31 January 2024

EURACTIV: EU election is a battle of placeholders

While von der Leyen promised to revamp the system and ensure that the lead candidate process would be filled with life again, it is now more dead than ever before, with mere placeholders taking the lead candidate positions of their respective European parties.

The upcoming EU election was meant to be a shining example of the Europeanisation of democracy. But with the once-promising lead candidate system dying a slow death, it seems the elections will be a purely national race in each EU country.

This weekend, the first of the party manifestos and lead candidate choices will be voted on, at the European Greens’ congress.

However, with the election season now officially kicked off, it becomes painfully obvious that there is already one fatality to mourn in the various campaigns: the lead candidate system [or Spitzenkandidaten, in German and the EU jargon].

When Ursula von der Leyen was picked as Commission president in 2019 – after the whole Spitzenkandidaten process was thrown under the bus – it was widely regarded as a step back for democracy. “It remains a scandal”, the German newspaper die Zeit titled at the time.

While von der Leyen promised to revamp the system and ensure that the lead candidate process would be filled with life again, it is now more dead than ever before, with mere placeholders taking the lead candidate positions of their respective European parties.

The Socialists were the first to hammer a nail in the coffin of the lead candidate system, when they elected Nicolas Schmit, a widely unknown name in Europe and at best a second-tier Commissioner, to lead them into the election.

Compared to Frans Timmermans and Martin Schulz, who led the Socialists in the elections in 2019 and 2014, respectively, Schmit is at best a bantamweight.

The Left party was soon to follow, by electing Walter Baier – an Austrian communist who has practically no chance of even making it into Parliament as their top pick. For comparison, in 2014, the Left sent former Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras into the race for Commission president.

Others, like the far-right Identity and Democracy and the European Conservatives and Reformers, even refused to have a common lead candidate altogether, while the Liberals will send several people into the race at once and the biggest European party, the conservative EPP, has stayed mysteriously silent.

While the importance of the EU as a political institution has risen considerably in the past four years – from the historic push for a European industrial policy to killing the combustion engine or the war in Ukraine – its democratic component seems to be weaker than ever.

Instead of Europeanisation, what we got is a more fractured party system where national, rather than European, forms of organisation seem to have prevailed.

Even in Germany, the originator of the Spitzenkandidaten system, national interest seems to trump the European spirit.

Take the liberal FDP for example. While the party is pushing in their manifesto to transform the EU into a fully-fledged European Federation, they still opted for an “us Germans against the EU” rhetoric during their European Party Congress on Sunday...

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