European Parliament Elections - Commission President

Commission President

The third Delors Commission had a short mandate, in order to bring the terms of the Commission in line with that of the Parliament. Under the European Constitution the European Council would have to take into account the results of the latest European elections and, furthermore, the Parliament would ceremonially "elect", rather than simply approve, the Council's proposed candidate. This was taken as the parliament's cue to have its parties run with candidates for the President of the European Commission with the candidate of the winning party being proposed by the Council.

This was partly put into practice in 2004 when the European Council selected a candidate from the political party which won that year's election. However at that time only one party had run with a specific candidate: the European Green Party, who had the first true pan-European political party with a common campaign, put forward Daniel Cohn-Bendit. However the fractious nature of the other political parties led to no other candidates, the People's Party only mentioned four or five people they'd like to be President. The Constitution failed ratification but these amendments have been carried over to the Treaty of Lisbon which came into force in 2009.

There are plans to strengthen the European political parties in order for them to propose candidates for the 2009 election. The European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party have already indicated, in their October 2007 congress, their intention for forward a candidate for the post as part of a common campaign. They failed to do so however the European People's Party did select Barroso as their candidate and, as the largest party, Barroso's turn was renewed. The Socialists, disappointed at the 2009 election, agreed to put forward a candidate for Commission President at all subsequent elections. There is a campaign within that party to have open primaries for said candidate.

In February 2008, President Barroso admitted there was a problem in legitimacy and that, despite having the same legitimacy as Prime Ministers in theory, in practice it was not the case. The low turnout creates a problem for the President's legitimacy, with the lack of a "European political sphere", but analysis claim that if citizens were voting for a list of candidates for the post of President, turn out would be much higher than that seen in recent years.

With the Lisbon Treaty now in-force, Europarties are obliged from now-on to put forward a candidate for President of the European Commission; each Presidential candidate will, in fact, lead the pan-European campaign of the Europarty.

The President of the European Parliament Jerzy Buzek proposed in 2010 that Commissioners be directly elected, by member states placing their candidate at the top of their voting lists in European elections. That would give them individually, and the body as a whole, a democratic mandate.