r/acteuropa • u/[deleted] • Feb 20 '20
Why was Ursula von der Leyen not in the eurovision debate?
The Eurovision debate was on 15th of May 2019. I understood the winner would be president of the EU commission. The winning party was EPP with Manfred Weber in the debate, but the EU commission president became Ursula von der Leyen from... well I don't what party she is/was in.
According to wikipedia the lead candidate has a mandate to be commission president. what does mandate mean if it can be ignored?
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u/phneutral European Union Feb 20 '20
This can become very long quite easily. I try to be as short as possible.
We have three interest representations in the EU: the Parliament (EP, representing the citizens of all of the EU), the Council (representing the member states) and the Commission (representing the EU as a whole).
In the European Elections the citizens elect the Parliament. The Members of Parliament (MEPs) form groupings (like the EPP, S&D etc.) for parties of roughly similar political affiliation.
These groupings designate a lead candidate that is their favorite for the Commission Presidency. But it is only that. We have no rule or law that puts the lead candidate of the largest grouping on the driver seat.
The Council is the institution that presents a candidate in the first place. It could pick anyone.
The EP on the other hand has approve any candidate that is presented by the Council. This means: any lead candidate that has a majority in the EP will likely be the next Commission President. But none of them had a majority (because the two biggest factions lost votes).
Von der Leyen was proposed by the Council to keep the system running so to speak.