Criticism poured in after Ms von der Leyen was crowned the European Commission’s president after a month behind schedule. She secured the support of a majority of members of the European Parliament in a vote that will allow her new Commission to take office on December 1. In the public ballot, a total of 461 MEPs voted in favour, 157 against and 89 abstained, handing Mrs von der Leyen a steady mandate.
But the process to appoint the German, who was selected in a backroom deal by EU leaders, was derided as a “sham” and an “insult to democracy”.
Brexit Party MEP Rupert Lowe said: “What we’ve seen today is an insult to democracy.
“A failed German defence minister is now the most powerful politician in the EU backed up by a Commission of pro-EU cronies.
“This is the new government of the EU yet no one in the UK has ever heard of them. They weren’t democratically elected by the people and they can’t be democratically removed.
“Voting against this sham was an easy decision.”
Speaking in the EU Parliament’s hemicycle chamber, Claire Fox, a fellow Brexit Party MEP, said: “Let’s be honest with our voters at home, this process is a sham.
“Colleagues, we are being used as a stage army being marched out today to rubber-stamp a thoroughly anti-democratic imposition of top-down power at Commission level.
“This Parliament is no more than a faux democratic charade used to give a veneer of legitimacy to illegitimate decision-making process.”
Mrs von der Leyen also faces scrutiny from pro-Brussels politicians, who do not believe promises to deliver a so-called “green new deal” in her five-year mandate.
The EU Parliament’s green bloc decided to abstain, with their co-leader Ska Keller explaining their decision before the vote.
She said: “Green headlines are just not enough.
“without a deep reform of the agriculture policy and of the trade agenda, any climate policy must remain half-hearted and we just don’t have time for that.
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Mrs von der Leyen’s new Commission will now take office on December 1, without a British representative after Boris Johnson refused to nominate an official to serve in the German’s college.
EU insiders believe this will mean that only “proposals” will be put forward without any real legislative work undertaken in the coming months before Brexit.
This is to avoid any potential legal challenges that may arise from the lack of British official because the EU treaties state that each member state much be represented by a commissioner.