The Treaty of Lisbon changed the way the President of the Commission is appointed, as the European Council has to take account of the European elections and approve, by qualified majority, a candidate who must then be voted into position by the Parliament (article 17 § 7 TUE). In the run-up to the 2014 elections, the largest political families agreed that each of them would appoint and publicly promote its own candidate. In the absence of a common system of voting and transnational lists, this individual would have to be elected in his or her own country. Additionally, instead of referring to these individuals as “lead candidates”, the term ‘Spitzenkandidaten’ entered the European electoral terminology.
As the Alliance of Conservatives and Reformists in Europe (ACRE) and nationalist parties refused to go along with this, five parties appointed figureheads under their own internal procedures. Between 9 April and 20 May, nine televised transnational debates were held; five of these were duels; only one, which was held in Brussels on 15 May under the aegis of the EBU, brought together the candidates of five parties: Juncker (EPP), Schulz (PES), Verhofstadt (ALDE), Tsipras (United Left) and Keller (European Green Party). From a media point of view, this was an historic event; it came in for a lot of attention. We cannot, however, deduce that competition between Spitzenkandidaten did much to increase the turn-out rate in the elections.
When all the votes had been counted, the EPP group had the most seats. Initially, Martin Schulz said that he could rally a majority within the hemicycle, but by 12 June, the principal groups, including the S&D, had got behind Jean-Claude Juncker. Despite the opposition of London and Budapest, the European Council unequivocally put him forward on 27 June and he was voted in by the EP on 15 July (see EUROPE 11122).
This process showed that the European Council has practically no room for manoeuvre; some of those within it wanted things to be done differently in 2019.
How will it all pan out? At the time of writing, four parties have appointed their lead candidates: the ACRE (see EUROPE 12136), the EPP (see EUROPE 12133), the PES (see EUROPE 12155) and the Greens (see EUROPE 12146). The last of these has stuck to its practice of electing a pair of Spitzenkandidaten, but if they should win an overall majority in the EP next May, they would have to decide between them, as the Presidency of the Commission cannot be held jointly.
In the Liberal Democrat family (ALDE), the situation is far less clear. It is currently in the throes of a rapprochement with the French presidential party, La République en Marche (LREM) (see EUROPE 12134), with a view to building a parliamentary group that wields significantly more power than is currently the case, by luring moderates with pro-centrist leanings on board. This gamble will pay off only if the LREM list yields a high number of MEPs in France in May, followed by a ripple effect in Strasbourg. To do this, it would have to do far better than the French President’s current popularity rating would predict.
Emmanuel Macron and Guy Verhofstadt are united in their rejection of the Spitzenkandidaten system. The latter took to the media in September, arguing that the system makes sense only if there are transnational European lists (an initiative rejected by the Parliament; see EUROPE 11956) and that in the longer term, it will lead to the Commission Presidency being constantly in the hands of the EPP, which is dominated by Germany (see EUROPE 12092). And as if to prove him right, the Helsinki party conference (7-8 November) gave Manfred Weber (CSU) 79% of the votes, duly returning him as the EPP’s Spitzenkandidat.
The Liberal Democrat family has therefore made it known that next February, it will get behind a team, not an individual (see EUROPE 12135). This “team Europe” will be made up of individuals who have the qualifications necessary to take up the highest offices in the European Union. Although it has been confirmed that none of them will be explicitly promised the Commission Presidency, this will lead to a major problem during the campaign period. Either there will be no televised debate bringing together those officially standing for this position (along the lines of the 2014 edition), which the Liberals alone will have blocked, dealing a severe blow to democracy and causing outrage. Or the debate will go ahead, in which case one of the following will happen. Either the chair reserved for the Liberals will remain empty, or it will be occupied by someone who will be asked whether he or she is the Liberals’ candidate for the Commission Presidency for the entire duration of the debate, if necessary.
To add a further element to the mix, in its Decision of 7 February 2018 on the revision of the framework-agreement on relations between the European Parliament and the European Commission, which was adopted by a very significant majority (457 in favour, 200 against and 20 abstentions), the EU’s first institution “stresses that, by not adhering to the ‘Spitzenkandidaten’ process, the European Council would also risk submitting for Parliament’s approval a candidate for President of the Commission who will not have a sufficient parliamentary majority” and “warns that the European Parliament will be ready to reject any candidate in the investiture procedure of the President of the Commission who was not appointed as a ‘Spitzenkandidat’ in the run-up to the European elections” (see EUROPE 11956). In the new elected assembly, will there be a majority of MEPs who will not feel bound to abide by this decision of the outgoing assembly? Doubtful.
Will the other parties prevail? The far left is deeply divided between its pro-European and the pro-sovereign factions and it has not yet been confirmed that it will present a common candidate, as it did in 2014. Nor is there any certainty on the matter among the far right, but Matteo Salvini has offered his services to the Movement for a Europe of Nations and Freedom (MENF). Watch this space…
According to the latest projections available in November 2018, the nationalists and Eurosceptics (MENL + EFDD + ACRE) could tot up 163 seats, with around 60 more for the far left; 30 seats would go to independent and unaffiliated candidates. Compared to the situation in 2014, the EPP would drop from 221 seats to 172 and the PES from 191 to 136, with the Liberals to rise from 67 to 98 and the Greens unchanged on around 50. If we add together the EPP + S&D + ALDE + Greens, this gives us a “pro-European” majority of some 456 seats out of a total of 705 in the new assembly. But the campaign season has not even started yet!
The European Council will probably end up with egg on its face. Since the mid-1990s, it has, in accordance with an unwritten consensus, made a point of selecting the Commission President from among the ranks of heads of government past and present. After the 2014 elections, the best-placed candidate, Jean-Claude Juncker, just so happened to have this experience on his CV, which made it hard to challenge him. Currently, neither of the two principal Spitzenkandidaten fits this profile. Frans Timmermans comes closest: Foreign Affairs Minister, then Number 2 in the current Commission, whilst Manfred Weber has never held ministerial office: elevating him to the Presidency of the Commission would be one more bitter pill for the Council to swallow.
Instead of courting a show-down with the Parliament by refusing to choose a Spitzenkandidat, the Liberal family would be much better advised to appoint somebody who “ticks all the boxes”, as the expression goes. But politics is rarely a rational exercise. It would be even less rational if, by any chance, the populists should succeed in forming a majority within the new assembly: the European Council would then have to a choice between setting a wolf to guard the sheep and flouting the Spitzenkandidaten procedure and even article 17 TEU. In either scenario, democracy would be the one to lose out.
There is always the Barnier hypothesis. Beaten by Juncker to the EPP’s blessing five years ago, Michel Barnier has told his party, of which he is the deputy president, that due to his commitments in the framework of Brexit, he does not have the time to throw his hat in the ring for the EPP investiture (see EUROPE 12106). In his favour: he has been a minister several times, European Commissioner twice and, as negotiator-in-chief of the Brexit agreement, he has made an impression on the 27 leaders of the EU. He is familiar with the highest reaches of political power and would be able to hit the ground running. Going against him are his age (he will be 68 in 2019), the fact that he has never been head of government and the fact that he will not be Spitzenkandidat. And if he is not included on the Republicans’ list in France next May, the populists – and many others besides – will be quick to denounce this as a deficit of democratic legitimacy. To receive the backing of President Macron after running against the LREM list would be quite an achievement. Barnier will only be an option (albeit an excellent one) if the Spizenkandidaten system implodes. Only time will tell.
Renaud Denuit