Jean-Claude Juncker saved from censure over Luxembourg tax schemes

Centrist parties vote down European parliament motion criticising commission president’s role in tax avoidance schemes

Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European commission, has survived a motion of censure in the European parliament brought because of his role in tax avoidance schemes.

The motion brought by Britain’s Ukip, France’s Front National, and Italy’s 5 Star movement in the parliament described Juncker as unfit to lead the EU executive because he is seen to have presided over huge tax avoidance schemes for hundreds of multinational firms during his 18 years as prime minister of Luxembourg. His tenure ended last year. The scale of the tax avoidance was revealed this month by the Guardian and other news organisations around the world.

The censure motion was easily defeated by 461 votes, with 101 voting in favour and 88 abstaining, as Juncker’s centrist allies saved him from humiliation at the hands of anti-EU parties of the extreme right. However, support for the censure signalled an unusual alliance between far-right politicians ranged against the EU leadership.

Nigel Farage and Marine Le Pen, the Ukip and Front National leaders, loathe one another and have pledged not to co-operate, but joined forces on this occasion. Perhaps more unusually, they were also joined by Germany’s new anti-euro party, Alternative for Germany, or AfD, which sits with the British Conservative party in the parliament.

On the hard left in the parliament there is also anti-Juncker sentiment, but it was unable to muster the 10% of MEPs needed to bring a motion and refused to vote with the far right.

The two biggest groups – the Christian Democrats and Social Democrats – as well as the Liberals, lined up behind Juncker. An alternative attempt to launch a parliamentary inquiry into the Luxembourg tax schemes also ran into trouble.

The Greens, who also refused to censure Juncker, called for a “robust” parliamentary investigation. But a meeting of parliamentary leaders on Wednesday put any decision off, with sources saying that Martin Schulz, the German social democrat and parliament speaker, was behind the decision to play for time. Schulz ran against Juncker for the commission presidency.

“Eurosceptics voted down. Full trust in Team Juncker,” tweeted Manfred Weber, leader of the Christian Democrats in the parliament.

Ukip MEP Stephen Woolfe said: “The European parliament has voted to protect the scandal-soaked commission president rather than to protect their own people whose national tax revenues have been bled by Juncker’s big business tax avoidance schemes.”.”

Farage, one of the main drivers behind the censure motion, failed to attend the vote. “Nigel Farage has failed to turn up and vote on his own motion,” said Catherine Bearder, the Liberal Democrat MEP. “This shows that this proposal was never anything more than a shameless media stunt.”

Centrist leaders made clear that their priorities were not to deal with the allegations against Juncker but to shore up the EU’s new leadership while also denying the extreme right a big victory.

Juncker came into office as the head of the commission at the beginning of the month only to be hit within three days by media disclosures of the scale of tax avoidance schemes arranged by the Luxembourg authorities when he was prime minister.

He then disappeared for a week before ordering the drafting of new rules on exchange of information between EU countries on corporate taxation arrangements, an initiative that was suddenly added to his legislative agenda.