The European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group in the European Parliament will not impose a voting line on their members for the censure motions against President Ursula von der Leyen, said ECR president Nicola Procaccini during debate on the topic.
“In the ECR, every national delegation will be free to vote according to its conscience and in the interest of its people,” said Procaccini.
The group directed its criticism mostly at the Left group’s own censure motion, rather than the Commission President herself.
Speaking during the October 6 debate on the motion in Strasbourg, Procaccini noted the ECR, which had tabled its own failed motion of no confidence in July, recognised similarities and differences between the two new initiatives.
“Some arguments are exactly the same, some are different,” he said.
“In the motion from the extreme Left, the sole focus is on the Israel-Palestine question,” he said, but the motion contained “not a single word condemning Hamas, or mentioning the hostages, or addressing October 7”.
He also criticised what he called the Left’s selective focus on the Commission’s record, arguing they had misreprepresented “the lack of response from the Commission to climate and social crises”.
However, according to Procaccini, “the Green Deal is the source of social malaise, and that is why Europeans are voting for the Right and not for the Left.”
Procaccini noted “both motions have common grounds in criticism towards trade deals,” saying the issue of trade was complex.
“A trade war with our biggest ally is only in the interest of the ones preferring Trump than their own people,” he argued.
During his remarks, he focused accused left-wing groups of a “failure to condemn Hamas” and of showing “solidarity with Putin’s Russia”.
The ECR group led the previous censure attempt in July while accusing von der Leyen of being “unfit to lead”, but has since softened its stance.
Its members have since signalled a shift towards issue-based opposition rather than a collective push to remove the Commission.
