(© picture-alliance/dpa)

  EU Commission

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No-confidence vote fails, support for von der Leyen?
Ursula von der Leyen attended the Ukraine Recovery Conference in Rome while the vote was taking place in Strasbourg. (© picture alliance / ANSA / Vincenzo Livieri)

The motion of no-confidence against EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, tabled by members of far-right parties, has failed. Only 175 MEPs voted in favour of the initiative – while more than twice that number voted against. Two-thirds of those present would have had to support the motion for it to pass. Europe's media draw varying conclusions.

Von der Leyen to face vote of no confidence
(© picture-alliance/dpa/Philipp von Ditfurth)

Ursula von der Leyen must face a vote of no confidence in the European Parliament on Thursday. She is being accused by Romanian MEP Gheorghe Piperea of the right-wing ECR faction and 76 co-signatories of a lack of transparency and of mismanagement in her handling of Covid policy. They cite in particular her failure to comply with a court ruling that she release a chain of text messages with the boss of pharmaceutical giant Pfizer ahead of a multi-billion-euro vaccine deal.