{"id":70657,"date":"2026-05-14T08:21:05","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T08:21:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/70657\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T08:21:05","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T08:21:05","slug":"eu-chief-ursula-von-der-leyen-faces-more-confidence-votes-this-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/70657\/","title":{"rendered":"EU chief Ursula von der Leyen faces more confidence votes this week"},"content":{"rendered":"

BRUSSELS (AP) \u2014 The European Union\u2019s top official on Monday warned lawmakers not to fall for Russian President Vladimir Putin\u2019s attempts to divide Europe<\/a> and urged them to work together for the bloc\u2019s 450 million citizens, ahead of two no confidence votes<\/a> this week.<\/p>\n

Two political families in the European Parliament \u2013 one from Europe\u2019s far left, the other representing the far right \u2013 have tabled censure motions against European Commission<\/a> President Ursula von der Leyen.<\/p>\n

Lawmakers are due to vote on the motions Thursday, but the main centrist pro-European political families in the EU parliament who hold a majority in the chamber are expected to reject them, and a two-thirds majority is required to pass.<\/p>\n

The commission proposes EU laws and supervises whether those that enter force are respected. It also manages trade on behalf of the 27 member countries and is Europe\u2019s top competition regulator.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to focus on what really matters, which is to deliver for Europeans,\u201d von der Leyen said at the assembly in Strasbourg, France. \u201cOur adversaries are not only ready to exploit any divisions \u2013 they are actively inciting those divisions in the first place.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said that Putin has \u201cobedient friends in Europe who are doing his work for him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the oldest trick in the book, sow division, spread disinformation, create a scapegoat, all to turn Europeans against each other, to try to lower our guard while we fight each other,\u201d the head of the EU\u2019s executive branch said.<\/p>\n

The Left group blames von der Leyen for \u201csigning off on a number of detrimental trade deals\u201d and failing \u201cto act against the Israeli government\u2019s systemic violations of international law in Gaza.\u201d<\/p>\n

The nationalist Patriots for Europe insist that migration \u201chas exploded\u201d under her leadership and threatens \u201cour identity and security.\u201d They say she has abandoned farmers and consumers, and jeopardized food safety with pro-environment policies.<\/p>\n

Von der Leyen comfortably won<\/a> a censure motion in July \u2013 the first held at the European Parliament in over a decade \u2013 and the centrist parties accuse fringe groups of using the votes for political point-scoring.<\/p>\n

But the votes have been a lightning rod for criticism of Von der Leyen \u2014 who led the EU drive to find vaccines for the citizens of all 27 countries during the pandemic \u2014 and her European People\u2019s Party, which is the largest political family in the assembly.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re accused of cozying up to the hard right<\/a> to push through their political agenda.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BRUSSELS (AP) \u2014 The European Union\u2019s top official on Monday warned lawmakers not to fall for Russian President…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":70658,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[137],"tags":[8917,307,1588,939,1665,51,403,328,52],"class_list":{"0":"post-70657","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ursula-von-der-leyen","8":"tag-eurocopa-2024","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-european-parliament","11":"tag-european-union","12":"tag-general-news","13":"tag-politics","14":"tag-ursula-von-der-leyen","15":"tag-vladimir-putin","16":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116571962224194232","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70657"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70657\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}