Abstract
In the 2014 and 2019 European elections, not only were parliamentary seats at stake, but more importantly, European citizens were given the opportunity to indirectly decide who would captain the ship of the European Commission for the next five years. Ahead of the elections, based on Article 17(7) of the Treaty on European Union, the European political parties nominated their lead candidates ( Spitzenkandidaten) for the Commission presidency and ran personalised, presidential-style campaigns across the member states. Although discarded in 2019, the Spitzenkandidat process brought about several political and institutional changes, while aiming to cure the EU’s democratic deficiencies. The process was conceived in 2014 as a way to make the selection of the Commission president more transparent and legitimate. At the same time, the level of politicisation was increased, with inter-institutional changes being implemented. The role of the European political parties was strengthened from that of being service providers to being proactive campaigners.
Highlights
Five years after the first post-Lisbon elections, in 2019, it was the turn of Manfred Weber (EPP), Frans Timmermans (PES), Ska Keller and Bas Eickhout (European Green Party), Guy Verhofstadt and Margrethe Vestager2 (ALDE), Jan Zahradil (European Conservatives and Reformists), and Nico Cué and Violeta Tomić (European Left) to campaign for the Commission presidency
In a Eurobarometer survey conducted before the 2019 European elections, more than 60% of the respondents agreed that the Spitzenkandidat process would bring more transparency and increase the European Commission’s legitimacy (European Parliament 2018)
In 2019 the process was discarded. This was a step backwards, in the direction of a less transparent and less inclusive decision-making process made behind closed doors, and the inter-institutional quarrel over the issue was perceived by some Eurosceptics as ‘another EU weakness’
Summary
Not everyone shared the same views on the issue. For instance, it was stressed that in contrast to expectations, the Spitzenkandidat process did not alter the political practices of the EU, either in terms of inter-institutional relations or in terms of party politics (Christiansen 2016). It was said that MEPs often adopted their positions and voted for concrete policies in accordance with their nationality and not the political group to which they belonged. When it came to politically salient issues, the Commission’s trajectory was determined by the European Council (Goldoni 2016). It was stressed that the implementation of the process would bring about several democratic and constitutional challenges (Kocharov 2014) Another observation that has been brought to the fore is that the Spitzenkandidat process did not manage to reverse the downward trend in voter turnout (Müller Gómez and Wessels 2016). While one swallow does not make a summer, in 2019 more than 50% of EU citizens eligible to vote took part in the elections, achieving the highest turnout in 20 years
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