The Brief – How the far right just spiced up European politics

Euractiv

09-07-2025

This week's censure attempt against Ursula von der Leyen may have been a far-right stunt but given how watchable Monday's debate was, Europe's political mainstream should beg the pro-Putin cranks to stage another .
The outcome of tomorrow's vote is known even to the motion's instigators: The Commission will remain in place. That makes it easy to dismiss the entire exercise, with the Greens' co-leader Bas Eickhout calling it 'one big political show of the far right'.
He's right. But the 'show' on Monday made for unusually decent viewing. And people beyond Brussels noticed. That alone should send a message to the pro-EU groups in the oft-overlooked European Parliament: Political theatre has a purpose.
The spectacle should be reclaimed from the extremes – not through cheap stunts or desk-thumping for its own sake, but the kind of vivid, adversarial politics that draws people in. On Monday, when MEPs dropped the jargon and spoke like they meant it, the chamber came alive.
Take socialist leader Iratxe Garcia, who was compelling in her emotionally charged rebuke of the rightward drift by von der Leyen and her rogue attack dog in the Parliament, Manfred Weber. If you happened to be watching (and understood Spanish), you might have wanted to vote for her.
It would be unfair to say these groups are averse to the dramatic. Strasbourg has had its moments. But you have to go back to summer 2023 for the last , when Weber moved mountains to cajole his European People's Party into trying to kill its own law to reverse biodiversity loss.
Then too, the socialists and liberals were outraged at Weber's remorseless scything through the EU's green agenda. The stakes were clear. Debate was rancorous. Alliances were betrayed. People took to the streets. Weber – a spotlight-stealing antihero – was humiliated when he lost the final vote. The saga had it all.
Trouble is, it barely burst the bubble. As one EU watcher quipped : 'Weber would now be facing calls to resign, if anyone normal knew who he was or cared.'
Some normal people know who von der Leyen is. A few might even care. At the very least, her latest drama is being beamed to towns and villages this week, offering them a fresh perspective on typically tedious EU wrangling.
But that it took a doomed 'no-confidence vote' to generate such interest is a sign of how irrelevant the Parliament is normally thought to be.
Strasbourg needn't become Westminster to fix that. But if von der Leyen continues to treat the Parliament as an ornament, it could respond by making more of a scene. Even the ancient Greeks understood that a lively debate in the agora sharpened argument, revealed ignorance and – ultimately – improved policy.
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