Suddenly, the Brits aren’t the only ones looking like they won’t start a new life on November 1.

The next European Commission, to be led by Ursula von der Leyen, will almost certainly not be able to take office as scheduled at the start of next month, after the European Parliament on Thursday overwhelmingly rejected Sylvie Goulard, the French nominee to be commissioner responsible for the EU’s internal market, industrial policy and defense.

Compounding von der Leyen’s problems, Romania’s government collapsed, making it unclear when Bucharest would be able to replace its Commission nominee, Rovana Plumb, who has also been rejected by the Parliament.

The rejection of Goulard, herself a former member of the European Parliament, was a stunning and embarrassing blow for French President Emmanuel Macron, who put her forward despite clear vulnerabilities, including investigations in Brussels and Paris over alleged financial misconduct.

Macron had also used his own political muscle to ensure the prominent, sprawling, portfolio for Goulard oversaw the internal market — the rules and regulations of the European economy — as well as industrial and defense policy, two top priorities for Paris.

It was also a stinging defeat for von der Leyen, a former German defense minister and the first woman to be chosen as Commission president. Goulard is a personal friend of the president-elect — and could have become one of von der Leyen’s closest and most trusted allies in Brussels. In addition, von der Leyen’s goal of forming a gender-balanced Commission is also now at risk.

Speaking at an event in Lyon, Macron seemed to deny any personal responsibility for the defeat. He said he had offered up three names as potential French nominees and that von der Leyen had personally insisted on Goulard.

Macron exuded both defiance and confusion over the rejection and insisted that he needed to investigate further, while also alleging that the leaders of rival European Parliament groups had betrayed von der Leyen and broken a promise to support Goulard.

“I don’t understand, when the president-designate of the Commission speaks to the three presidents of the groups, and there is agreement, [how] it can change this way,” Macron said. “So I will ask.”

“I need to understand what played out,” he added. “Resentment? Pettiness? What is important to me is the clarity of the portfolio. And I like that when people give their words, they honor that.”

The leaders of the two biggest groups in Parliament, the center-left Socialists & Democrats and the conservative European People’s Party (EPP), swiftly and publicly denied that they had been consulted in advance by von der Leyen about Goulard’s nomination — meaning they had never given any assurances that she would be confirmed. S&D group leader Iratxe García said on Twitter that von der Leyen had never consulted her on Goulard or any other potential nominees. The EPP’s Manfred Weber responded on Twitter: “I, also, was not consulted ahead of any candidates’ nominations.”

A spokesman for von der Leyen said he could neither confirm nor deny Macron’s account.

In a brief statement, von der Leyen said it was time to “speed up” the process of appointing the remaining members of her Commission. “At the same time, all involved in the process need sufficient time to approach the next steps with care,” she said.

A European Parliament official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it is now “almost impossible,” for the new Commission as a whole to be confirmed by the legislature as planned on October 23 and to take office on November 1.

The vote on Goulard, by members of the Parliament’s internal market and industry committees, was conducted by secret ballot — and it was a crushing defeat by a vote of 82 to 29, according to several MEPs and Parliament officials.

Some of the fiercest opposition to Goulard came from the European People’s Party — von der Leyen’s own political family. Some in Parliament said the group’s concerted effort to defeat Goulard was partly revenge against Macron for blocking the EPP’s lead candidate, German MEP Weber, from becoming Commission president. Weber remains the head of the EPP group in Parliament.

Goulard resigned in June 2017 after a brief one-month stint as Macron’s defense minister over allegations that she had misused EU funds by paying a parliamentary assistant for work after his assignment should have ended. After her nomination to the Commission, Goulard paid back the funds to the Parliament, which helped close an investigation into her conduct by the legislature that was launched at the request of French judges.

But an inquiry into that matter is still underway in France and Goulard had struggled during two confirmation hearings to explain why she should be able to serve in the College of Commissioners if the case was cause for her to step down from her post in the French government.

Goulard also faced tough scrutiny over a high-paid job with a U.S.-based think tank, for which she apparently did little work.

Beyond the ethical concerns, officials in Parliament and in the Commission said she had suffered from a generally unpersuasive performance in the hearings. While Goulard showed command over the policy issues in her portfolio, she came across as repetitive in some responses, arrogant and aloof in others, and generally lacking remorse when MEPs raised her alleged missteps.

Her statement following the defeat of her nomination was also not particularly contrite. “I take note of the decision of the European Parliament, with respect for democracy,” she wrote on Twitter. “I thank the President of the Republic and Ursula von der Leyen for their confidence and all the members who voted for me.”

In the end, Macron was unable to provide the influence or support needed to secure Goulard’s confirmation, and France ended up in an ignoble club, along with Romania and Hungary, as the only EU countries to have their Commission nominees torpedoed.

This could not have been what Macron had in mind with his recent push to bring France closer to Central and Eastern Europe.

Suspicions that conservatives wanted to avenge Weber’s defeat were fueled in part by a Twitter post from the EPP group about a report on Goulard’s case from the Parliament’s legal affairs committee.

Faintly visible in the background of the image were the words “Guys we are going to kill her in the vote later but do not say.” The tweet has since been deleted.

Others said the rejection of Goulard was less about Weber and more about delivering retribution for the rejection of the other two nominees, the Hungarian backed by the EPP group, and the Romanian from the center-left Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats for Europe.

The defeat of Goulard, a member of the liberal-centrist Renew Europe group, means that Parliament rejected one candidate each from the three main pro-EU parties.

Other MEPs insisted that the basis for rejecting Goulard was substantive, not political.

“This is not just a political game, there have been some serious questions about her integrity, some serious questions about her portfolio,” said Christel Schaldemose, coordinator for the internal market committee for the center-left Socialists & Democrats group.

“I don’t know what will happen now, Macron will have to find a new person but at the same time, it would be wise if Ursula von der Leyen considers the broad portfolio, because it has been — and that’s fair — part of the discussion,” Schaldemose said.

Esther de Lange, a Dutch MEP from the EPP, said it was “surprising” that Goulard was “not able to take a number of concerns — issues of trust and integrity — off the table” during her second hearing, particularly by answering the question: “’How can you be unfit to be a minister in France and at the same time be good enough to be a European commissioner?'”

“This double standard is unacceptable,” de Lange said, adding: “The EPP Group takes the integrity of our institutions very seriously and we could therefore not support her.”

One MEP from Renew Europe described the defeat as a “humiliation” for Macron.

Marcel Kolaja, a Parliament vice president and the Greens coordinator on the internal market committee, said the second confirmation hearing on Thursday had been “a fair chance to clarify on a lot of stuff, on policy, and also the ethical aspects” of Goulard’s candidacy.

But, he said, “MEPs were not satisfied with the answers, in particular on the doubts about her ethics — in particular her acceptance of a consulting contract with the Berggruen Institute, a U.S.-based think tank, that paid her €10,000 a month for little work.

Goulard “was not able for instance to clarify what the added value of €10,000 per month was,” Kolaja added.

Macron, speaking in Lyon, said that he was not yet ready to offer up a new nominee. That increases the already high likelihood that von der Leyen and her team will not be able to take office on November 1, as called for in the EU treaties. If that proves to be the case, the current Commission under Jean-Claude Juncker would remain in office until its replacement is ready to take over.

Hungary has not yet named a replacement nominee to be commissioner for neighborhood policy and enlargement; Romania now doesn’t have a government; and Macron is still struggling to understand how and why France’s nominee was defeated.

Once three new names have been submitted to Parliament, the candidates will have to go through the same confirmation process as their predecessors, including a review by the Parliament’s legal affairs committee, supplying answers to written questions, and then at least one hearing followed by a confirmation vote by committees with jurisdiction over the individual policy portfolios.

“I don’t see how we can do what we did by October 23,” the official said. However, the official played down the significance of any delay, noting that at least one previous European Commission had also been late in taking office.

Von der Leyen appears to take a different view.

“We must not lose sight of what is at stake: The next five years will be decisive for Europe in a difficult global environment. Europe must deal with Brexit, trade issues and conflicts in its immediate neighborhood. We must also face up to major challenges such as climate change, digitization and migratory flows,” she said.

“With so much at stake, it is now necessary, together with Parliament, to speed up the process so that Europe can act swiftly.”

Macron, meanwhile, seemed to be in genuine disbelief over the rejection of his nominee. He said von der Leyen had told him, “I want to work with Sylvie Goulard. I know her. I know what she’s worth. I was defense minister with her. She was a great MEP. She knows the issues very well.”

In the end, however, that knowledge didn’t seem to help.

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