Abstract
Article 17, paragraph 7, TEU enables the European Council to choose a candidate for the Presidency of the Commission “taking into account the elections of the European Parliament”. The ambiguous legal provision was developed and integrated by the Spitzenkandidaten practice: apparently, an attempt to give citizens the power to choose the President of the Commission through the EP elections. The chapter analyses the Spitzenkandidaten practice in order to investigate its nature. Under a legal perspective, it can be defined as an attempt to establish a constitutional convention, among European political parties and EU institutions. This non-written rule aimed at filling a gap left open by the Treaties is consistent with an old idea circulating among legal and political architects of the European integration, and while it appeared to succeed after the 2014 elections, it failed after the 2019 elections. Then, the chapter seeks to investigate some of the reasons for the 2019 outcome, arguing that they lie in the several ambiguities that have characterized this Constitutional convention since its inception: still undefined in between a kind of “direct election” of the Commission’s President, according to a premiership model, on the one side, and a confidence vote of the parliamentary majority, in compliance with the traditional parliamentary government, on the other side. Finally, the chapter wonders if there is something else at the root of these ambiguities, namely the tendency to overlook some of the specificities of the EU composite institutional system, assimilating it entirely, instead, to the functioning of national democracies, at least in the narrative used towards EP voters.
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Notes
- 1.
For instance, a landmark decision of the Italian Constitutional Court refers to the “undoubted transformation of the form of government of the European Union towards parliamentary government”. See Italian Constitutional Court, Judgment no. 239 of 25 October 2018, in the official English version available online.
- 2.
The Jenning’s test requires a specific practice to be (1) long-standing and consistent over a significant period of time, (2) broadly accepted by the relevant political actors, comprising the government and opposition, and (3) the political system must consider the practice as (politically) binding, knowing that a breach may bear significant political consequences.
- 3.
The special majority requires a favourable vote of at least 72% of the EUCO components, representing at least 65% of the population of the EU.
- 4.
This provision owes it to Article 63 of the German Basic Law on the Election of the Federal Chancellor, in which the same use of the word “elect” appears: “(1) The Federal Chancellor shall be elected by the Bundestag without debate on the proposal of the Federal President. (2) The person who receives the votes of a majority of the Members of the Bundestag shall be elected. The person elected shall be appointed by the Federal President.”
- 5.
See “Declaration on Article 17(6) and (7) of the Treaty on European Union”, in Declarations annexed to the Final Act of the Intergovernmental Conference which adopted the Treaty of Lisbon, signed on 13 December 2007, in OJ C 202, 7 June 2016, 342: “The Conference considers that, in accordance with the provisions of the Treaties, the European Parliament and the European Council are jointly responsible for the smooth running of the process leading to the election of the President of the European Commission. Prior to the decision of the European Council, representatives of the European Parliament and of the European Council will thus conduct the necessary consultations in the framework deemed the most appropriate. These consultations will focus on the backgrounds of the candidates for President of the Commission, taking account of the elections to the European Parliament, in accordance with the first subparagraph of Article 17(7). The arrangements for such consultations may be determined, in due course, by common accord between the European Parliament and the European Council.”
- 6.
Article 219 TEC stated that “the Commission shall work under the political guidance of its President”.
- 7.
The European Parliament and the European Commission, Framework Agreement on Relations Between the European Parliament and the European Commission, in OJ L 304/47, 20 November 2010, para. I.1.
- 8.
See for instance the Commission Decision of 31 January 2018 on a Code of Conduct for the Members of the European Commission, C/2018/0700, OJ C 65, 21 February 2018. Article 10 spells out the conditions for participation in European politics during the term of office, stating that they should give priority “to their Commission duties over party commitment”. Para. 2 is even more relevant as it states that, they “may participate in electoral campaigns in elections to the European Parliament, including as candidates. They may also be chosen by European political parties as lead candidates (‘Spitzenkandidaten’) for the position of President of the Commission.”
- 9.
See Kotanidis (2019, espec. at p. 1) where she notes that “the increasingly presidential system [is] eclipsing the principle of collegiate decision-making”. Cf. Manzella (2020), bringing up the idea of an evolution of the EU towards a “parliamentary form of government with a presidential corrective”.
- 10.
European Parliament, Resolution of 22 November 2012 on the elections to the European Parliament in 2014, (2012/2829(RSP)).
- 11.
See Commission Recommendation of 12 March 2013 on enhancing the democratic and efficient conduct of the elections to the European Parliament, (2013/142/EU), recital no. 17, stating that “if European political parties and national parties make known the candidates for President of the Commission they support, and the candidate’s programme, in the context of the elections to the European Parliament, this would make concrete and visible the link between the individual vote of a citizen of the Union for a political party in the European elections and the candidate for President of the Commission supported by that party”.
- 12.
See the EP’s press release “The power to decide what happens in Europe”, 12 September 2013.
- 13.
Jean-Claude Juncker for the European People’s Party; Martin Schulz for the S&D—Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats; Guy Verhofstadt for the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe; Alexis Tsipras for the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, while the European Green Party declared to have two lead candidates (José Bové and Ska Keller), and the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) didn’t put forward any lead candidate.
- 14.
A warning that was later formalized in the subsequent electoral cycle. See the European Parliament proposal for the revision of the 2010 Interinstitutional agreement (decision of 7 February 2018 on the revision of the Framework Agreement on relations between the European Parliament and the European Commission (2017/2233(ACI)), recital 4, stating that: “warns that the European Parliament will be ready to reject any candidate in the investiture procedure of the President of the Commission who was not appointed as a ‘Spitzenkandidat’ in the run-up to the European elections”).
- 15.
See the series of relevant political events chronicled by Dinan (2015, espec. p. 94 ff.).
- 16.
European Council, 9–10 March 2017 informal conclusions released during the re-election of the President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, www.consilium.europa.eu/en/meetings/european-council/2017/03/09-10/.
- 17.
European Council, Conclusions of 26/27 June 2014, EUCO79/14, www.consilium.europa.eu/media/25668/143478.pdf.
- 18.
European Council, Decision of 27 June 2014 proposing to the European Parliament a candidate for President of the European Commission (2014/414/EU), OJ L 192/52, with the non-favourable votes of David Cameron and Viktor Orbán.
- 19.
Zagrebelsky (1985, p. 933) warns that acquiescence cannot possibly legitimize unconstitutional behaviour.
- 20.
Von der Leyen served uninterruptedly (from 2005 to 2019) in the German federal government as a Minister in three different portfolios and was an elected member of the CDU executive board. For this reason, Germany abstained in the vote in the European Council. However, in the words of Kotanidis (2019), she is seen as an “outsider”.
- 21.
- 22.
European Parliament, Legislative Resolution of 3 May 2022 on the proposal for a Council Regulation on the election of the members of the European Parliament by direct universal suffrage, repealing Council Decision (76/787/ECSC, EEC, Euratom) and the Act concerning the election of the members of the European Parliament by direct universal suffrage annexed to that Decision, [2022] OJ C 465/171, 6 December, espec. para. D.
- 23.
See Guastaferro (2014, p. 528), who highlights how this practice encourages the institutions to “move within the political framework provided by the results of the European elections”.
- 24.
All the advantages seem to build on the theories that stress the importance of input legitimacy. See, above all, Bellamy (2010, pp. 2–19).
- 25.
EP’s Rules of Procedure, Annex VII: Approval of the Commission and Monitoring of commitments made during the hearings, available online www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/RULES-9-2023-01-18-ANN-07_EN.html.
- 26.
For a connection between the SK process and the evolution of the EU’s form of government, see also Crum (2023), who reaches different conclusion and affirms that “the EU is certainly not teleologically destined towards a fully-fledged parliamentary democracy”.
- 27.
See supra, footnote n. 22.
- 28.
In this sense, for instance, Verola (2020, p. 125), according to whom the SK principle has not been rejected but only remodelled, as Ursula von der Leyen pertains to (almost) the same political party of Manfred Weber and other two Spitzenkandidaten, Timmermans and Vestager, have both been appointed Commission’s executive vice-presidents.
- 29.
In fact, there is wide disagreement among scholars about the nature of the form of government of the European Union: scholarship over the years has, legitimately, proposed for it almost all possible classifications. According to some, the EU form of government should be categorized as a parliamentary or quasi-parliamentary system (Manzella, 1999, espec. p. 949; Magnette, 1999, p. 25 ff.; Dann, 2003, espec. p. 572 ff.; Lehman & Schunz, 2005; Hix, 2008, espec. p. 155 ff.), a separation of powers system (Kreppel, 2011, p. 169 ff.; Fabbrini, 2015b, espec. pp. 168 ff. and 177 ff.), or even a directorate (Frosini, 2012).
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Citino, Y.M., Lupo, N. (2024). The Spitzenkandidaten Practice: Establishing an Ambiguous Constitutional Convention?. In: Ceron, M., Christiansen, T., Dimitrakopoulos, D.G. (eds) The Politicisation of the European Commission’s Presidency. European Administrative Governance. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-48173-4_5
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