Jean-Claude Juncker, the new President of the European Commission, has been in office only since 1 November, but he already faced his first motion of censure vote in the European Parliament last week. Following revelations about secret tax deals of Luxembourg with big multinationals at the time when Juncker was the country´s prime minister – the so-called LuxLeaks, 76 MEPs from Nigel Farage´s EFDD group and from the non-aligned members put forward a motion of censure against his Commission. The motion was debated on Monday 24 November and was put to a vote on Thursday 27 November. As expected, Mr Juncker got the support of his own political group, the EPP, and also that of the socialists of S&D who practically form a grand coalition with the center-right EPP. With this constellation in place, the motion of censure had no chance of going through and was rejected by a large majority of 461 against, with only 101 in favor.

The Parliament can vote a motion of censure only against the entire Commission. For such motion to be adopted, it requires a double majority - two-thirds of the present MEPs, being at the same time at least a simple majority of the overall number of MEPs.

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