According to Czech national Jan Zahradil, the likely candidate of European conservatives for the European elections in May 2019 (see EUROPE 12103), the political landscape of the European Parliament will emerge from the elections more fragmented and the appointment of the next president of the European Commission will require a three-party coalition.
The future European Parliament will be "open like never before" and the political forces present will have to negotiate "much more compromises than ever before", as he explained in Brussels on Thursday 27 September at a debate organised by the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) and Euractiv. The election of the future president of the Commission will require "a coalition of three parties", he added.
Zahradil said that after the European elections, the Christian Democrats (EPP) "would lose a little bit, the S&D a lot, and mine to remain the same" in third place.
Nevertheless, with the departure of the 19 British Tories, the conservatives are in talks with other parties that might join them. Quizzed by this newsletter, Zahradil wouldn’t say which parties they are in talks with, simply indicating that with the departure of UKIP, they were expecting "EFDD to collapse, some of them will look for new homes. Could be the same for the liberals", some of whose parties might not follow the line recommended by the En Marche! movement of Emmanuel Macron.
Backed by the European ACRE party, which provides 70% of the elected CRE members at the European Parliament, Zahradil wants to win support from other MEPs in his political group, which will be deciding on Zahradil’s candidacy for Spitzenkandidat at the European Parliament’s second plenary in October.
In reality, the conservatives do not believe in the head-of-list process for candidates that allows one to know in advance the identity of the person who could claim presidency of the European Commission in the event of victor of his or her political group, but they don’t want to miss the opportunity to share their ideas.
"In 2014, we made a mistake. As we had not a Spitzenkandidat, we could not take part in TV debates to present our ideas", admitted Zahradil. He said that this time, they would have a head-of-list candidate to say that it is for national governments rather than the European Parliament to choose the president of the European Commission.
The MEP says that the conservatives will take a middle path due to a) Europhobes such as France’s Marine Le Pen and the Netherlands’ Geert Wilders and b) European federalists who want even more Europe. Zahradil recommended an agency to promote economic flexibility and fiscal competition while maintaining national sovereignty on border control and foreign direct investment. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)