00:00The European Parliament has rejected two back-to-back motions of censure against European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
00:09The first motion of no confidence tabled by far-right groups was rejected on Thursday with 378 votes against, 179 in favours and 37 abstentions.
00:22The initiators of the motions did not, however, see this as a defeat.
00:27This is a process, it's not a definite thing. It's just to put pressure on von der Leyen and to show her weak points and that she has no conditions to continue.
00:38So we will continue on this strategy until she understands that she cannot keep on going.
00:46MEPs also rejected the motion of censure tabled by far-left groups with 383 votes against, 133 in favour and 78 abstentions.
00:57So consider it as a first victory. I think Ursula von der Leyen has never been as weakened as now, as of now.
01:05And I think there's a number of MEPs that are supposedly into the coalition of Ursula von der Leyen that have actually been voting in favour of a motion of censure.
01:14And it says something about the anger I think that Ursula von der Leyen is creating.
01:20Though Ursula von der Leyen will be relieved to have overcome three separate no-confidence votes in the past few months,
01:28she owes the survival of her coalition to the broader international geopolitical context.
01:33We voted in general against and I think the most important reason is that if we are now looking at the situation in the world,
01:42now sending away the European Commission is really not a smart thing to do.
01:48All in today's modern economy ready to exploit any division.
01:51The groups that formed the so-called centrist majority and most of the MEPs from the Greens and from the European Conservatives and Reformists
02:01defended the Commission against accusations of her trade policy and lack of transparency.
02:07But this does not mean that challenges are over for Ursula von der Leyen and for the Commission.
02:15The next big battle in the Parliament could concern the multi-annual budget of the European Union,
02:22where she could end up at odds, even with the members of her own group, the European People's Party.
02:30Vincenzo Genovese, Euronews, Strasbourg.
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