Not “who” will succeed President Juncker, but “how?”

A handful of European media outlets report that today the European Parliament will vote to use the Spitzenkandidat system again in 2019, just as in 2014, to choose a successor to European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker. The Dutch media reports that President Juncker said before the European Parliament on Tuesday that a large number of EU leaders no longer want to use the Spitzenkandidaten system, but warned against conflicts between European governments and the European Parliament if the system is abolished. “The risk is high,” Mr Juncker said, as quoted by elseier.nl. “These Member States want to return to the past, but it is now 2018.”

Mr Juncker called the system of Spitzenkandidaten a “tiny piece of democratic progress”. La Libre Belgique says MEPs are defending the procedure tooth and nail and cites MEP Manfred Weber (EPP) saying that the European Parliament would never approve any candidate without the Spitzenkandidat label. A high-level EU source explained to the paper that “in the EU, the Parliament does not overrule the Council, but one needs the support of both to become President of the Commission.”

Among the countries that are against this procedure are the Netherlands, France, the Visegrad countries, Lithuania and Portugal. The European Parliament will vote today on a proposal bill that would make it possible to reject European Commission candidates who lack the full support of their political group. Berliner Zeitung says that there is a power struggle in the EU between the European Parliament and the heads of state and government of the Member States over the procedure to elect the new President.

Le Figaro’s Jean-Jacques Mével says that “the EU does not have a clear rule to choose its most influential and most exposed boss, i.e. the President of the European Commission.” He notes that there is persistent bitterness towards the European Parliament and “EU capitals denounce a misappropriation of texts,” he further underlines. Arte reports that in order to counter ever decreasing participation rates in European elections, French President Emmanuel Macron is advocating transnational lists. According to MEP Pascal Durand (Greens), there is currently ‘no real representation of the general European interest.” With the transnational lists, MEPs of the same political party but from several EU Member States could defend common ideas.

Arte also reports that the Visegrad countries are against this suggestion. Finland’s Verkkouutiset writes that according to Finnish Coalition Party MEPs Sirpa Pietikäinen (EPP), Henna Virkkunen (EPP) and Petri Sarvamaa (EPP), supranational electoral lists would only distance MEPs from their electorate and favour the bigger countries. Ms Pietikäinen says that voters should know their candidates and representatives. Ms Virkkunen states that MEPs directly represent citizens, so interaction and communication plays a big role in the relationship. Mr Sarvamaa notes that countries smaller than Romania would struggle to get their candidates elected from the supranational lists.

In his column for L’Opinion, Luc de Barochez explains that President Macron’s push for transnational lists is not purely in the interest of increasing participation. If Macron “wants to have a chance of influencing the course of the EU as well as the composition of the European Commission next year, [he] needs a parliamentary group that goes well beyond LREM MEPs, who will be elected during the 2019 European elections.” In order to be successful, he “must destroy the right-left system which has dominated the European Parliament for decades.” Mr de Barochez highlights that “Germany has an interest in keeping this […] system which allows it to have the greatest influence during the parliamentary debates both in Brussels and Strasbourg.”