It’s always fun (and eye-catching) to shout “democracy, democracy” in front of the TV cameras – especially about Europe. In the last months, Ursula von der Leyen has been presented by many as an illegitimate undemocratic president of the European Commission. The symbol of backdoor deals, manipulation of voters, and deeply undemocratic Europe. Alas, in this age of soundbites, this one is false. The spitzenkandidaten concept (invented when the Lisbon Treaty entered into force) is not so democratic. Moreover, it does not conform to the EU Treaties.
Article 17 TEU is crystal clear about the appointment of the Commission’s president. “Taking into account the elections to the European Parliament and after having held the appropriate consultations, the European Council, acting by a qualified majority, shall propose to the European Parliament a candidate for President of the Commission. This candidate shall be elected by the European Parliament by a majority of its component members.” Like the famous 50 TEU, this text was written with much care. It is one of the many shared powers created by the EU Treaties. Checks and balances constitute an essential feature of the whole EU system, and of Western public law in general since Montesquieu and The Federalist Papers. The best way to prevent abuse of power is to share it. In the old Roman republic already, the war power was already trusted to two consuls, not one.
This appointment procedure has two objectives. One is to impose quite a large majority for the president’s appointment (the result of two qualified majorities in two different assemblies). The treaties do not aim at all to create some kind of assembly regime, concentrating most powers in one Parliament, like France’s third republic. The other objective is to keep an essential federal balance in the Treaty. The Parliament represents demography, the European Council more the equality between Member States. (In a different setting, the US Constitution requires the president’s election through great electors, who allow a better representation of small states).
Since this is a shared power, the Parliament may not impose the choice of one individual to the European Council. In this case, the power is obviously not shared anymore, but exclusive. A compromise between the two institutions must be found. There is thus no democratic deficit in this procedure, on the contrary. Democracy relies on the rule of law and shared powers, and Article 17 TEU embodies both.
Many comments present the Parliament as “humiliated” or “despised” (inadequate and dangerous emotional words) in the recent EU appointments. Again one fails to see why. For the Commission’s presidency, Weber was blocked from the beginning by a coalition of many parliamentary groups. Once this was done, it seemed quite evident that the other candidates would follow. Why wouldn’t the EPP have the same rights than the other groups ? That provoked the end of the spitzenkandidaten, most politically indeed.
Furthermore, the press has been extremely well informed in the whole process. Speaking about backrooms and transparency, this reproach emanates from the same Parliament which organized recently a secret vote to impose total secrecy concerning the expenses offered by the taxpayer to the MEPs. This decision was subsequently validated by the EU Court of Justice, which refuses itself to provide any information about the judges’ chauffeurs and cars. On both counts (and others), the Commission is more transparent than the other EU institutions.
The role of the parliamentary groups is to control the candidate’s adequacy, and to request precisions and balance of the action programme. The Parliament must be commended here, because it brought much information about many topics. It should however have taken more time. The acceleration of debates may provoke precisely an impression of obscurity. The hearings should also have been public. Consequently, the main EPP and SD groups were highly hypocritical in opposing this. There is no credibility in screaming “transparency, transparency”, and simultaneously excluding the public from the hearings.
To conclude, the Spitzenkandidaten can only be established with a Treaty change. Additionally, as it could provoke unforeseen consequences in the institutional balance, it should be first seriously studied. In any case, this will fly only with real European parties, real primaries, transnational lists. Replacing the so-called dark corridors of the European Council by those of the political parties can hardly be seen as an improvement. There is thus much work to be done.
Meanwhile politicians of various stripes should stop presenting Mrs von der Leyen as an illegitimate or undemocratic president of the Commission. This is most untrue. Doing so they only dirty the reputation of the European institutions, and as a matter of fact shoot themselves bloodily in the foot.