The EU Commission president cannot be voted out, unlike Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Alice Weidel has said
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen speaks during a press conference at the end of the European Council meeting in Brussels, Belgium, on March 20, 2026.
European
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen can ignore voters’ opinions
as she essentially cannot be voted out like recently defeated Hungarian
Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Alice Weidel, co-chair of the right-wing
Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, has said.
The AfD is the most popular party in Germany, with a recent YouGov poll
suggesting that it would get 27% of the vote if elections were held
now. The CDU/CSU and SPD trail behind with 23% and 13%, respectively,
according to the survey.
Speaking at a press conference this week,
Weidel acknowledged that Peter Magyar’s landslide victory in the
Hungarian election, which ended 16 years of Orban’s rule, was “absolutely legitimate,” but raised concerns about democratic accountability among the EU leadership.
Praising Orban as “an important, critical voice” within the EU, Weidel then agreed with a German journalist from Die Welt, who said that “Orban could be voted out; Ms. von der Leyen cannot be voted out.”
Magyar’s conservative and pro-EU Tisza party secured 53.6% of the
vote and 138 of 199 parliamentary seats in the Hungarian election on
Sunday, while Orban’s right-wing and EU-skeptic Fidesz collapsed to just
55. During his tenure, Orban clashed with Brussels over immigration and
sanctions on Russia, and opposed EU support for Ukraine.
It took von der Leyen only 17 minutes to issue a statement celebrating Magyar’s victory after Orban conceded defeat. “Hungary has chosen Europe,” von der Leyen said. “Europe has always chosen Hungary. A country reclaims its European path. The Union grows stronger.”
Later, she also called on member states to scrap the national veto in EU foreign policy, claiming qualified majority voting was “an important way to avoid systemic blockages” – a direct swipe at years of Orban’s vetoes on Ukraine-related decisions.
Von
der Leyen has faced criticism over numerous controversies since
becoming EC president in 2019. Among the most notable is the
‘Pfizergate’ scandal, which centered on personal text messages the EU
chief exchanged with Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla during negotiations over a
€35 billion deal for 1.8 billion Covid-19 vaccine doses. In May 2025,
an EU court ruled the commission had “failed to provide credible explanations” for why the messages were not retained.
Von
der Leyen has survived multiple no-confidence votes in the past two
years, with her critics lambasting her over a lack of transparency and
handling of the immigration issue. She has also long been attempting to
force through a series of fundamental changes to EU rules in order to
create a two-tier bloc, into which Ukraine could be integrated despite
not meeting the usual requirements for member states.
An April
2026 Polling Europe Euroscope survey placed von der Leyen’s approval
rating at 33%, a 12% drop from February. A separate Ipsos EuroPulse poll
from September 2025 put her positive rating even lower, at just 23%.