At last, a president of Europe we can (almost) vote for

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/26/president-europe-can-almost-vote-for

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EU citizens will go to the polls in a few weeks' time to elect the European parliament for the eighth time since 1979. At each successive election, turnout has declined, from 62% in the first vote, to just 43% in 2009. This year things are a little different. The pan-European political parties have, for the first time, selected their candidates for the post of European commission president. Many are painting the move as an attempt to engage more directly and coherently with voters, to boost turnout, and to mitigate the EU's much discussed democratic deficit.

The candidates are Jean-Claude Juncker (for the centre-right European People's party), Martin Schulz (for the centre-left Party of European Socialists), Guy Verhofstadt (for the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe), Alexis Tsipras (for the European Left party), and both Ska Keller and José Bové (for the European Green party). The Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists, the party with which the Tories are aligned, has declined to field a candidate on the grounds that the whole system presumes a European demos that does not exist.

The emergence of these candidates has been a curious phenomenon whose origins can be traced to an article of the Lisbon treaty promising that the commission president would be appointed "taking into account the elections to the European parliament".

The formal mechanism of appointing a commission president begins with the EU governments proposing a candidate to the parliament. The parliament then elects or rejects that candidate by a majority vote.

It remains unclear precisely what will happen following the elections. Prominent European leaders, including Angela Merkel, have rejected the idea that whichever party emerges with the most seats in the European parliament will simply have its candidate nominated for commission president. Historically, decisions about top EU posts have been taken behind closed doors with deals that balance various partisan, geographic, and gender concerns (see 2009).

Schulz has argued that this lack of transparency is precisely why the presidential candidate idea is important. But governments will not relinquish control so easily and, having scheduled an EU heads of government summit for 27 May, look set to swing into action quickly following the elections.

When we reflect on the impact of these candidates in the months to come the sceptics may be proven correct. EU elections remain second-order elections, to use a phrase from political science. National issues tend to dominate and a transnational political discussion about the future of the EU remains a distant prospect. It remains a distinct possibility that neither Juncker nor Schulz is named commission president.

However, gone are the days when it was acceptable to write off the EU's democratic deficit and to claim that other pathways to legitimacy were more appropriate. The argument used to go that because much of the EU's activity was highly technical and regulatory in character it could be legitimised via alternative mechanisms that stressed outputs, expertise, and efficiency. The eurozone crisis has made that position far less credible. The EU's power has expanded and those member states on the sharp end of the crisis are fully aware of the impact of policies decided in Brussels.

At this early stage of the campaign much remains up in the air. Yet clear divisions are emerging between the centre-left and centre-right party platforms on jobs, growth, austerity, and free movement. The presence of a voice such as Tsipras, offering a radical alternative to neoliberalism and austerity, should be welcomed if it serves to stimulate thoughtful reflection on the response to the crisis thus far. A series of televised debates between the candidates is planned. The potential exists for the campaign to make headlines in ways that previous ones failed to.

The EU is embroiled in a number of crises at present, one of which is a crisis of legitimacy. Presidential candidates will not resolve that but, dependent on how events unfold over the next two and a half months, could herald the start of a new type of transnational dialogue.

The European parliament's slogan for the 2014 elections is "This time it's different". When the dust settles in June it'll be interesting to see whether that phrase turns out to be more prophetic or pathetic.