Far-right MEPs heckled EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen while she called them names in Strasbourg on Monday (7 July), in a failed bid to oust her from her post.
The level of shouting and jeering during von der Leyen's speech saw EU Parliament president Roberta Metsola intervene three times to call for quiet.
The debate was a small moment of triumph for populist MEPs after a Romanian right-winger, Gheorghe Piperea, tabled a motion of censure against the commission on grounds of von der Leyen's allegedly improper SMS-es with US vaccine-maker Pfizer during Covid.
The motion, to be voted Thursday, is doomed to fail after the main centre-right, centre-left, liberal, green, and left-wing groups all declared they would vote against it.
The right-wing ECR group was split and its MEPs were left free to vote either way.
But the stunt still gave far-right MEPs, such as Fabrice Leggeri and René Aust from the Patriots for Europe (PfE) and Europe of Sovereign Nations (ESN) groups, an opportunity to demonise the EU's top official.
Leggieri accused von der Leyen of "bureaucratic authoritarianism ... abuse of power ... strangulation [of farmers] ... [and] censorship of the people".
Aust accused her of "consultancy corruption" in her time as German defence minister, of building specially adapted "tanks for pregnant women", and helping to flood the EU with "social migrants", as well as "Pfizergate".
Meanwhile, von der Leyen fired back, calling her accusers "extremists ... iliberals ... conspiracy theorists ... anti-vaxxers ... [and] Putin apologists", referring to Russian president Vladimir Putin, whom the PfE and ESN groups leant towards.
The motion of censure was a "crude attempt" to sow division in Brussels, she said.
"Listen ... just listen ...", she disciplined her hecklers on a few occasions.
She brought her 26 commissioners to the Strasbourg debate in a show of political strength and she left without making any closing remarks, in a snub to Piperea.
But the show of solidarity from the centrist and progressive groups in the EP on Monday still saw political point scoring.
Valérie Hayer, the head of the liberal Renew group, said von der Leyen had made a "big mistake" by breaking the rules in the SMS affair and blocking ethics reforms in the EU institutions.
"Don't take anything [liberal support] for granted. Get your political house in order," Hayer said.
The leader of the centre-right European People's Party (EPP) group, Manfred Weber, mocked the ECR's Polish delegation, the Law and Justice (PiS) party, for siding with "puppets of Putin", because PiS had backed the Piperea motion.
"What is PiS now doing in this alliance?", Weber said.
But the head of the centre-left Socialists & Democrats group, Iratxe García, and a co-leader of the Greens, Bas Eickhout, attacked the EPP for doing hypocritical side deals with the far-right on anti-immigration laws.
"Who do you want to govern with?," García asked Weber.
Eickhout said: "You [the EPP] are feeding the beast [far-right], but at a certain moment the beast will eat you".
Like von der Leyen, García and Eickhout also belittled the PfE and ESN, calling them corrupt, anti-science, climate-change deniers, and misogynists, in a highly-attended meeting in the plenary chamber.
Andrew Rettman is EUobserver's foreign editor, writing about foreign and security issues since 2005. He is Polish, but grew up in the UK, and lives in Brussels. He has also written for The Guardian, The Times of London, and Intelligence Online.
Andrew Rettman is EUobserver's foreign editor, writing about foreign and security issues since 2005. He is Polish, but grew up in the UK, and lives in Brussels. He has also written for The Guardian, The Times of London, and Intelligence Online.