Macron’s group in EU Parliament demands pan-European candidate lists – POLITICO

OSAKA, Japan — Renew Europe, the liberal-centrist group in the European Parliament backed by French President Emmanuel Macron, wants a commitment to allow transnational candidate lists in EU elections, the group's leader said Saturday.

Posting on Twitter, Romanian MEP Dacian Cioloş called on the next batch of EU leaders — the presidents of the Commission, Council and Parliament — to give a "clear commitment" to the transnational lists, which Macron and others say will create the possibility of genuine pan-European campaigns.

"EU citizens should have the right to choose who they consider as the most suitable for leading the European Commission," Cioloş wrote. The timing of his post, the day before a European Council on choosing new EU leaders, suggested that the liberals would make such a commitment a precondition for supporting any deal on a slate of nominees.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel suggested that a deal on a leadership package could be close at hand. Speaking at a news conference in Osaka at the end of a meeting of leaders of the G20 major economies, Merkel said she expected the deal would center on "the two real lead candidates" — a clear reference to German MEP Manfred Weber of her own European People's Party (EPP), and Commission First Vice President Frans Timmermans, of the Party of European Socialists.

Macron and other critics of the lead candidate or Spitzenkandidat system complained that it unfairly benefited the conservative EPP, in part because EPP leaders, including Weber, had reneged on a promise to create transnational candidate lists.

As a way of protesting the system, which was first used to select Jean-Claude Juncker in 2014, the liberals put forward a slate of seven candidates rather than a single nominee. After the European Parliament election was over, the liberals said that Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager of Denmark, who was one of the seven, would be their nominee. Merkel, however, seemed to exclude Vestager as not being a "real" lead candidate.

It is far from clear that the transnational lists would work out as supporters expect. Some critics have cautioned that they could benefit extremists more than mainstream candidates because it would allow fringe groups that might be a minority in one country to band together.

In addition, the transnational lists would clearly put larger, better organized parties at a major advantage — as well as parties anchored in the EU's largest countries — because they, too, would find it easier to organize and also easier to attract larger numbers of supporters.

Some political experts have noted there are other approaches that could help create a more Europe-wide campaign, including by simply creating transnational political movements that register parties in numerous EU countries and coordinate on strategy and messaging.

Macron re-fanned the flames of debate around the nature of EU voting this month when he questioned Weber's credentials to be Commission president, saying the German lacked experience. After a reporter challenged Macron over his own relative lack of experience when he was elected president in 2017, Macron suggested Weber's resume was insufficient because he had been elected as an MEP only in Germany, not by voters across the EU, a situation he compared unfavorably to his own election by voters across France.

The comment infuriated some other EU leaders and officials in the EPP who complained that Macron was simply unfamiliar with the coalition-style parliamentary politics that is prevalent in most EU countries but not in France.

Macron had pushed for the creation of transnational lists for this year's election, but Brussels was divided over the idea, and the European Parliamentvoted down the ideain February 2018. The legislation had called for some seats in Parliament to be allocated to such lists.

The push by Cioloş for a "clear commitment" could inject another unpredictable element into what is already a highly complex and combustible negotiating process to shape the future EU leadership. But it would be in keeping with Macron's insistence, which he repeated at a press conference in Osaka on Saturday, that the new leaders be judged more on their ability to carry out a policy agenda and less on nationality or party affiliation.

Source: Politico.eu

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