Presidential debate, the role of the next EU Commission proved crucial

This time the television debate was “men-only”. Held in Florence, the discussion among the four candidates to the European Commission Presidency has seen José Bové as candidate for Greens instead of Ska Keller (they do have two candidates, one for each gender). On the other three posts, the Luxembourgian Jean-Claude Juncker for Populars, the German Martin Schulz for Socialists and Guy Verhofstadt for Liberals. Even this time the Greek Alexis Tsipras, leader of the Left United, has decided – quite short-sightedly – to decline the invitation. In addition, the debate was held in Italy, where the visibility of the list supporting him is very poor in the media. We’ll have to wait until May 15 for seeing him in a public debate.

With a live broadcast on RaiNews24, into the initiative “The State of the Union” organized by the European University Institute, the candidates had the possibility to debate about their views of Europe and the European institutions. The first thing on which they all agreed is that, whichever the result of the elections, it is one of them who is going to become President of the Commission. “We cannot accept to have someone else there. It would mean the end of democracy – let’s close the doors of the Parliament then,” said the ever-brilliant Verhofstadt. According to the leader of Liberals, the President needs to be chosen among those “able to collect the majority of the votes by the Parliament.” This was something on which Juncker did not agree – he said something he’s been saying for a long time. According to Juncker, the party with relative majority (that is, his party, according to the latest polls) should get the Presidency. “In Germany for instance, even with a lower percentage of votes, no one would have said that Ms Merkel was not the chosen candidate. This is democracy,” added Juncker. Schulz avoid such a directness, without giving an explicit support to one idea or the other – perhaps he’s waiting for the electoral results to decide which theory is the more convenient to him.

The thing on which there was no consensus dealt with the role of the new President of the Commission: Juncker acted as champion of the status quo, of the “mediation body”, while the others attacked him (and Barroso), calling for a more resourceful role for the institution. “The European Commission is the only institutional body with powers of initiative,” said Verhofstadt, “and it shall use that resource.” Were Schulz to be elected “with a qualified majority”, he would have “the power to choose the Commission I want, and that would be a political one. This is the only way to give democracy to Europe and I am confident Member States will be on my side,” said Schulz, with little belief to be honest. “Even Barroso was a political President, yet he did not want to act, he did not have the ability of challenging Member States, proposing just the minimum staff he was sure every state would have accepted,” resounded Bové. Very calm indeed, Juncker said that the President of the Commission “cannot be a supporter of a single side, he shall pursue the general interest, as suggested by Jacques Delors.”

Then, we will have to wait until June to discover which will be the winning position – and whether the doors of the European Parliament would be kept open.