Censure
- The EU Parliament can censure the EU Commission by a vote of no confidence (Photo: European Parliament)
Censure
The European Parliament can censure the EU Commission by a vote of no confidence.
This requires a two-thirds majority of votes and an absolute majority of members - 376 out of 751 votes under the Lisbon Treaty.
The European Parliament can only sack the Commission as a whole and is arguing for the right to be able to sack individual Commissioners.
A motion of censure has never had a majority in the Parliament.
This is is sometimes known as “the nuclear option” because the European Parliament can get rid of an EU Commission en bloc, but has no right to appoint a new one.
On 15 March 1999 the Santer EU Commission resigned on its own initiative - not because of an adopted motion of censure.
Since the Treaty of Nice, the Commission President can sack individual members of the Commission.
In May 2004 a motion of censure over the Eurostat affair received 88 votes in favour, 63 were undecided and there were 515 voted against the motion.
