For anyone who thinks the European Union is in trouble, that it is a noble idea now reaching its expiry date, the allocation of the EU’s top jobs gives them another chance to say “I told you so.” The process was fraught, riven by infighting and power plays.
Only on Tuesday night, European time, five weeks after the process started, did the winning slate of candidates emerge. The names were largely unexpected, an indication that compromise among EU leaders had forced out a few of the early big-name front-runners.
Every five years, after the EU elections, which were held in May, the EU goes through the convoluted process of picking the leaders of its most powerful institutions. The Big Five positions are president of the European Commission (the EU’s executive arm, now held by Luxembourg’s Jean-Claude Juncker); president of the European Parliament (the only directly elected EU institution); president of the European Council (made up of the leaders of the EU’s 28 member states – 27 after Brexit); president of the European Central Bank (ECB); and High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (the EU’s foreign minister).
Four of the five were picked by the EU leaders, leaving only the EU Parliament’s presidency unknown. The candidate for commission president was Ursula von der Leyen, Germany’s Defence Minister and long-time ally of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. If she is confirmed by the EU Parliament, she will become the first woman to run the commission.
France’s Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, was the surprise nominee to lead the ECB, replacing Italy’s Mario Draghi; she is not an economist and the job normally goes to economists. The council elected Charles Michel, Belgium’s liberal Prime Minister, as its new president. Rounding out the package was Spanish socialist Josep Borrell Fontelles, a former president of the EU Parliament, who was nominated as the EU’s foreign minister.
As the talks dragged on over the weeks, everyone grew frustrated, notably French President Emmanuel Macron. His own solution to the mess, concocted with Ms. Merkel, died a quick death. “Our credibility is profoundly tainted with these meetings that are too long and lead to nothing,” he said on Monday after overnight negotiations in Brussels that went nowhere. “We give an image of Europe that isn’t serious. We cannot hold talks with world leaders, in an ever more violent world, and be a club that meets at 28 [EU members] without ever deciding anything.”
The selection of the EU leaders is not an exercise in democracy – EU citizens have no vote on the appointments. It is an exercise in backdoor deals, politely known as “compromise.” Since the beginning of the EU’s time, the negotiations have never been easy, but this year’s edition proved particularly strained. The exasperating talks in good part reflected the fragmented, almost warring, state of the EU.
The EU parliamentary elections broke the old power balance between the centre-right and the centre-left political blocs, which dominated the legislature since elections were first held in 1979.
The rising stars in the spring elections were the populist-nationalists, the Greens and the liberals, leaving no group with a majority. The illiberal democracies in the east, such as Hungary, had no interest in seeing pro-Europe, pro-migrant, free-trading liberals take the top posts. Populist, Euroskeptic Italy had no interest in seeing the traditional German-French axis divvy up the spoils, as it has almost always done. The centre-right European People’s Party (EPP), which remains the single biggest group in Parliament, couldn’t seem to accept that it’s a waning force and still insisted on having an outsized say in picking the winners. And so on.
EU outsiders – and a huge portion of EU citizens themselves – always have trouble understanding the job-allocation show, which only increases the suspicions that the European Union is essentially dysfunctional. Ask anyone to explain the difference between the EU Commission, Council and Parliament and how they are involved in the job-picking process and you will get a blank stare. It’s hard to tell who is actually in charge of what in the EU.
But here goes, in vastly simplified form. The European Council selects the candidates for the top jobs – the most powerful one being president of the European Commission – after which the nominees are approved by Parliament. But since 2014, the EU Parliament has insisted that the council pick the candidate for commission chief from the parliamentary group with the most seats, in this case the EPP.
The convoluted process reinforced the Euroskeptic populist view that the EU is run by unelected elites, typically of the Western European variety (as each of Tuesday’s four names were) who don’t recognize that Europe’s political tectonic plates are shifting rather rapidly. The Brexiters, of course, held up the bedlam as evidence that Britain is better off without the EU.
By Tuesday evening, the logjam was finally broken. Sheer weariness and frustration appeared to have produced names who are disliked by the fewest power brokers.
An earlier near-agreement saw Ms. Merkel and Mr. Macron support Frans Timmermans, a Dutch social democrat, for commission president. Normally, Ms. Merkel would have endorsed a conservative from Parliament’s EPP bloc, but she appears to have supported Mr. Timmermans out of respect for Mr. Macron – another indication that her role as Europe’s most powerful politician is coming to an end. But many EU leaders, especially those from Eastern Europe, objected to Mr. Timmermans and his liberal values and he didn’t make the cut.
The top jobs were filled because they had to be. But the whole gory process left many Europeans with the feeling that there has to be a better way to run the EU, one that comes with more democracy and transparency and less backroom horse-trading.
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Eric Reguly