The European Parliament and the Spitzenkandidaten Process

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.