Falling short of the two-thirds
majority needed to pass on July 10, 2025, the no-confidence vote on President
Von der Leyen of the Commission in the E.U.’s parliament mustered only 175
representatives in favor while 360 voted against the motion and 18 abstained.
Although commentators discussed whether the president was weakened anyway, a
more important matter relates to the politics of the vote as distinct from the Parliament’s
institutional interests as they relate to the Commission and the European
Council. I contend that the Parliament, which represents E.U. citizens, has a
vital interest that is vital to the E.U. itself in maintaining a balance
between the collective power of the representatives of the citizenry and the
power the state governments at the federal level. Parties making deals with Von
der Leyen on policy positions undercut the vote as a means of holding the
Commission to maintaining that balance.
For example, the Socialists
and Democrats Party “extracted a pledge on the next long term budget in
exchange for their support.”[1]
The right-wing Patriots for Europe Party and Europe of Sovereign Nations Party
both voted in favor of removing Von der Leyen, but certainly not because she left
made a deal with the states to sidestep the Parliament on certain matters of
policy, for those parties favor more power for the state governments at
the federal level. In fact, those parties even deny that there is a federal
level! Therefore, we cannot assume that the vote of no-confidence was on
the matter of the Commission siding with the state governments to marginalize
the Parliament.
The Commission under Von der
Leyen had “invoked Article 122 of the Treaty of the Functioning of the European
Union (TFEU) to set up SAFE which allows member states to directly approve a
Commission proposal ‘if severe difficulties arise in the supply of certain
products’ or if a member state is ‘seriously threatened with severe
difficulties caused by natural disasters or exceptional occurrences beyond its
control.’”[2]
Because the Commission and the state governments were able to set up a federal
defense-loan program without the approval of the European Parliament, and thus
the citizens of the E.U., Roberta Metsola, the head of the Parliament, wrote to
Von der Leyen of the “deep concern” in among the representatives that excluding
the Parliament meant “putting at risk democratic legitimacy by undermining
Parliament’s legislative and scrutiny functions.”[3]
The democratic legitimacy of the federal level depends on the involvement of
the Parliament, as it is the only institution representing E.U. citizens
directly, rather than state governments, which have their own institutional
interests even apart from state residents.
It is highly significant that Metsola “stressed that ‘the European Parliament is not questioning the merits of this proposal for a regulation’.”[4] The objection was not one of policy; rather, the concern was based on the democratic viability and overall balance of the E.U. itself as a federal system. By involving policy in the deal-making leading up to the censure vote, certain political parties in the Parliament undercut that institution’s interest in protecting itself against the Commission giving too much power to the state governments at the federal level. The Socialists should not have extracted a political gain from Von der Leyen, and the Green Party members should not have voted on the basis of how much Von der Leyen had prioritized environmental policy. Instead, the parties apprehensive about the Parliament having been circumvented by the state governments and the Commission should have voted to offset the state-rights ideology of the far-right parties in the Parliament. Had this been done, the next Commission would have been very cautious about circumventing the voice of the people by making deals with the governors of the several states.
Generally speaking, protecting the viability of the federal system itself, including the checks and balances at the federal level, does not get done by prioritizing political deals and even particular policies, as if the pushing for certain policies in the aggregate were tantamount to protecting the system of governance itself.
2. Alice Tidey, “MEPs Vote for Parliament to Sue Commission over €150 bn Defense Loan Programme,” Euronews.com, June 25, 2025.
4. Ibid.
