{"id":3530,"date":"2019-07-10T06:17:02","date_gmt":"2019-07-10T06:17:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/euromenaenergy.com\/?p=3530"},"modified":"2019-07-10T06:17:02","modified_gmt":"2019-07-10T06:17:02","slug":"the-lessons-of-the-eu-leadership-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/?p=3530","title":{"rendered":"The Lessons of the EU Leadership Fight"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The haggling may have been unedifying, but the candidates nominated by the European Council to lead the European Union\u2019s governing institutions are undoubtedly impressive. If approved by the European Parliament, German Minister of Defense Ursula von der Leyen and Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel will become president of the European Commission and Council, respectively, and Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell will serve as High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. Then, in November,\u00a0Christine Lagarde\u00a0is set to succeed\u00a0Mario Draghi\u00a0as president of the European Central Bank.<\/p>\n<p data-line-id=\"cbaaae6c3d424120a8af64adfd99e52f\">The good news is that each of these candidates would strengthen the EU at a time of global insecurity. The bad news is that the EU itself will continue to face significant challenges from within. The struggle to fill the top leadership positions resulted in the elimination of the\u00a0<em>Spitzenkandidaten<\/em>\u00a0process \u2013 whereby the largest party grouping in the European Parliament selects the Commission president \u2013 and the return of backroom deal-making, which many see as undemocratic. The justification for that change needs to be explained, or the EU\u2019s credibility may suffer. After all, the\u00a0<em>Spitzenkandidaten\u00a0<\/em>process was introduced in 2014 to counter the perception that the EU suffers from a democratic deficit.<button class=\"comment__caller comment__caller--no-comment\" aria-expanded=\"false\" aria-label=\"Paragraph comment\" aria-controls=\"login_register\" aria-haspopup=\"true\"><\/button><\/p>\n<p data-line-id=\"821d9ebefb0c472ba7ce8b1927d152ec\">The leadership struggle has also intensified a clash of perspectives within \u2013 and about \u2013 the EU\u2019s sources of legitimacy. Whereas member states with a strong parliamentary culture think the top personnel should be selected based on the results of May\u2019s European Parliament election, others (like France) consider executive experience far more important than the link to those results. It is naturally a long process to devise a broadly accepted system for selecting EU leaders. Despite this year\u2019s setback, the principle of the\u00a0<em>Spitzenkandidaten<\/em>\u00a0system should be preserved and combined in the next elections, with additional transnational lists of candidates backed by stronger trans-European party structures. Beyond that, the EU also needs to strengthen the role of the European Parliament.<button class=\"comment__caller comment__caller--no-comment\" aria-expanded=\"false\" aria-label=\"Paragraph comment\" aria-controls=\"login_register\" aria-haspopup=\"true\"><\/button><\/p>\n<p data-line-id=\"56897437e5464211bedacc5e3aa6f2aa\">A number of MEPs are deeply frustrated by the Council\u2019s failure to nominate any of the\u00a0<em>Spitzenkandidats<\/em>\u00a0on offer, and they could make their sense of betrayal known by voting against von der Leyen\u2019s appointment. Should her candidacy be rejected, months of institutional gridlock would likely follow. As a show of good faith, von der Leyen should announce early that she will work toward empowering MEPs\u00a0<em>de facto<\/em>\u00a0to initiate legislation. With an inter-institutional agreement with the European Commission, such a change would not require an amendment to any founding treaties. Moreover, if confirmed, von der Leyen and the new European Parliament president, David Maria Sassoli of Italy\u2019s Democratic Party, should establish a working relationship as close as that of their respective predecessors,\u00a0Jean-Claude Juncker\u00a0and\u00a0Martin Schulz. But, given the new composition of the European Parliament, they should strongly involve the chairs of all parliamentary groups that wish to work toward a stronger Europe.<button class=\"comment__caller comment__caller--no-comment\" aria-expanded=\"false\" aria-label=\"Paragraph comment\" aria-controls=\"login_register\" aria-haspopup=\"true\"><\/button><\/p>\n<p data-line-id=\"7aa195d9a7e942b2843619cce463b8a2\">The fact that MEPs elected Sassoli instead of the Council\u2019s own candidate, former Bulgarian Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev, suggests that the European Parliament\u00a0election\u00a0in May has led to a renewed desire for institutional self-assertion. And yet the election left the body more fragmented than ever. The number of seats held in the 751-member parliament by the two main party groups, the European People\u2019s Party (EPP) and the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&amp;D),\u00a0fell\u00a0from 404 to 336, owing to gains by the Greens, right-wing nationalists, and liberal centrists.<button class=\"comment__caller comment__caller--no-comment\" aria-expanded=\"false\" aria-label=\"Paragraph comment\" aria-controls=\"login_register\" aria-haspopup=\"true\"><\/button><\/p>\n<p data-line-id=\"5c71d4c60d7649daa43c9b49299d8c35\">The fall of Europe\u2019s grand coalitions and the emergence of new, smaller parties will impede decision-making, as already demonstrated by the Parliament\u2019s failure to agree on its own\u00a0<em>Spitzenkandidaten<\/em>. Divisions among the parliamentary groups are not just political, but also geographic. The EPP has almost no MEPs from France or Italy, and large delegations from Germany and Northern Europe. The S&amp;D draws far more support from the Iberian Peninsula and Italy, with relatively few MEPs from the Visegr\u00e1d group (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia) or France.<\/p>\n<p data-line-id=\"b6b6dd37454b428d9e8c00ce0c20498e\">The increased fragmentation in the European Parliament goes hand in hand with changing relationships between EU member states. France and Germany\u2019s days of working hand in glove are gone; and even if they do come together on a particular issue, blocking minorities can stand in their way at the Council. The latest round of EU leadership negotiations shows just how hard it has become to reach a majority, let alone unanimity. On the contrary, national governments fight increasingly recklessly for their interests. As a result, individual member states will face a strong temptation to pursue specific objectives in smaller, likeminded groups. The challenge, then, is to ensure that such initiatives follow official EU processes, rather than being decided through intergovernmental backroom deals.<button class=\"comment__caller comment__caller--no-comment\" aria-expanded=\"false\" aria-label=\"Paragraph comment\" aria-controls=\"login_register\" aria-haspopup=\"true\"><\/button><\/p>\n<p data-line-id=\"9aeb666e1ead47d4bf062960b83f6148\">The strong turnout in the European Parliament election indicates that the EU has not lost public support. The political center was strengthened at a time when Euroskeptic and nationalist parties are on the rise in member states. Overall, public trust in the EU is as high as it was in the 1980s, when European integration served as a defense against the Soviet Union. For most Europeans, being a part of the EU still means something.<button class=\"comment__caller comment__caller--no-comment\" aria-expanded=\"false\" aria-label=\"Paragraph comment\" aria-controls=\"login_register\" aria-haspopup=\"true\"><\/button><\/p>\n<p data-line-id=\"42ccce91a67f4ef2b4d76e0c5a301c13\">But the outcome of the election also signaled a desire for change. Many citizens abandoned traditional parties, and a significant share of them did so out of fear. Like politicians at the national level, the EU\u2019s new leaders will have to answer to voters who harbor deep uncertainties about their and their children\u2019s future. Europeans are understandably anxious about great-power competition, new security threats, and a technological revolution that threatens to upend entire economic systems and societies.<button class=\"comment__caller comment__caller--no-comment\" aria-expanded=\"false\" aria-label=\"Paragraph comment\" aria-controls=\"login_register\" aria-haspopup=\"true\"><\/button><\/p>\n<p data-line-id=\"152d6825733f4df2b9892190633d9032\">The EU, working with member-state governments, will need to respond to these challenges with ambition and resolve. The European Council has already devised a\u00a0strategic agenda\u00a0for 2019-2024, and now the ball is in the European Parliament\u2019s court. Since the elections in May, MEPs from the four moderate party groups have been negotiating a shared program of policy priorities. In other words, they are putting substance over personnel; regardless of who fills the top leadership positions, the European Parliament will already have a shared platform in place. Despite the circumvention of the\u00a0<em>Spitzenkandidaten<\/em>\u00a0process, this effort, like the slate of promising candidates selected by the Council, suggests that the EU is slowly and steadily maturing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The haggling may have been unedifying, but the candidates nominated by the European Council to lead the European Union\u2019s governing institutions are undoubtedly impressive. If approved by the European Parliament, German Minister&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3531,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[46,48,57,68,76,77,82,87,90,96,99,107,109,111,113,137,139,146,148,160,174,183,184,201,202,209,222,230,232,233,244,246,249,256,262,263,267,277,279,288],"class_list":["post-3530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance","tag-aramco","tag-athens","tag-baroudi","tag-carbon","tag-climate","tag-climate-change","tag-co2","tag-decarbonising","tag-democracy","tag-doha","tag-eastmed","tag-embargo","tag-emissions","tag-energy","tag-energy-peace","tag-gas","tag-gazprom","tag-greece","tag-greenenergy","tag-international-maritime-disputes","tag-lebanon","tag-maritime-boundaries-east-mediterranean","tag-maritime-disputes","tag-offshore","tag-oil","tag-opec","tag-pollution","tag-poverty-alleviation","tag-putin","tag-qatar","tag-rosneft","tag-roudi","tag-russia","tag-saudi","tag-solar","tag-solar-power","tag-straddling-hydrocarbons-reserves","tag-total","tag-trump","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3530\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}