Is the EU’s Spitzenkandidaten procedure fit for the future?
To look beyond the rather simplistic dichotomy of the lead candidate procedure’s success and failure, this CEPS Explainer analyses the procedure’s past performance, outlines the impact that it has had in 2014 and 2019 and teases out some general conditions that would need to be met for the procedure to be more successful in 2029. […]
How to make the European elections more European
As we rapidly approach the 2024 European Parliament (EP) elections, once again we are witnessing the discrepancy between the increased importance that the EP plays in EU citizens’ lives and the transnational character of most of today’s issues on the one hand, and the national character that the EP elections still have on the other. […]
The lead candidate procedure isn’t dead – but it’s no longer what its inventors intended it to be
The lead candidate (or Spitzenkandidaten) procedure is where the European political parties appoint their lead candidates on the understanding that the candidate of the party that wins the most seats becomes the President of the European Commission. This worked in 2014, when the EPP’s candidate Jean-Claude Juncker became Commission President. However, it was widely seen […]
Exit Boris – and what now for the UK and its relations with the EU
We may have to leave it to historians to tell us whether Boris Johnson was the worst British prime minister ever. We do know, however, how many of his policies have been disastrous. Quitting the EU’s single market has been unambiguously negative for the UK. The idea that ‘taking back control’ would liberate and dynamise […]