The European Parliament on Thursday rejected by a large majority the motion of impeachment against European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

In particular, 565 out of 720 MEPs voted in favour. Only 165 voted in favour of overturning the Commission, while 390 voted against the proposal and 10 abstained. Von der Leyen was not in Strasbourg at the time of the vote.

The motion of censure had been tabled by the far-right political group Patriots for Europe, which accused the Commission president and all the commissioners of handling the EU-Mercosur trade deal. According to the proposers of the proposal, the agreement undermines European farmers, opening – they argued – the European market to unfair competition.

Repeated attempts to no avail

This is the fourth such initiative in the last seven months, as three previous impeachment proposals were also rejected. The relatively low threshold required to start proceedings – 72 signatures out of a total of 720 MEPs – has facilitated repeated attempts to question the European executive, but without any real chance of success.

The debate on the proposal, which preceded Monday’s vote, was held in an almost empty chamber, as a large number of MEPs chose to boycott it, protesting at what they described as repeated – as they described it – sham moves by the far right and far left. Even the head of Patriots for Europe, Jordan Bartnella, was absent from the proceedings.