Requiem for the Spitzenkandidat?
Abstract
The Lisbon Treaty opens the door for the European Parliament elections to play, beyond the corresponding distribution of seats, a leading role in determining the election of the president of the European Commission. In this sense, art. 17 stipulate that the European Council proposes a candidate to preside the Commission “taking into account the results of the elections to the Eurochamber”, to be elected by the latter. In practice, this formulation has resulted in each European political party appointing its own so-called Spitzenkandidat or "lead candidate", to fight the democratic deficit of the EU as main purpose. The 2014 European Parliament election, even with difficulties, fitted this new formula. This was not the case for the 2019 election in which, endorsed by the European Parliament, the election of the President of the Commission didn’t correspond to any of the Spitzenkandidaten. The paper analyzes the genesis and development of this figure, its role in the democratic deepening of the EU and its perspectives in the context of the debate on the future of Europe.
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