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Plenary Session Briefing 2025 July 7-10 Session

Motion of censure on the Commission

Discussion: Monday, 7 July 2025, at 17h30 -> Watch the recording

The Motion

• Legal basis and purpose. Lodged on 3 July 2025 under Rule 131, file B‑10‑0319/2025 asks the European Parliament to withdraw its confidence from the entire von der Leyen Commission. If adopted the College would have to resign en bloc, as provided by Article 234 TFEU.
• Five main accusations.
  1. “Pfizergate”: the Commission’s refusal to release President von der Leyen’s SMS exchanges with Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, a decision annulled by the General Court on 14 May 2025.
  2. The still‑open 2022 investigation by the European Public Prosecutor’s Office into the COVID‑19 vaccine contracts.
  3. Serious shortcomings in overseeing the €724 billion Recovery & Resilience Facility, highlighted by the EU Court of Auditors’ Special Report 22/2024.
  4. “Abusive” reliance on Article 122 TFEU to propose the €150 billion SAFE defence fund, after Parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee found no emergency existed.
  5. Alleged interference in national elections—particularly in Romania and Germany—through a distorted use of the Digital Services Act.
• Remedy demanded. The text “concludes that the Commission no longer commands the confidence of Parliament”, calls for its resignation and instructs the President of Parliament to notify Council and Commission of the result.

Who signed it
Seventy‑nine MEPs—just above the 72‑signature threshold—support the initiative. According to public lists and press reports, the breakdown is roughly:

• European Conservatives & Reformists (ECR): about one‑third of all signatures, led by Romanian lawyer‑MEP Gheorghe Piperea, though the ECR group leadership itself has disowned the move.
• Patriots for Europe: close to one‑quarter, including AfD (Germany), Rassemblement National (France) and Czech Freedom & Direct Democracy figures.
• Europe of Sovereign Nations (ESN) and other non‑aligned far‑right deputies: roughly 15 %.
• A handful from the radical‑left GUE/NGL (three Czech and Slovak deputies) and one or two dissident MEPs from the centre‑right EPP—one of whom has reportedly since withdrawn his signature.

No member of the mainstream pro‑EU groups (EPP, S&D, Renew, Greens/EFA) endorsed the motion, underscoring its confinement to the Eurosceptic right with a token left‑wing fringe.

Next steps and likely outcome
Parliament will vote on Thursday 10 July. Adoption requires both an absolute majority of all MEPs (361) and a two‑thirds majority of votes cast—thresholds no censure motion has ever reached since the 1999 Santer Commission. Mainstream groups have already announced they will vote “no”, so the motion is expected to fail but will keep public attention on the Pfizergate ruling and broader questions of Commission transparency.

Read the current Commission's composition

Preparation for the 2025 EU–China Summit

Discussion: Tuesday, 8 July 2025, at 9h00 -> Watch the recording

The summit—set to begin in Beijing on 24 July and move to Anhui on 25 July—will mark 50 years of diplomatic relations but comes at a moment of acute trade friction.

1. Formal machinery now in motion

• Orientation debate – On 11 June Coreper-II ministers (perm reps) held a first “orientation debate” on the summit file (doc 9174/25). The item was inserted under the Foreign-Affairs chapter of the agenda so that all big-ticket trade, security and human-rights issues could be parked in one place.
• Foreign Affairs Council – The FAC of 23 June took the baton, with ministers agreeing that the EU’s “single most urgent demand” is the lifting—or at least suspension—of China’s April export controls on rare-earth magnets and other critical minerals. They mandated VP/HR Kaja Kallas and Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič to seek a “pre-summit fix” with Beijing.
• European Council guidance – Meeting on 26 June, EU leaders endorsed those priorities, instructed the Commission to prepare “lever options” (read: anti-coercion or extra tariff lines) if Beijing refuses, and asked for summit talking points that combine “assertive de-risking” with selective cooperation on climate and global health.

2. Sub-stantive files Brussels wants on the table

1. Rare-earth access – Since China’s April export licences slowed to a trickle, European carmakers and medical-device firms have begun idling lines; the issue now tops every preparatory call.
2. EV tariff war – The EU’s provisional anti-subsidy duties of up to 45 % on Chinese electric vehicles and Beijing’s retaliatory probes on brandy, pork and dairy have become the bargaining chip set. Both sides are exploring a “price-undertaking” deal to avoid escalation.
3. Level playing-field complaints – Brussels will again press on state aid, public-procurement openness and pervasive data-localisation rules that keep EU cloud- and fintech-providers out of the Chinese market.
4. Geopolitics – Leaders will test Beijing’s willingness to curb dual-use exports to Russia and to signal restraint in the Taiwan Strait. No breakthroughs are expected, but wording on “responsible great-power behaviour” is being drafted for the joint communiqué.
5. Green-tech cooperation – Despite tensions, DG ENER and DG CLIMA have prepared drafts for a new “Clean Tech Partnership” on hydrogen standards and methane-emissions monitoring; final sign-off depends on movement in the trade track.

3. Tactics and tone

Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has reverted to a markedly hawkish line since the G7; officials talk of a “controlled de-escalation” rather than a reset. Analysts note that Beijing wants EU tariff relief on EVs more than Brussels wants Chinese brandy duties lifted, giving the EU unusual leverage. Still, the Commission’s playbook is “realism wrapped in engagement”: show unity with Washington on export controls, keep door open for pragmatic deals, and avoid being pulled into the broader US–China tariff spiral.

4. What to watch next

• 7-10 July European Parliament plenary – MEPs could adopt a resolution urging the leaders to link any trade concessions to measurable progress on human-rights and disinformation concerns.
• 15 July – A special Trade Council is pencilled in to green-light the Commission’s mandate for the final price-undertaking talks on EVs.
• Mid-July – Kallas/Šefčovič shuttle to Beijing for a last-minute attempt to unblock rare-earth licences.

If China offers meaningful relief on critical minerals and agrees on an EV pricing formula, the summit could still yield a face-saving joint statement. Otherwise, officials already warn the meeting may become “a stock-taking rather than a delivering summit”—and the EU’s contingency tariff list will move from drawer to table.

Read more on EU Trade Strategy

Presentation of the programme of activities of the Danish Presidency

Discussion: Tuesday, 8 July 2025, at 10h30 -> Watch the recording

🛡️ 1. Security & Defence

• Boost defence capabilities to meet EU‑wide targets by 2030 — including backing the European Defence Industrial Programme (EDIP) for joint procurement and production .
• Advance the ReArm Europe Plan, explore new financing mechanisms (e.g., joint EU debt instruments) and maintain financial aid to Ukraine .
• Enhance resilience to hybrid threats, cyber‑attacks and crises; work on stockpiling strategies and critical infrastructure protection such as submarine cables .
• Support Ukraine’s EU integration, pushing to open negotiation chapters despite opposition (notably from Hungary) .

📈 2. Competitiveness & Economy

• Launch negotiations on the next multiannual financial framework (MFF) and cohesion policy post-2027; emphasize quality over quantity of spending .
• Reduce regulatory burdens to boost productivity and competitiveness, implementing recommendations from Letta and Draghi reports .
• Promote investment in defence via integrated investment strategies and European Savings & Investment Union.

🌿 3. Green Transition & Climate

• Push for a binding EU-wide climate target: reduce emissions by 90% from 1990 levels by 2040, balancing green ambitions with economic realities .
• Keep momentum ahead of COP30, focusing on agricultural regulation (e.g., alternative proteins, plant-based strategies) and energy indepence via renewables and potentially nuclear .

⚖️ 4. Rule of Law & Enlargement

• Advance merit-based enlargement: progress Ukraine, Moldova and Western Balkans accession negotiations, tied to democracy and judicial reforms .
• Strengthen rule-of-law mechanisms drawing on the Commission’s annual report, and deepen internal EU reforms ahead of enlargement .

🏛️ 5. Justice, Migration & Resilience

• Tackle irregular migration, and reinforce external border control measures .
• Claw down on transnational organised crime, including drug networks and online abuse, leveraging digital tools for law enforcement .
• Protect fundamental rights within civil justice and implement measures to shield the EU from future crises.

💊 6. Health, Labour & Innovation

• Strengthen EU preparedness for health crises, enhance access to medicines/personal protective equipment, and support life science innovation via the pharmaceutical package
• Ensure labour markets remain adaptive, with skill-building aligned to future trends .
• Host key events like the informal ministerial meeting on research on 16–17 July, to intensify discussions on innovation, space, and competitiveness

🌐 7. External Relations & Trade

• Reinforce EU–NATO and transatlantic ties, particularly in defense cooperation 
• Steer foreign direct investment reviews and trade discussions (e.g., US‑EU trade tensions) 

Summary

The Danish Presidency leverages current geopolitical and economic challenges to push for an EU that is:

1. Secure – Stronger defence and support for Ukraine.
2. Competitive – Less red tape, smart investment, and innovation.
3. Green – Ambitious climate goals without stalling economic growth.

They also back EU enlargement, justice and migration reform, health resilience, and research-led growth.
Let me know if you'd like details on any specific policy area or upcoming meetings!


Read more on Council's Activity

Vote on the proposal for a Regulation on the role of gas storage for securing gas supplies ahead of the winter season

Vote: TUESDAY, 8 July 2025, at 12h00 -> Videos of the speeches

Report A10-0079/2025 ***I

The Parliament will vote on the Compromise text reached with EU Council: A10-0079/2025 ***I

Reading the deal in political terms

• Tougher baseline, looser brakes. Parliament and Council rejected the Commission’s 83 % figure, judging it too risky for security of supply, but paid for restoring 90 % with a much broader 10 pp deviation band and a longer compliance window.
  
• Market-friendly signalling. Making intermediate checks indicative and allowing the 90 % mark to be hit any time between 1 October and 1 December should dampen the summer price spikes critics blamed on the old fixed 1 November deadline.
• Geopolitics parked for now. MEPs’ call to bar Russian-origin gas from EU caverns did not survive trilogue; ministers insisted that sanction debates stay in the foreign-policy lane, not in the security-of-supply file.
• Balance of effort. Member states without storage still have to book 15 % of five-year average consumption abroad, but may now invoke the wider flexibility if prices soar.

Bottom line: the co-legislators produced a hybrid outcome--higher headline obligation than the Commission wanted, but with wider flexibilities to ease price pressure and national implementation headaches. The text will now go to lawyer-linguists and is expected to be rubber-stamped by both institutions after the summer

Topic	Commission proposal (5 March 2025)	What the two co-legislators finally agreed (provisional deal, 24 June 2025)	Main change negotiated
Binding filling target	Cut from 90 % to 83 % of total underground capacity	Keep 90 %, but open a wider escape-hatch (see below)	Ambition restored to 2022 level
Deadline to reach the target	Any time 1 Oct – 1 Dec (replacing the 1 Nov “cliff-edge”)	Same flexible 1 Oct – 1 Dec window (Council request, Parliament accepted)	Flexibility retained
Allowed deviation	± 4 percentuge point (pp), extendable to ± 8 pp by delegated act when markets are “persistently unfavourable”	Up to ± 10 pp in difficult market conditions, plus an extra 5 pp where injection rates are slow or domestic output is very high	Wider safety-valve in return for the higher 90 % headline
Intermediate trajectory	Scrapped – replaced by national “indicative filling plans”	Indicative, non-binding milestones (Council insisted on visibility; Parliament accepted if they stayed non-binding)	Transparency without legal penalties
Ban on Russian gas in storage	Not mentioned	Dropped – Parliament had inserted a ban, Council refused; compromise leaves only generic monitoring language	Geopolitical element removed
Review & sunset	Two-year extension (to 31 Dec 2027) plus a Commission review before 2027	Unchanged	--
Reporting burden	“Light-touch” monthly reports to the Commission	Retained	--

Read more on EU strategy on Energy.

Security of energy supply in the EU (Initiative Report)

Vote: TUESDAY, 8 July 2025, at 12h00 

Report:  A10-0121/2025

The ITRE Committee’s own-initiative report “Security of energy supply in the EU” (A-10-0121/2025, rapporteur Beata Szydło) paints a wide-angle picture of how Parliament thinks the Union should harden its energy system against geopolitical shocks, climate risks and affordability crises. The Report received 428 amendements.

The text opens with a stark diagnosis: Europe still imports more than 60 % of its energy and remains heavily exposed to external disruptions, even though Russian pipeline and LNG deliveries have already fallen from 45 % of EU gas imports in 2021 to about 19 % in 2024. Parliament warns that this dependence drains the EU’s trade balance, fuels energy poverty (10.6 % of households could not heat their homes properly in 2023) and finances aggressor states.

Strategic direction. MEPs call on the Commission to publish an updated, cross-cutting Energy-Security Strategy. The new doctrine should treat resilience as a strategic imperative, binding together climate goals, industrial competitiveness and defence preparedness. The report stresses that secure supply means availability, reliability, affordability and sustainability at the same time. Read more on EU strategy on Energy.

Diversification and domestic supply. Parliament urges a fast-tracked build-out of renewable and low-carbon capacity, coupled with energy-efficiency gains, to cut structural import needs. Technology neutrality is defended: nuclear power, small modular reactors, geothermal, biomethane and hydrogen all have roles if they help reduce fossil reliance, provided full life-cycle costs and fuel-supply security are addressed. It also asks the Commission and Euratom Supply Agency to secure alternative uranium and fuel-cycle services, given lingering Rosatom exposure.

Infrastructure and flexibility. A whole chapter is devoted to grids, interconnectors and storage. The report presses for completing the 15 % electricity-interconnection target, deploying grid-enhancing technologies, accelerating permitting for generation and network upgrades, and scaling district-heating systems that can integrate waste heat and renewables. To cope with renewables’ intermittency, it supports capacity-remuneration mechanisms that are open to demand response, storage, cross-border resources and low-carbon generation, while urging the Commission to streamline state-aid approvals so investors have clearer signals.

Geopolitics and sanctions. Consistent with previous Parliament resolutions, the report presses the Council to extend sanctions to all Russian energy streams, including LNG and nuclear fuel, and to ban Rosatom deals. It deplores continued revenues Moscow earns from fossil sales to Europe and highlights the security risks posed by Russian-designed reactors still operating in five Member States.

Resilience & defence angle. Drawing on the Niinistö preparedness report and recent sabotage in the Baltic Sea, MEPs ask for a concrete EU action plan to protect critical energy infrastructure against hybrid, cyber and military threats, and welcome NATO’s growing role (e.g. the Baltic Sentry initiative). They also call for a review of the Oil-Stocks Directive to ensure fuel availability for defence purposes and for rapid stress-testing of electricity grids based on lessons from Ukraine’s wartime experience
.
Social dimension. The resolution insists that every national risk-assessment must factor in affordability and vulnerable consumers, and invites harmonised definitions of “protected customers” so that emergency load-shedding can be coordinated without deepening energy poverty
.
Overall message. Parliament wants an energy-security architecture that is tougher on hostile suppliers, more diversified in technology and partners, and underpinned by resilient infrastructure and solidarity mechanisms. While non-binding, the report will steer upcoming legislative files (e.g. oil-stock rules, hydrogen roll-out, critical-infrastructure protection) and the promised Commission Energy-Security Strategy slated for 2026.

Read more on EU strategy on Energy.

Conclusions of the European Council meeting of 26 and 27 June 2025

Discussion: Wednesday, 9 July 2025, at 9h00 -> Watch the streaming

Any vote.

EU leaders met in Brussels on 26 – 27 June 2025 for the last European Council of the institutional year.
Although scheduled for two days, President António Costa wrapped the formal agenda in a single, marathon sitting that ran late into the night of 26 June. The written conclusions cover eight broad chapters and run to sixteen pages.

Summay of the Conclusions

Ukraine and Russia – President Zelenskyy joined by video link. Twenty-six leaders reaffirmed “unwavering support” for Kyiv’s independence, endorsed accelerated military aid and welcomed the new Security Action For Europe (SAFE) instrument to finance joint procurement. Budapest once again withheld consent on the EU’s 18th sanctions package, so leaders tasked foreign ministers with finding a workaround before the summer break.

Middle East – The Council demanded an immediate cease-fire in Gaza, the unconditional release of all hostages and full humanitarian access, and asked the Commission to keep reviewing Israel’s compliance with Article 2 of the EU-Israel Association Agreement. It also urged restraint after Israel-Iran clashes and reiterated the EU’s determination that Iran must never acquire a nuclear weapon.

European defence & security – Building on the March and NATO-The Hague summits, leaders endorsed a roadmap to “decisively ramp up Europe’s defence readiness within five years”, welcomed the SAFE regulation and pressed national budgets to rise in line with the new commitments. They called for rapid agreement on fiscal incentives for defence investment and for proposals to strengthen military mobility across the Union.

Competitiveness – In a lengthy section requested by several northern capitals, the Council pledged to close the EU productivity gap by deepening the Single Market, implementing the ‘Strategy for making the Single Market simple, seamless and strong’ and the new EU Start-up & Scale-up Strategy, and advancing work on a Savings and Investment Union. Leaders underlined that future regulation must follow a “simplicity-by-design” approach to avoid piling up extra costs on SMEs.

Migration – Reviewing progress on the Pact, heads of state and government urged faster action on the external dimension: comprehensive partnerships with origin countries, tougher measures against smugglers, and speedier returns. They also pushed the co-legislators to move forward on EU lists of safe countries of origin and safe third countries.

Enlargement & neighbourhood – Marking anniversaries of past accessions, the summit branded enlargement a “geostrategic investment” and:

• confirmed a first EU–Moldova summit on 4 July 2025;
• reiterated “strong support” for all Western Balkans candidates on their reform paths;
• recorded progress on Ukraine’s and Georgia’s accession tracks despite Hungary’s reservations.
  

Trade & geoeconomics – Behind closed doors, leaders compared notes on the EU’s reply to possible U.S. tariff hikesannounced by the Trump administration and backed the Commission’s plan to “keep all options on the table”, including filing WTO cases and preparing counter-measures if talks fail.

Internal security & hybrid threats – Finally, the Council called for stress-tests of critical infrastructure, endorsed closer cooperation with NATO on under-sea cables and pipelines, and welcomed the imminent activation of Stability-and-Growth-Pact “escape clauses” for defence spending.

The summit will reconvene on 17 – 18 October 2025 to check progress on defence readiness, competitiveness and the migration file, and—if unanimity is still elusive—to revisit the stalled Russia sanctions package.