{"id":54845,"date":"2025-07-11T14:47:39","date_gmt":"2025-07-11T14:47:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/eu-chief-survives-no-confidence-vote-as-transparency-leadership-concerns-mount\/"},"modified":"2025-07-11T14:34:52","modified_gmt":"2025-07-11T14:34:52","slug":"eu-chief-survives-no-confidence-vote-as-transparency-leadership-concerns-mount","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/eu-chief-survives-no-confidence-vote-as-transparency-leadership-concerns-mount\/","title":{"rendered":"EU chief survives no-confidence vote as transparency, leadership concerns mount"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The roll-call vote, held at noon in Strasbourg, ended with 360 votes against the motion, 175 in favor, and 18 abstentions, falling short of the two-thirds majority required for passage.<\/p>\n<p>{{From Pfizer texts to election interference<br \/>\n}}<\/p>\n<p>The no-confidence motion marked the first no-confidence vote in the European Parliament since 2014 and brought to the forefront growing criticism of von der Leyen&#8217;s leadership style.<\/p>\n<p>Romanian lawmaker Gheorghe Piperea initiated the motion, accusing von der Leyen of refusing to disclose text messages exchanged with Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla during negotiations for COVID-19 vaccine contracts in 2021, raising concerns about transparency.<\/p>\n<p>Piperea also accused the European Commission of inefficiencies and potential misuse of funds, as well as interference in elections in member states such as Romania and Germany.<\/p>\n<p>The motion garnered some support, including from Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who publicly endorsed the motion on Wednesday, tweeting &#8220;Time to go&#8221; alongside a photo of von der Leyen on social media platform X.<\/p>\n<p>Addressing the parliament earlier this week, von der Leyen defended the Commission&#8217;s pandemic decisions as being in Europe&#8217;s best interest, likening her contact with Pfizer to &#8220;seeking advice from the best epidemiologists and virologists in the world.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>{{&#8220;Last chance&#8221; for von der Leyen<br \/>\n}}<\/p>\n<p>Despite surviving the vote, von der Leyen faces growing criticism from various parliamentary groups. Concerns have been raised about a rightward shift within von der Leyen&#8217;s center-right European People&#8217;s Party (EPP), aimed at advancing certain legislative agendas, including efforts to roll back green policies.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Our vote today is not an endorsement of the direction of the Commission. It is undeniable that the Commission and its President are losing support in recent months,&#8221; the Greens\/EFA group co-president Bas Eickhout said in a statement, calling on the Commission to stop rolling back the Green Deal.<\/p>\n<p>Valerie Hayer, the president of the pro-business Renew Europe group, wrote on X that although they voted against the motion, their support for von der Leyen is not unconditional. She urged von der Leyen to take control of her political family to &#8220;put an end to alliances with the far-right.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The centre-left Socialists and Democrats (S&#038;D), the European Parliament&#8217;s second-largest political group, had previously threatened to abstain. However, after securing budget concessions from von der Leyen, they ultimately backed her in the vote.<\/p>\n<p>Parliament Vice President Katarina Barley, of the S&#038;D, said many lawmakers are determined that this will be the &#8220;absolute last chance&#8221; for von der Leyen, POLITICO Europe, a news outlet covering European Union politics, reported.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-90722 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/20250711de3c89b41cba454c9fbf21eb4e963401_cbsbeee007009_20250711_cbmfn0a001.jpg\" alt=\"European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen speaks during a press conference after a European Council summit in Brussels, Belgium, Dec. 19, 2024. \" \/><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-90721 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/20250711de3c89b41cba454c9fbf21eb4e963401_cbsbeee007009_20250711_cbmfn0a003.jpg\" alt=\"Piperea also told POLITICO that von der Leyen should be prepared for &quot;several&quot; more censure efforts in the future, warning that Thursday&#039;s vote may not be the last challenge to her authority. \" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen survived a no-confidence vote in the European Parliament on Thursday, amid accusations of a lack of transparency in vaccine procurement and other concerns over her leadership.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":131,"featured_media":2000090723,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[75],"byline":[235],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-54845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-homenews","byline-xinhua"],"bylines":[{"id":235,"name":"Xinhua","slug":"xinhua","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":80}],"contributors":[{"id":235,"name":"Xinhua","slug":"xinhua","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":80}],"featured_image":{"id":2000090723,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/20250711de3c89b41cba454c9fbf21eb4e963401_cbsbeee007009_20250711_cbmfn0a00logo.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/20250711de3c89b41cba454c9fbf21eb4e963401_cbsbeee007009_20250711_cbmfn0a00logo.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/20250711de3c89b41cba454c9fbf21eb4e963401_cbsbeee007009_20250711_cbmfn0a00logo.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/20250711de3c89b41cba454c9fbf21eb4e963401_cbsbeee007009_20250711_cbmfn0a00logo.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/20250711de3c89b41cba454c9fbf21eb4e963401_cbsbeee007009_20250711_cbmfn0a00logo.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/20250711de3c89b41cba454c9fbf21eb4e963401_cbsbeee007009_20250711_cbmfn0a00logo.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/131"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000090723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54845"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=54845"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=54845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}