The Second Time Around: Status Quo and Reform of the Europarties’ Selection Procedures for Spitzenkandidaten in 2019

Abstract

In the run-up to the 2019 European Parliament elections, the main Europarties are again nominating a leading candidate for the presidency of the European Commission. These Spitzenkandidaten are subjected to the Europarties' internal selection procedures where they, in theory, compete with other high-profile co-partisan candidates for the nomination. In 2014, these intra-party candidate selections were organized in a relatively short span of time and ad-hoc manner due to a lack of preparation and experience (Put et al., 2016). The Europarties had to start designing procedures from scratch and had no tradition to lean upon as this was the first form of political recruitment taking place at the EU level. In this contribution, we analyze whether, how and why the Europarties reformed their selection procedures regarding leading candidates for the 2019 European Parliament elections. Following the scholarly literature on candidate selection reforms by national political parties, we identify a set of political system-, party-and intraparty-level determinants that foster procedural reforms (Barnea and Rahat, 2007). The Europarties' selection procedures for leading candidates will be analyzed on the basis of official party documents (statutes, regulations) and semistructured elite interviews organized with party officials of four Europarties: European People's Party (EPP), the Party of European Socialists (PES), the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party (ALDE) and the European Green Party (EGP). The analysis will focus on the four main dimensions of the central theoretical framework by Hazan and Rahat (2010): candidacy, selectorate, centralization and voting/appointment procedure. Additionally, we examine the level of internal competition during these procedures and the timing of the different procedural steps.

Explaining the reform of the Europarties’ selection procedures for Spitzenkandidaten

“…The nomination of Ursula von der Leyen -who was not one of the lead candidates of the Europarties -as president of the European Commission has raised even more fundamental doubts about the Spitzenkandidaten system (Wolfs et al, 2020). This is particularly noteworthy, since the members of the two main institutions that determine who will be at the helm of the Commission -the heads of state and government in the European Council, and the Members of European Parliament -had been intensively involved in the internal selection of their Europarties' lead candidates.…”

The European Union: Consociational Past, Centripetal Future?

“…In 2014, the internal nomination of three of the six 'Spitzenkandidaten', or simply presidential hopefulls, was affected by distribution requirements. Five years later, the number was down to two (Wolfs, Put, & Van Hecke, 2020). Interestingly, the actual voting procedure did not take geographical spread of support in account.…”