The Eurosceptics' no-confidence motion in the EU's new chief executive Jean-ClaudeJunckerhad no chance of success, on the background of some theatrical exchanges of insults in the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Monday.
The motion of censure, introduced by 76 of the European Parliament's 751 members, was discussed in the plenary on Monday, 24 November, and quickly dismissed, under the stern gaze of Parliament speaker Martin Schulz, who cut short everybody who tried to speak more than the allotted time.
Backed by anti-EU groups including the UK Independence Party and France's National Front, the motion calls for Juncker to be removed, less than a month after taking office, because of his long tenure as prime minister of Luxembourg when the country was at the center of controversial corporate tax avoidance schemes.
Steven Woolfe, from UKIP, called the leaks “an ugly scandal that will not go away”, but Juncker himself had been on the offensive, when he had the floor in the beginning, by saying: “When I see the identity of thesignatories, I ask myself what is the real scope of all this. The real intention must be different."
The big parties on the right and left, representing far more than the blocking one-third minority required to thwart the motion in a vote set for Thursday, defended Juncker and criticised the Eurosceptics for playing what centrist leader Guy Verhofstadt derided as a "little game".
Speaking for the motion, National Front leader Marine Le Pen said Juncker's defense of Luxembourg's past policies and promise to work now to curb tax avoidance was "as credible as putting Al Capone in charge of an ethics committee".
Juncker himself renewed a pledge to promote a common European Union approach to corporate tax - something one of his defenders noted was not something his Eurosceptic opponents would support.
The sharpest exchanges came when liberal leader Verhofstadt, a former Belgian prime minister, said that by cooperating on the motion with the outspoken Le Pen, UKIP had shown it was “hideous, racist, xenophobic and Islamophobic". UKIP members demanded that the speaker censure him for lacking respect, but were refused.
Verhofstadt also reminded the assembly that France’s Front National, under the leadership ofMarine Le Pen,recently "borrowed money from dodgy Russian banks”, an accusation that she did not deny.
http://www.neurope.eu/article/big-parties-defend-juncker-strasbourg