The Politicisation of the European Commission’s Presidency

The chapter situates the contribution of the book in the wider context, highlighting the crucial role played by the European Commission and its President within the political system of the European Union, and emphasising the value of the systematic assessment of the evolution and implications of executive leadership appointment. The introduction motivates the interest in a comprehensive assessment of the impact of the post-Lisbon changes and chiefly the introduction of the Spitzenkandidaten process from the early stages of nominee selection, through the campaign, election, and post-appointment phases. This chapter considers the evolution of leadership selection in the EU and the extant literature on the Spitzenkandidaten process situating the insights of the 12 substantive contributions addressing the politicisation of the Commission presidency through multiple disciplinary lenses. In doing so, the chapter sets out how the book takes stock 10 years after the introduction of the Spitzenkandidaten process, providing a multifaceted assessment of the complex changes in selection of the EU’s executive leadership, going beyond overly simplistic dichotomies such as success and failure.

This chapter will address the Spitzenkandidaten process from an historical viewpoint. Despite its inauguration in 2014, this process represented the last stage of a much older relationship between the European Parliament (i.e., its major constituent parties), Council and Commission about the politicisation of leadership selection in the European Community/European Union. Our analysis will consider in particular the agency of the European Parliament in the appointment of European Commission presidents from 1979 to nowadays. The analysis will consider three particular periods: 1979–1994; 1994–2014; 2014–2019. The first period covers the Thorn and Delors presidencies, during a historical juncture which was marked by the first direct EP elections, the Single European Act and the Maastricht Treaty which greatly expanded the role of the EP as well its relations vis-à-vis the Commission. The second period covers the appointments of Santer, Prodi and Barroso, against the background of EP/Commission rising institutional struggle, constitutional debate and the Eurozone crisis. The third and last period concerns the introduction of the Spitzenkandidaten process in 2014 and its failure in 2019. Drawing on archival sources, institutional documents and oral history collections stored at the Historical Archives of the European Union in Florence, our chapter will show the gradual attempt by the European Parliament to influence the politicisation of the European Commission leadership, as well as the limits of this process.

The way one evaluates leadership selection in the European Union very much depends on how one sees the EU as a polity and the kind of democratic standards that polity is to meet. This chapter seeks to explicate the relations between different models of EU democracy and the criteria for democratic leadership selection that follow from them. At the same time, the chapter also suggests that different ideas about leadership selection are highly instructive about the different understandings of EU democracy. The chapter departs from four prominent models of the EU as a democratic polity: an intergovernmental polity, a regulatory polity, political union, and demoi-cracy. For each of these models, the chapter elaborates its understanding of the structure of the EU demos, the main mechanisms of democracy, the place of EU executive leaders—specifically the Commission President—in these mechanisms, and the way they are to be (s)elected. The second part of the chapter uses these models to evaluate the way EU leadership selection processes have evolved historically, with an emphasis on the developments since the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon in 2009. This analysis helps to be more concrete about the institutional implications of the competing models and it underlines that the EU is certainly not teleologically destined towards a full-fledged parliamentary democracy.

The chapter discusses the Spitzenkandidaten process in the light of the theory of parliamentary federation. In fact, the Spitzenkandidaten is a political innovation, introduced in 2014, aiming to gradually transform the EU (and its functioning) in the direction of a supranational parliamentary federation. The chapter will be organized as follows. First, it will consider the proposals on the democratization of the EU executive power, of which the Spitzenkandidaten is a variant, emerged in the Conference on the Future of Europe (Cofeu) as the latest example of the debate on the issue. Second, it will consider the institutional features of the EU executive power, showing the latter’s dual nature, as European Council and European Commission. Third, it will develop a theory of parliamentary government in federal systems, identifying the systemic conditions of its historical sustainability. Fourth, it will compare the EU decision-making structure with those systemic conditions to test whether the two are compatible. The conclusion, finally, will bring home the argument that parliamentary government in the EU constitutes a puzzle difficult to compose, also with a change of the Treaty.

Article 17, paragraph 7, TEU enables the European Council to choose a candidate for the Presidency of the Commission “taking into account the elections of the European Parliament”. The ambiguous legal provision was developed and integrated by the Spitzenkandidaten practice: apparently, an attempt to give citizens the power to choose the President of the Commission through the EP elections. The chapter analyses the Spitzenkandidaten practice in order to investigate its nature. Under a legal perspective, it can be defined as an attempt to establish a constitutional convention, among European political parties and EU institutions. This non-written rule aimed at filling a gap left open by the Treaties is consistent with an old idea circulating among legal and political architects of the European integration, and while it appeared to succeed after the 2014 elections, it failed after the 2019 elections. Then, the chapter seeks to investigate some of the reasons for the 2019 outcome, arguing that they lie in the several ambiguities that have characterized this Constitutional convention since its inception: still undefined in between a kind of “direct election” of the Commission’s President, according to a premiership model, on the one side, and a confidence vote of the parliamentary majority, in compliance with the traditional parliamentary government, on the other side. Finally, the chapter wonders if there is something else at the root of these ambiguities, namely the tendency to overlook some of the specificities of the EU composite institutional system, assimilating it entirely, instead, to the functioning of national democracies, at least in the narrative used towards EP voters.

The Treaties of Paris and Rome envisaged the possibility of direct elections to the European parliamentary assembly from the outset. Since the early 1960s, Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) have been active on this issue and in 1976 they got satisfaction, with the Act on the direct election of the European Parliament. Since then, the European Parliament has constantly tried to obtain its reform in order to reinforce the European dimension of this election, and to strengthen its own powers within the Union’s political system. It has met with little success, due to its own divisions and those of the Council. It nevertheless continues to request a reform of the 1976 Electoral Act, and the Spitzenkandidaten procedure is now central to its initiatives. The European Parliament would like to see it institutionalised and to create a legal obligation for the European Council to appoint the ‘leading candidate’ of the winning European party as President of the European Commission. This request is linked to many other proposals, aiming to reinforce the supranational nature of the ballot, to mobilise voters or to elect some MEPs on transnational lists. This chapter aims to take stock of this complex debate, which has been the subject of recent initiatives by the European Parliament, and has also been raised by the Conference on the Future of Europe. It will also highlight the uncertainties and ambiguities that accompany a possible institutionalisation of Spitzenkandidaten.

The purpose of this chapter is threefold. First, it seeks to map out the ways in which the Spitzenkandidaten were chosen in 2014 and 2019. Second, it seeks to discuss any changes or broader trends that have emerged across these two ‘moments’ in the early phase of the institutionalisation of the ‘Spitzenkandidaten process’. In particular, it considers (a) whether there is a dominant model for candidate selection in these, early, stages of the evolution of the Spitzenkandidaten process, and (b) the extent to which intra-party procedures differ along ideological lines. Finally, it situates the current state of play in relation to how the Spitzenkandidaten are chosen in the broader debate on the evolving EU political system and, in particular, (a) the theory of parliamentary federation and (b) models of EU democracy. Four arguments are advanced in this chapter. First, there are several commonalities between the ‘paths’ taken by the party families when choosing their candidates—to such an extent that one may well speak of a dominant model. Second, presenting the institutionalisation of the Spitzenkandidaten process as a battle or conflict between the European Council and the European Parliament is misleading since members of the former are active and influential players—in their capacity of party leaders—in the selection of Spitzenkandidaten in the first place. Third, the key features of this ‘model’ point in the direction of a practical rejection of the lessons offered by the theory of parliamentary federation. Finally, the party families that use the dominant model appear to be giving—at that level—a practical response to the question of the future of the European Union by opting for procedures that are akin to the model of EU democracy that Ben Crum defines as political union.

The Spitzenkandidaten system was envisaged as a way of transforming the character of elections to the European Parliament (EP). To gain a better understanding of how this ambitious aim has met empirical reality, we focus on political parties dealing with the European-wide lead candidates in EP electoral campaigns. More precisely, we study the perspective of political parties by drawing on Euromanifesto data. On the one hand, we analyse country differences and test whether European-wide lead candidates have generated more visibility in their home countries while, on the other, we take a closer look at the statements made about the Spitzenkandidaten principle in the respective Euromanifestos to learn more about the reasons for its potentially positive or negative assessment. Findings from these analyses allow for more detailed insights into the issue of transnational party competition in Europe. On top of examining previous and current trends, this contribution sets out what we might expect when it comes to the Spitzenkandidaten process for the upcoming 2024 EP elections.

The selection of the European Commission President was shaped by the Spitzenkandidaten system in the last two appointment rounds. This chapter zooms into the interinstitutional dynamics between Council and Parliament in the two rounds of appointments. We show that the principle indeed increases interinstitutional conflict, yet, this does not lead to stalemate but rather a rebalancing to re-establish power-sharing. As the dual legitimating logic and interinstitutional power-sharing persist, the Spitzenkandidaten system may weaken rather than strengthen the EP’s position. The key finding is that the Spitzenkandidaten system suffers from a number of dilemmas: the more success it has in politicising the electoral campaigns, the more are the party groups in the EP under pressure to depoliticise immediately after the election to successfully instal an EP appointee in the interinstitutional conflict. In addition, rather than promoting the agenda of the institution that first selected the Commission president, the initial presidential agendas aimed to integrate the defeated institution’s political objectives—which further undermines the intended effect of the Spitzenkandidaten system to produce a politicisation along partisan politics, and instead strengthens the existing balance of power between the different institutions.

This chapter examines how Jean-Claude Juncker interpreted the mandate delivered by the Spitzenkandidaten procedure to lead a ‘political Commission’ and to introduce ‘new ways of working’, with a tier of vice presidents coordinating the implementation of the Commission President’s programme. It looks at how Commission staff viewed the Spitzenkandidaten process as well as these two features that characterised the Juncker model, across the organisation. The chapter also argues that the Juncker model of presidential leadership has proved to be enduring. Although Juncker is so far the only Commission President to have been appointed via the Spitzenkandidaten procedure, his Presidency extended the process of presidentialisation initiated by his predecessor, José Manuel Barroso, and has created a new model of presidentialism, that persisted under his successor, Ursula von der Leyen, even though she was not a Spitzenkandidat.

It is the European political parties, rather than the EP or its political Groups, which have taken forward the idea that, ahead of European elections, parties should indicate who their preferred candidate is to be President of the Commission, just as parties habitually do in most EU counties for the head of the executive in national parliamentary elections. The appropriateness of the analogy is not universally shared, but several changes made by Member States to the treaties have made it significantly more plausible. The involvement of national leaders in the choice of their party’s candidate means that presenting the process as a battle of will between the European Parliament and the European Council is simplistic. A look behind the scenes as to what happened in 2014 and 2019 give us some telling pointers to the future. The chapter also looks at the ramifications of EP’s other vote: that on the Commission as a whole.

The introduction of the Spitzenkandidaten process has sparked a rich debate on the implications for the ‘input side’ of EU democracy. In contrast, a limited attention has been devoted to the corresponding ‘output side’. Have European Commission Presidents wielded their power differently depending on whether they assumed office as lead candidates of a transnational European party or not? This chapter seeks to address this gap by examining the track record of Commission Presidents after their elections. The assessment is performed along three dimensions of EU politics: executive-legislative relations, party politics and the institutional balance in the EU. Specifically, three presidential terms are being compared to isolate the effects of the Spitzenkandidaten process: the second term of José Manuel Barroso, the single term of Jean-Claude Juncker and the first term of Ursula von der Leyen. Empirically, the chapter triangulates different methods of data collection and analysis, both qualitative—such as documentary research, process-tracing and interviews—and quantitative—such as voting behaviour in the EP and the textual analysis of official documents. Based on the available evidence, the chapter concludes that a Spitzenkandidat at the helm of the Commission has changed some limited aspects of the decision-making process, creating greater opportunities to cooperation among the supranational institutions, but has not transformed the consensual style of EU decision-making.

The chapter presents the key findings and takeaways from the book, elaborating on the past experience, current state of play and future prospects of the Spitzenkandidaten process and the wider issue of executive leadership selection in the EU. The conclusion reiterates the importance of an in-depth understanding of the innovation, and the implications of the process for the study and practice of European integration, the EU political system and its policy-making. The chapter summarises the contributions of the volume with regard to intra- and interinstitutional relations, party politics and the EU’s constitutional framework. Building on these findings and a wider discussion of the experience of the first ten years of the Spitzenkandidaten process, the chapter offers a composite and nuanced assessment of its impact and the dynamics it has engendered. Finally, based on the prior discussion, the chapter concludes by raising a number of specific recommendations on how to future-proof the process in the light of past experience and the underlying objectives to be achieved, highlighting how the 2024 EP elections represent a crucial milestone for the future practice of the process.