The head of the European Union's executive branch faced two more challenges to her position in the European Parliament on Thursday. 

Neither had a realistic chance of securing the two-thirds majority required to eject European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, but still they served as the latest reminder of the increasingly fractured European Parliament and its growing populist factions on either political flank. 

Just over half of parliamentarians backed von der Leyen

Von der Leyen received support from just over half the members of the 720-seat European Parliament in both of Thursday's votes, with 378 members expressing support in the first vote and 383 in the second. 

"I deeply appreciate the strong support received today," von der Leyen wrote online after the votes. "The Commission will keep working closely with the European Parliament to tackle Europe’s challenges. And together deliver results for all European citizens."

On the other side, 179 lawmakers backed the censure motion against von der Leyen brought by the hard-right faction in the parliament, Patriots for Europe (PfE), while 133 endorsed the challenge brought by the alliance known as The Left. 

Even if the chamber's far-right and far-left members had teamed up and pooled their votes, not something they're liable to find very easy, they still would have fallen well short of the two-thirds support that a censure motion would need to unseat the European Commission president. 

Thursday's results were a slight improvement on a similar challenge to von der Leyen in July of this year, when 360 members expressed support for her.

More problematically in practice for von der Leyen, the comparatively narrow majorities voting in her favor show how difficult it is becoming for her European Commission to command a majority in the European Parliament, which it needs in order to pass proposed legislation.

On what grounds do the populists criticize the Commission president? 

Both motions made reference to the EU's recent trade compromise with Donald Trump's White House when calling for Commission President von der Leyen's removal. 

The far-right motion criticized her climate, migration and economic policies, including the recent deal with the US, and accused the former German defense minster of a lack of transparency and of censorship. 

The Patriots for Europe group includes lawmakers from Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's Fidesz party, and the Rassemblement National (RN) party of Marine Le Pen in France. It does not, however, incorporate the Alternative for Germany (AfD), largely because of the Chinese spying scandal in the office of former AfD member of the European Parliament Maximilian Krah.

The motion from The Left accused von der Leyen of not doing enough to address humanitarian suffering in Gaza, and also criticized the Commission's trade deal with the US. 

Von der Leyen, who was at an event in Brussels and so did not attend Thursday's vote in Strasbourg, last week called on the parliament to unite, saying that division served the interest of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Edited by Sean Sinico