For the fourth time a non-confidence vote against European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and her college of commissioners has failed in the European Parliament.

The vote on Thursday (22 January) concluded with 165 MEPs in favour, 390 against and 10 abstentions. As the proposal did not reach the necessary two-thirds majority it was rejected and once again the commission survived a motion of censure.

The motion was brought forward by MEPs coming mostly from the right and far-right political groups.

The initial debate on the topic on Monday saw sharp ideological edges and arguments mainly against the EU-Mercosur trade agreement, signed by von der Leyen and council president António Costa the weekend before in Paraguay.

Even though the political groups in the parliament don’t officially organise themselves in a coalition, the commission enjoys a so-far stable support from the two biggest parliamentary groups, von der Leyen’s own centre-right European Peoples Party (EPP), the Socialists and Democrats (S&D) and the liberal Renew Europe.

While criticism of the commission is frequent, including from those supporting parties, most MEPs from the Greens, the Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) and the Left didn’t support the far-right proposal.

“The motion of censure is a serious tool that should be used seriously and not every other month for the sake of trying to grab headlines. We should reserve this tool for when it is needed,” a group official of the Greens told EUobserver.

Irish Renew MEP Billy Kelleher said in the plenary on Monday that his group wouldn’t support the motion and said: “Our citizens need a functioning executive now more than ever. If MEPs vote to remove president von der Leyen on Thursday, who will negotiate with president Trump on behalf of us all?”

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