When EU lawmakers turn the screws on European Commission head Ursula von der Leyen this week, the fragile coalition backing her will also be put to the test after more than a year of tensions. The EU chief will first face a grilling by members of the European Parliament on Monday before twin no-confidence votes on Thursday in parliament in Strasbourg, France, less than three months after surviving a similar challenge.
The two motions of censure against von der Leyen from the hard-left and far-right have almost no chance of bringing down the president of the bloc's powerful executive. But while she may have hoped the last motion in July would have been the end of the challenges, the complaints against von der Leyen have only grown since. The motions also lay bare the darkening mood inside the parliament, shaken by the far-right's rise in the June 2024 elections.
Thursday's votes will showcase the state of the so-called pro-European coalition between von der Leyen's conservative EPP grouping, parliament's biggest force, and the centrists, and socialists. "It's very unstable," said centrist EU lawmaker Pascal Canfin, who fears the socialist grouping could eventually quit the coalition.
"Do we have a better alternative scenario? By far, no. Because any alternative scenario would be even worse," he said.
The hard-left and far-right's grievances against von der Leyen include accusations of a lack of transparency as well as her July tariff deal with US President Donald Trump, denounced by many EU lawmakers as unbalanced. MEPs "returned angry after being slammed all summer about the deal with Trump," a senior EU official said. Von der Leyen has defended the agreement as the best the EU could get.
Both groups are also angry at the commission's trade agreement with the South American Mercosur bloc that Brussels hopes to sign by the end of the year. Von der Leyen faces the heat from all sides. Leftist and centrist MEPs accuse von der Leyen's EPP of siding with the far-right to axe green business rules.
"Tensions will increase further" because the "commission pursues a right-wing agenda laced with far-right sentiment," Green EU lawmaker David Cormand said. A combative von der Leyen has defended her record and last month called for unity in the parliament, stressing the challenges the EU faces such as the war in Ukraine.
Yet her September 10 speech failed to bring unity inside her coalition. "The leaders of the two main groups' first reaction was to attack each other," a commission source said, referring to the EPP's Manfred Weber and Iratxe Garcia Perez of the centre-left Socialists and Democrats. Weber accused the socialists of "splitting" the coalition, to which Garcia Perez put the blame squarely on his shoulders.
"Who is responsible for the fact that this pro-European alliance isn't working in this parliament? He has a first and last name, his name is Manfred Weber," she said. "It's like quicksand, there's no one to catch the other. Their relationship is flawed," a former EU lawmaker said of their mud-slinging. The hard-right, however, is enjoying it. "We're watching this with amusement, we're letting them deal with their relationship problems," said MEP Julie Rechagneux of the Patriots group.
The tensions in von der Leyen's coalition have so far had limited impact since there is no major legislation being pushed through the parliament. But Weber has warned the autumn will be a "moment of truth". The first major laws that the EU hopes to approve by the end of the year include proposals to simplify environmental laws that divide lawmakers.
The left and centrists' biggest fear is that the right and far-right will coordinate to water down more green rules. For now, minds are focused on the consequences of Thursday's votes. "The risk isn't that the motion of censure will pass this time, but that everything will coalesce around a text that leads to a deadlock and dismantles the (alliance) majority," a senior EU official said.
A successful vote of no-confidence would be a historical first. The closest parallel dates from March 1999, when the commission led by Luxembourg's Jacques Santer resigned en masse over damning corruption claims and mismanagement rather than face a confidence vote it was set to lose.
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