyen: for the first time the European Parliament will be forced to have a public and official discussion about a scandal that for years has been confined to newspaper reports and courtrooms. “The initiative is fundamentally about upholding transparency and ensuring a fair and genuine democratic process”, Piperea said. He acknowledged that the chances for it to succeed were slim, but said it offered a “crucial opportunity for constructive and substantiated criticism towards von der Leyen.
This is about more than just Pfizergate. Since her re-election in 2024, von der Leyen has been fiercely criticised from various quarters for her authoritarian approach and systematic sidelining of the Parliament. Last month, for example, the Commission proposed using an emergency clause in the EU treaty to shut Parliament out of approving a €150 billion loan scheme to boost joint procurement of weapons by EU countries, known as SAFE.
In response to European Parliament President Roberta Metsola, who threatened legal action against the European Commission, von der Leyen defended the move, arguing that the emergency clause is “fully justified” as SAFE is “an exceptional and temporary response to an urgent and existential challenge”.
In this sense, Pfizergate symbolises a broader process of supranationalisation, centralisation and “Commissionisation” of the bloc’s politics, where the Commission has progressively increased its influence over areas of competence that have previously been considered the preserve of national governments — from financial budgets and health policy to foreign affairs and defence. Piperea’s motion also mentions this alleged “procedural abuse”. He “calls on the European Commission to resign due to repeated failures to ensure transparency, persistent disregard for democratic oversight and the rule of law within the Union”.
Thus, while the motion is largely driven by right-wing and conservative factions, it exposes growing dissatisfaction across ideological and party lines. Socialists, liberals and even some Greens — who backed von der Leyen’s re-election — have become increasingly vocal in their criticism over von der Leyen’s leadership style, particularly regarding transparency issues and her withdrawal of a greenwashing law without parliamentary consultation. However, these groups explicitly stated they would not support a “far-right”-led motion.
Ultimately, the no-confidence motion will not topple von der Leyen, but its symbolic force is undeniable. Long-standing concerns over the concentration of power within the Commission can no longer be dismissed as fringe or conspiratorial. By compelling a public debate in the European Parliament, the initiative may begin to tear open the institutional façade of unity and consensus, revealing a growing unease even among mainstream parties with the EU’s escalating techno-authoritarian regime. Whether or not the motion passes, it signals that the age of unquestioned executive authority in Brussels may be nearing its limits — and that a reckoning over the future of EU governance may be fast approaching.
She should face something harder and more bricky.
I’m glad this is gaining momentum. It’s been clear for a long time that she is neither competent nor trustworthy. It’s a pity our electorate did not notice this during the previous elections. Her EPP party should have taken a massive hit under her leadership.
She was involved in some other corruption scandal and had to leave German politics. As a reward Merkel promoted her to her current position iirc. Elections in the EU seem pretty rigged and I hope she has to finally go.
Elections are not rigged. People have a free vote. An uninformed electorate are complicit in helping political parties export their liabilities to the EU, but please don’t spread conspiracies that have no basis.
No we do not get to elect the president of the EU commission and honestly I’m too lazy to dig through all the corrupt CDU shit so just check my answer to the other commenter, it’s very easy to verify what I’m saying.
Now you’re saying that there was no election. How was it “rigged” in that case? Listen, you’re confusing appointments with the election process.
Corruption and incompetence exist in all institutions to some degree, but one thing you can be sure of is that elections are not rigged. There is no credible evidence of this. Please don’t spread conspiracy theories like that because besides being false, it could give people the impression that their vote doesn’t count.
Dude it’s not my problem if you don’t understand how the EU works. Apart from that I gave all the facts in another reply and if you wanna argue feel free to answer there.
It is your problem when you contradict yourself on your core argument.
What are your sources that elections in the EU are rigged?
She was associated with the broader Berateraffäre in Germany, correct, but she didn’t flee German politics on that basis. Her conflict of interest was that her son worked for a global consulting company that she was partially involved in choosing. Her son would not have worked on the projects that the consulting firm was awarded so it’s pretty tenuous to be honest.
UVDL worked as a minister between 2005-2019 but she didn’t become a nominee for the president role through a German vote - in fact it was all other countries except Germany that voted for her. In both cases she wasn’t “promoted” by Merkel - she had to be nominated by the indirectly elected council then approved by the directly elected EU Parliament.
There’s not a snowball’s chance in hell she’ll go here. There’s enough votes to trigger a vote but not even the most remote chance there’ll be enough votes to actually present her with a no confidence majority. That’s because, unlike the article quoted which is written by someone fairly far outside the broad political spectrum (combining a unique blend of socialism, far right talking points and COVID skepticism) there’s a fair degree of confidence in her leadership, both in the council, the commission and parliament.
But go ahead, let’s cast some unsourced aspersions and make everyone lose a little more faith in our reasonably well functioning European democracy.
I appreciate the deep knowledge you have of European politics. However, you have to recognized all smells very fishy to outsiders. Her popularity in Germany as a minister wasn’t good but she gets to become “nominated by the indirectly elected council”, that precisely that year the Council rejected the Spitzenkandidat process that usually takes place… (when you want a more democratic process that is!) Other candidates with more reputation and recognition were placed is clear disadvantage. The " approved" part you know that the parliament groups go with what they are told by the parties… they barely get to know who they are voting for, specially without the Spitzenkandidat process that exposes the candidates to parliamentarians vs secretive backroom deals. In a normal process Manfred Weber (known for pro-business but restrict migrants and against U.S. liquefied natural gas exports to Europe!) or Margrethe Vestager (very popular and known for antitrust against abusive US companies) and would have been chosen instead… do you see a pattern here?!
Now, let’s forget the erased tapes and messages deleted that are mandatory to keep when negotiating the multi billion Euros contracts with Pfizer… We don’t know how much, just that the contracts were negotiated directly by von der Leyen’s inner circle and bypassed all standard procedures (and recordings gets deleted, of course).
Now, in the last European elections, Europeans all across Europe wanted a radical change (for better or for worse)… and voted as different as they could from previous EU elections… and guess who gets to be reelected as President of the commission with this overwhelming mandate for change… UVDL!
I am sorry, I was truly against Brexit and a fiercely defender of the EU. But since 2010 onward, the EU’s democratic process started to die (I could numerate the many examples where but too long for here) and today it has only a main aim (not much referent’s from NATO’s) and the only good parts is just by force of inertia but will get to be less and less…
The parliament threatened to reject a candidate that wasn’t a spitzenkandidat but in the end they did actually approve UVDL. It’s not like the system is enshrined in law, it’s just convention which has been near to crumbling before and this time even Parliament accepted the change.
I am definitely open to the Pfizer story being on the edge. But I do think there a damned if you do, damned if you don’t element to that time. Every leader we’re desperately trying to save lives and no one knew what we were up against.
I personally would have loved Vestager to take the post but everyone wanted steady hands on the wheel, council, commission, parliament.
Many would have loved Vestager sunbeam60… and that is partly why Spitzenkandidat was ruled out… A minority imposed their candidate instead.
Yes, the parliament approved UVDL (narrowly), but I guarantee you the overwhelming majority of representatives did not had the opportunity to contrast the candidates at all and most were forced to vote based in party lines… again, that is why the “not like the system is enshrined in law” process was dismissed and obscure dealings was put in place instead. You really think for this critical position that is normal… it is not like hiring a summer intern!
I would love a strong EU, that really worked for the people, the member’s institutions and European companies alike… what instead, the EU has become since 2010 is just toxic. Even, the people that used to admire the EU like in Spain or Romania have become skeptical of the manipulations and the EU getting out of its mandated competencies, let alone increasing hypocrisies within its domain.
Lose a little more faith in our reasonably well functioning European democracy.
Believe me, this isn’t what is making people lose faith in European democracy.
Really too lazy to research all the corrupt CDU shit so here’s perplexity for you:
Some people say the 2019 election of Ursula von der Leyen as President of the European Commission was “rigged” or illegitimate because it bypassed the established Spitzenkandidaten (lead candidate) process, which had been championed by the European Parliament as a way to make EU leadership more democratic and transparent[4][6][3].
Instead of selecting a candidate who had campaigned as a lead candidate in the European Parliament elections, EU leaders—especially Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron—chose von der Leyen as a compromise behind closed doors. This sidelined the Parliament’s preferred candidates, Manfred Weber and Frans Timmermans, who had actually campaigned as Spitzenkandidaten[4][6]. The decision was seen by many as a betrayal of voters who had turned out in record numbers, expecting that the lead candidate principle would be respected[6].
Critics, including former European Parliament President Martin Schulz, described von der Leyen as a “fake” lead candidate and argued that allowing her to become Commission President without being a Spitzenkandidat was a mistake[4]. This led to perceptions that the process was manipulated or “rigged” to favor backroom deals over democratic legitimacy. The controversy was compounded by the fact that von der Leyen won the Parliament’s vote by only a slim margin, with significant opposition from Greens and Socialists who felt their candidates had been unfairly overlooked[5][7][6].
[1] https://theconversation.com/ursula-von-der-leyen-why-controversial-choice-for-eu-top-job-may-actually-have-been-the-right-one-120511 [2] https://bst-europe.eu/de/unkategorisiert/the-von-der-leyen-effect-high-visibility-low-accountability/ [3] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13501763.2022.2032285 [4] https://www.politico.eu/article/ursula-von-der-leyen-fake-spitzenkandidaten-lead-candidate-ex-parliament-chief-martin-schulz-european-election/ [5] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-49010801 [6] https://eu.boell.org/en/2019/08/16/european-elections-2019-learning-mistakes-made [7] https://www.dw.com/en/germanys-von-der-leyen-voted-new-european-commission-president/a-49612132 [8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursula_von_der_Leyen
Yeah I know the story very well. If we want the spitzenkandidat system to be law, then let’s make it a law. At the minute, it’s convention.
I‘d be down for that. Don’t know how though. I think the EU is a great idea but as it currently is it’s not very democratic in a sense that too many things can be just handled via backroom deals vs true democratic processes.
