This week, Ursula von der Leyen survived two no confidence motions in the European Parliament, an unprecedented challenge for a sitting European Commission president so soon after facing a similar motion of censure in July.
There have been 15 censure motions against the European Commission in 53 years, but three have come since July.
The question facing both President von der Leyen, and the parliament itself, is whether more challenges against her will be subject to the law of diminishing returns or whether she could run into real trouble less than two years into her second term.
In theory, what's called the pro-European centre - the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP), centre-left Socialists and Democrats (S&D), the liberal Renew group and the Greens - should give her a comfortable margin of victory each time.
However, the rise of the hard right - the Patriots for Europe (PfE), the Europe of Sovereign Nations (ESN) and the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) - has jolted the traditional balance of influence.
Combined, these right wing groups have 349 seats out of 720, while the pro-European centre has 484.
That should be a reliable buffer.
However, because so many of the hot button issues Ms von der Leyen is grappling with, including Gaza, climate change, US President Donald Trump, EU-Mercosur trade agreement, cut across party allegiances, she faces the prospect of defections away from the centre and over to the fringes.
What further angers centre-left and Green MEPs, who feel they have to support her, is that her own party - the EPP - can threaten to team up with the hard-right ECR if they do not get the support of the S&D on a particular issue.
All this makes the European Parliament a perilous place for President von der Leyen.
She already has a reduced mandate in her second term as commission president and parliamentary support was looking like it was on a dangerously downward curve.
In July 2024, 401 MEPs supported her second term with 284 opposed, compared to 461 in favour in 2018 and 157 against.
In July 2024, that translated to 56% of MEPs supporting her second term, but when it came to voting in the entire commission in November 2024, the number had fallen to 51%.
In the right wing censure motion in July, only 50% of MEPs voted in her favour.
It only takes 72 MEP signatures to launch a motion of censure against the Commission president.
Could more be in the pipeline, with more disgruntled MEPs from the centre peeling off to oppose her?
The results this week suggest that antagonism may be bottoming out.
While the number of supporters of the right wing motion increased from 176 to 179 compared to July, Ms von der Leyen’s margin of victory increased from 360 to 378.
Bringing down the Commission president means bringing down the entire European Commission, not something that MEPs from the pro-European centre are likely to want, not least because it would mean losing centre left and liberal commissioners.
There is also, according to sceptics, a distinctly French flavour to the anti-von der Leyen gambit this week.
Both motions of censure were led by leading figures on the French far right and far left, such as Jordan Bardella of the National Rally and Manon Aubry of France Unbowed, respectively.
Thier parties have teamed up in the National Assembly in France to heap misery on President Emmanuel Macron - he lost another prime minister on Monday.
Indeed, the four EPP members who voted against Ms von der Leyen in favour of Mr Bardella’s motion were from the centre right Les Republicains - now decidedly in election mode in France.
"The European Union is not France, and we will not have the same outcome as in France, where the far right and far left vote together," said Klaus Welle, the former secretary general of the European Parliament, ahead of the vote.
Mr Welle believes the appetite for censuring Ms von der Leyen is bottoming out.
He said: "You have to ask, is any group in the centre completely changing direction? That's not the case.
"Important delegations who voted for her last time are they changing direction? It doesn't seem to be the case."
That said, lingering resentment against the commission president over the Pfizergate controversy - where she was criticised by the European Court of Justice over the issue of text messages sent to the head of Pfizer during Covid vaccine negotiations - as well as deep unease on the left over her tepid condemnation of Israel could sour the mood when she needs support in the future.
Ahead of the vote, Ms von der Leyen appeared conciliatory.
Whereas in July, she had dismissed her right wing tormentors as "extremists ... illiberals ... conspiracy theorists ... anti-vaxxers ... Putin apologists".
She now acknowledged the criticism over Gaza, and the trade agreements with Mercosur and the United States had "come from a place of genuine and legitimate concern".
It is understood she was particularly mindful of S&D support when she delivered her state of the European Union speech on 10 September.
In her harshest comments to date, Ms von der Leyen did condemn Israel’s actions in Gaza as "[shaking] the conscience of the world", urging the partial suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement as well as the reduction of Israel’s access to the multi-billion euro Horizon Europe R&D fund.
Both measures remain held up by member states.
Sanctioning far right Israeli cabinet ministers Itmar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich would require the unanimous support of national capitals, while a qualified majority vote (QMV) is needed to suspend preferential trade measures or block access to Horizon funds.
None of these options are attainable when blocked by Germany or Italy.
However, officials from the Left group argue that by refusing for months to table such proposals, Ms von der Leyen gave recalcitrant member states the cover needed to stay quiet rather than force them to publicly reject the moves.
"Why didn’t she call for more protection for the Gaza flotilla, for example," asked one official.
Sinn Féin’s Kathleen Funchion said after the vote: "The European Union remains Israel’s largest trading partner.
"The EU-Israel trade agreement should have been fully suspended long ago, yet von der Leyen has chosen complicity over intervention."
There is, of course, an inherent contradiction within both motions of censure, with the far right attacking Ms von der Leyen for pursuing green policies and the far left attacking her for watering them down.
But those tensions have also driven a wedge through the centre: to secure a second term, Ms von der Leyen had to tilt to the right to get the support of EPP members and centre right prime ministers, which meant ditching significant parts of the European Green Deal.
That, in turn, has infuriated the centre left and Greens.
Furthermore, the Greens are angry over Ms von der Leyen’s championing of the EU-Mercosur trade agreement, as well as her alleged inability to face down President Trump in the transatlantic trade negotiations.
All the while, the commission’s drive for "simplification" - on paper, cutting the burden of regulation - is being seen as another excuse to water down the net neutrality and sustainability goals from Ms von der Leyen’s first mandate.
All this suggests it will be tempting for the far right Patriots for Europe to keep at it because each time motions of censure will only expose the issues that poison the unity within Ms von der Leyen’s pro-European centre - the relationship between the EPP leader Manfred Weber and his opposite number in the S&D Iratxe García is said to be particularly poor.
"In the end, it's about disruption and it's about undermining trust in the political elite," said Sophia Russack, research fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies.
"The far right, therefore, has a great incentive to keep doing this, no matter what the numbers are because in the end their long-term goal is to undermine trust and credibility in the commission," she added.
Whether or not the far right continue to launch motions of censure, there remain plenty of issues for the S&D, Renew and Greens to be upset about, not least Ms von der Leyen’s proposals for the next seven-year budget, running from 2028 - 2034.
Read more Analysis and Comment
With a greater emphasis on Europe’s competitiveness, AI, biotech and defence, the first draft of the budget foresees a new approach: cohesion spending, historically designed to level up economically disadvantaged regions, would be lumped in with agriculture spending to create a national pot of money whose disbursement would be conditional on competitiveness and green reforms.
While the draft was first published in July, the S&D demanded two weeks ago that the proposal be withdrawn, not least because of concerns that it would lead to lower social spending.
The EPP, Ms von der Leyen’s own political family, has also expressed reservations on the basis that the plan potentially disguises cuts in the CAP budget down the line.
All told, there are concerns in the European Parliament that the proposal will mean fewer files for MEPs to get their teeth into and a loss of influence.
While two S&D deputies this week supported the Left’s no confidence motion, the Patriots for Europe goaded that if the centre left wants to table their own motion of censure in the future - as the S&D has threatened - then far right votes would be available.
Sources suggest the centre left, which has seen its historic influence in European politics seep away in recent years, is simply trying to show it has bite within the European Parliament and that the European Commission's work programme has long been shared with member states and political groups.
"We're going to be negotiating about this budget with the parliament and the member states for another year," said an EU source.
They added: "That does not go away, but this idea of tabling a motion of censure to prove a point - okay, but then what?
"Quite honestly, we're wasting taxpayers’ money, as opposed to properly sitting down and hammering out solutions or compromises."
While the potential breakthrough in the Gaza war gives Ms von der Leyen some rare breathing space, she will continue to face pressure from the Trump administration on trade and big tech.
That means pressure in turn from member states.
She may have survived this week’s challenge, but Ms von der Leyen’s problems on several fronts will persist.
"It will be difficult," said Sophia Russack of CEPs. "It will be a tightrope for her to walk in the next couple of years," she added.
