Given that this column has been somewhat erratic of late, there was a danger that you might have thought, “Ah, Mark’s forgotten to do this again.”. But I haven’t. I understand that the Press Team have been pretty busy today, but that hasn’t manifested itself in a press release.
However, we do have one story that might be of interest to you given what’s coming up…
The ALDE Party has rather subverted the contest to be the President of the European Commission, the so-called Spitzenkandidate process, by announcing a team of prominent European liberals, rather than just one person, to lead the Europe-wide campaign. The ALDE “Team Europe” consists of Nicola Beer, the lead European Parliamentary candidate from the FDP, Luis Garicano, the Ciudadanos (Spain) lead candidate, Emma Bonino, legendary Italian liberal, Katalin Cseh, from Momentum Hungary, Margrethe Vestager, currently the EU Commissioner for Competition, Violeta Bulc, the EU Commissioner for Transport, and Guy Verhofstadt, Leader of the ALDE Group in the European Parliament.
Team Europe’s Vestager to join Eurovision Debate
On 15 May, Team Europe’s Margrethe Vestager will join the Eurovision Presidential Debate, held in the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium.
The debate will focus on topics relevant to Europe’s future, bringing together leading candidates of all pan-European parties.
The debate will be televised and live-streamed on the day from 20.00 onwards.
You can find more information here.
You can also join the conversation on Twitter with hashtags #TellEurope and #TeamEurope.
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8 Comments
I do not understand the point, nor do I understand why there is not a specified lead candidate. I expect the debate will give the impression that Martgrethe Vestager is the Liberal nomination, however if in a subsequent debate there is someone else, it will look messy and (as we know from the Alliance days) journalists will play one representative off against another.
I do not think this tactic will increase the Liberal/ Democrat vote.
It is my impression that this unsatisfactory situation is linked to a lack of rapprochement with Macron’s En Marche, but even now the French party does not seem to have joined under the ALDE umbrella.
Presumably in the UK, the debates will be largely ignored in order to allow Brexit maniacs to continue to claim that there was no democratic process, but last time there certainly was a democratic process, I voted for Graham Watson who had promised his vote for Guy Verhofstad. I do hope that Liberal Democrat candidates will be able to spell out who they would support to be President of the Commission.
@ Martin,
There are two elements to this, I would suggest.
The whole “lead candidate” thing tends to throw up safe, but rather dull, technocrats from the two largest groups – the Christian Democrats and the Socialists. Manfred Weber, the EPP candidate, fits that mould very neatly. It also seeks to present a fait accompli to the European Council.
From a liberal perspective, it would be right to acknowledge that Guy Verhofstadt, our candidate last time, is a bit “marmite”, popular with the liberal ultras, loathed with a burning passion by our opponents. This way, liberals might offer a broader range of options to the European Council – an acceptable compromise if you like.
I happen to think that Margrethe Vestager would make a far better President of the Commission than Jean-Claude Juncker. She’s tough, has a track record and some recognition beyond the Brussels ring road.
I agree that plurality is a Liberal concept, but in this case it only reinforces stories about unelected leaders. If Margrethe Vestager is in the televised debates,it would be natural for people to expect their vote to be for her.
Without a lead candidate, we are ceding to the candidates that you describe as dull and technocratic. Actually, if is important that the president of the Commission is a technocrat, because that is the nature of the role. I think it illusory to expect it would be easy to find a better candidate than Juncker. He has been a marked improvement on his predecessor.
Mark:
You obviously know Margrethe Vestager’s qualities quite well, please use this forum to advocate her. Ignorance of EU political figures is chronically poor in the UK, anything to help remedy this has to be welcome.
Gina Miller has launched a website remainunited.org backed by research from Comres and electoral calculus – this suggests if 50% of Remain voters voted tactically for the leading Remain party of the Lib Dems, Change UK, Greens, SNP and Plaid Cymru it could boost the number of Remain MEPs elected by 60% from 10 to 16.
Short answer – in the England vote Lib Dem in all the English Regions. In Scotland vote SNP (one more SNP seat) and in Wales vote Plaid (although this doesn’t change the number in Wales)
https://www.remainunited.org/be-tactical/
While worth publicising further – especially in England!
To correct myself – in Wales Plaid are on target to win 0 seats if people vote tactically according to remainunited.org for Plaid they win a seat (and Labour go down from 2 to 1). Plaid did win a seat last time but it was very close who picked up the fourth and last seat
The whole “lead candidate” idea is a bit weird. It is not in any of the treaties. The commission and parliament are separate bodies, they are not like Westminster where the Executive sits in Parliament.
Using these elections to decide the commission head is rather like totalling up all the local election results and using them to decide who becomes the Prime Minister.
If we do remain in the EU, one of the things we should campaign for is direct elections for the commission. It might even have the benefit of familiarising Europeans with EU politics. I doubt people voting for their various national parties in 2014 were even aware they were casting a vote for Juncker. The European People’s Party didn’t even run any candidates in the UK.
Richard O’Neill:
The president of the Commission is more a chairman than a President and certainly lacks presidential powers, therefore direct elections would be entirely inappropriate; direct elections would imply an authority that would fundamentally change the character of teh EU. The principle centre of power in te EU is in the European Council, the council of heads of governments chaired by the president of the European Council, Donald Tusk.
I think the rationale for the European Parliament voting on a nomination for president of the Commission is that the president of the Commission is ultimately accountable to the parliament, and the parliament has the power to sack the president and commissioners
Other than in the UK, most people who took even a passing interest would have seen something of the televised debates between the respective candidates, therefore it would have been quite well known amongst those who had some political interest. The EPP cannot be blamed for the decision of Cameron (that man again) to take the Conservatives out of the EPP.
Richard O’Neill, you might favour a centralisation of politics akin to that of the USA, but yours would very much be a small minority view and not one likely to be taken up by the Liberal Democrats.
@Martin
What I’d say is that the lead candidate system implies that politics have been centralised. There aren’t European-wide political parties. This isn’t just a British thing. Germans vote for the CDU/CSU, Irish people for Fine Gael. Very few people in any countries vote European-wide. Have 1 in 10 conservative voters heard of the EPP? I doubt it. Very few people, in my experience, know about the lead candidate system (which I say again is not in any treaty).
Theoretically the Commission should really be akin to civil servants who are non political. But they aren’t. Juncker behaves like a politician, so it is hardly surprising he is treated like one. Weber, who personally I don’t mind, seems to be cut from the same cloth. I think there is too much duplication between President of the Commission and President of the Council, which also just muddies the water.
To be honest, if the EU is going to work it needs to have recognisable leaders. And the more direct voting for them the better. And I have to say the USA is one of the last countries I would hold up as an example of centralisation. Perhaps if Henry Clay had won the Presidency in the nineteenth century!