Brussels, 15/10/2012 (Agence Europe) - In the perspective of the 2014 European elections, a consensus is emerging within the two main European parties, the European People's Party (EPP) and the Party of European Socialists (PES), regarding the possibility of appointing a leader, in the event of victory, who would become the president of the European Commission. By putting a face to the role, this initiative would help fight against the chronic low voter turnout in an election considered as still being very far off.
In 2002, the Convention for the future of Europe, presided by Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, suggested that heads of state and government should take into account the result of European elections and subsequently appoint the head of the Commission. The EPP is claiming that it was responsible for the idea and that the political parties officially appoint a candidate for the presidency of the Commission, before the European elections. During the statutory annual congress (17-18 October in Bucharest), the president of the EPP, Wilfried Martens, informed a small group of journalists last week that they were looking at the profile of an ideal candidate (experience, fluency in foreign languages) and, “a procedure” for appointing this candidate which was, “open, transparent, democratic and competitive”. Strategically, will the candidate have to declare his intentions a year in advance?, he asked. He said that he hoped that there would be consensus on these questions but that if this were not forthcoming, they would need to decide by majority voting. In Bucharest, the EPP will adopt a “political platform”, which will enable national party members to reaffirm their values and to take a position on current and future challenges facing Europe.
At the beginning of October, during its annual congress in Brussels, the PES promised to exploit all the different possibilities within the Lisbon Treaty to put the European Parliament on an equal footing with the Council and the European Commission (EUROPE 10700). In view of the European elections, it decided to choose its leader who, if successful, will preside the Commission. This issue is currently being examined by the European Green Party.
Liberals' cool response. On the other hand, this proposal did not go down well among the Liberals. The president of the Alliance of Liberal and Democrats for Europe, Graham Watson, said that they thought that the process would only be valid if the president of the European Commission were elected by universal suffrage, which was not currently the case. According to Watson, directly electing the president of the Commission would be the only way of improving voter turnout in the European elections. Quoting the proposal by Andrew Duff (ALDE, United Kingdom) electing some of the MEPs on supranational lists would be another way of making Europe more legitimate from a democratic point of view. (MB/trans/fl)