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Barroso: the candidate of all European parties

Article written by Joan Marc Simon, Secretary General of UEF

This is as confusing as it is absurd. In yesterday’s meeting the EPP leaders back Barroso for a second term as President of European Commission but still no party is behind Barroso's ambition to renew his mandate as President of the European Commission.

Barroso One could expect that if the leaders of a party back a candidate of the same party and nobody in the party opposes, this candidate would become THE candidate of THE party. Not in European politics.

Same as EPP, the European Socialist Party has no official candidate for President of the European Commission. When Rasmussen, PSE President, was asked about the PSE candidate in the presentation of the PSE manifesto he said that they hadn't decided on a candidate "yet". At the same time socialist prime ministers such as Zapatero, Socrates or Brown already openly expressed their support for Barroso. I guess it is easy to back a candidate when the contest is a false one...

Barroso, the President of what is to be the executive body of the EU, is backed by individuals. These individuals are not "normal" individuals; they are heads of state and heads of governments. However, what does it say about the future President of the European Commission and the Commission as a whole?

Barroso and Zapatero
Source European Communities, 2009

Firstly, that the "European interest" can't be defended by a body whose president is held hostage by heads of state and governments. The role of defending the interest of the member-states was the role of the president of the European Council but it seems like the Commission is dangerously shifting towards the intergovernmentalist option.

Secondly, and as a consequence, no expectations about leadership or initiative should be put on a body elected without a political program and that is held hostage of the interest of the member-states.

Leadership is crucial in times of crisis and without a strong European Commission taking the initiative to regulate the financial markets, in raising resources for a economic relaunch, in investing in the infrastructure necessary to launch a new green economy the EU is doomed to fail to its citizens.

Leadership comes from personality but also from legitimacy and recognition. Why should the Europeans, even those who will to vote in the European Parliament elections, feel that Barroso is representing them? They will vote for a program that can't be implemented because Barroso's program is improvised in the heads of state meetings and not subjected to public scrutiny.

If the EPP happens to have the same political program as Barroso -which would make sense if he belongs to the party the leaders of which support him- why isn't Barroso the candidate of the EPP? Is the EPP scared that if they declare Barroso as their candidate the socialists might be forced to declare that Barroso is NOT their candidate?

By Barroso not being the candidate of any party... should we interpret that he is the "de-facto" candidate of all parties?

If so, we certainly live in a strange stage of European democracy.

This article can also be read on The New Federalist

3 comments

Monday, March 23 2009 By manajan

PES Campaign launch without flesh - where is their candidate?

Article written by Åsa Gunvén

On March 11th the Party of European Socialists (PES) launched their election manifesto. But as long as PES fails to nominate their candidate to the position as Commission president we have to ask our self how serious they are in profiling themselves as one political party and giving Europe’s voters a real choice?

PES 2009 Manifesto Rasmussen

The question is in no way unique for PES – the fact is that none of the European parties have yet nominated a candidate for the Commission president. The result is clearly that they indirectly support conservative Barroso as the next Commission president, irrelevant of their party colour. How is the voter in Europe then supposed to have a democratic say on the leadership of the EU? And how are we supposed to see a real result of our votes? Eurobarometer clearly shows that voters stay home as they see no real impact of their votes – nominating a party candidate to the Commission president could hence also contribute to changing the shockingly low voting turnouts.

At the press conference the PES president Rasmussen talked about the need to “politicize” both the EP election as well as the Commission. Rightly he pointed out that the point of discussion should be about political options rather then national interests. But this fits badly together with PES failure to nominate a candidate.

I asked Rasmussen why PES has chosen not to nominate a PES candidate along their election manifesto and interestingly enough he stated that there has been no decision NOT to nominate, and opened up for possibility to nominate a candidate later in spring. This means that PES does see their unique opportunity to make the EP elections and the Commission composition more democratic – the question is of course why they not act accordingly.

Fact remains that Rasmussen’s “We don’t do it, and we don’t NOT do it” did not manage to produce a face to the campaign when it was launched on March 11th.

This article was first published on thenewfederalist.eu

8 comments

Wednesday, March 11 2009 By manajan

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