Voting was secret, with ballots placed in envelopes that are inserted into transparent ballot boxes. Ursula von der Leyen (65 years old) obtained 401 votes for the 720 MEPs. 284 MEPs voted against a new mandate for Ursula von der Leyen at the head of the EU executive. There were 15 abstentions.
The qualified majority was 360 votes, not 361 as was initially announced, the figure based on the total mandates. Spain notified the European Parliament with one MEP less, so the composition of the EP on the day of the vote is 719 MEPs (half plus one of this number, rounded up, is 360).
At the European Council of June 27-28, the leaders of the member states reached an agreement on the top positions in the European Union, but without consensus. The head of the Italian government Giorgia Meloni abstained from the vote on the nomination of Ursula von der Leyen, while the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, the initiator of the formation of the European Parliament group ‘Patriots for Europe’, which with its 84 members became the third largest in The European Parliament voted against it.
Source: jurnalul.ro
