The European elections are the starting point for redefining EU leadership

Valencia (EP). The results of the European elections that will be known this Sunday night will not only redefine the distribution of seats between the main political forces. European UnionA possible victory for the right and a rise in populism and extremism, but also the beginning of negotiations between capitals to decide the distribution of senior positions in the main community institutions, i.e. The European CommissionHe European Union And this European Parliament,

The new European Chamber that will emerge from the elections will not be formally constituted until Tuesday, July 16, when the first plenary session of the new legislature begins in Strasbourg (France) and who will assume the presidency of the parliament will be named. A vote is held in the institution — in the first half of the legislature’s five-year term — and 14 vice-presidents are elected.

However, that name will be part of the balance that governments have had to agree on in the past weeks to ensure that senior EU officials (‘top jobs’ in Community jargon) respect a complex combination of political, geographical or gender balance.

The ‘populars’, whom all the polls show as the winners of Sunday’s elections, want to keep their candidate, the German Ursula von der Leyen, as head of the European Commission, which would meet the requirements to be put forward to relieve Roberta. Metsola, also ‘populars’ as head of the European Parliament, and the liberal Charles Michel when he leaves the European Council in December.

EU heads of state and government will first meet at an informal dinner in Brussels on 17 June to agree the basis of distribution, although in principle it is not expected that that meeting will reveal the names of the new ‘top jobs’, but rather the architecture of the new Commission and other balances.

The formal summit that will bring them together again in the Community capital on June 27 and 28 is the moment in which it is expected that the names of the candidates with a real chance of winning sufficient support will be put on the table of the European Council, which has the power to appoint them.

The initial calendar called for the European Commission presidency to be submitted to a vote of the plenary session of the European Parliament in its second session, in this case in the month of September, but it cannot now be ruled out that the vote is brought forward to the July constituent session if the person elected has enough solid support to guarantee that he will obtain the necessary majority in the European Parliament. In any case, the time of the vote will be decided by the Conference of Presidents, which will meet a week before the first plenary session to decide the agenda for the session.

Group Distribution

In any case, from Monday after 9-J, negotiations will also begin to form the European political groups that will make up the chambers, which parties and MEPs will make them up and which parliamentary commissions there will be.

It is expected that these elections will result in a European Parliament more fragmented by extremism and it remains to be seen if the extreme right-wing forces manage to unite in a single group or remain divided into two or more groups as happened in the previous legislature, when seven groups were created: the European People’s Party (EPP), the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D), Renew – which includes Ciudadanos and the PNV -, the Greens/European Free Alliance, the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) – -where Vox is located- -, Identity and Democracy (ID) and The Left – which frames Podemos and Izquierda Unida -.

Those MEPs left without a group become part of the ‘non-registered’, which has 62 members, plus seven more members since the recent expulsion of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) formation, followed by the formation of Identity and Democracy as head of the list. The European, Maximilian Kraah, believed that it could not be “automatically” assumed that everyone in Nazi Germany’s SS was a criminal.

Also ‘non-registered’ include the former president of the Generalitat, Carles Puigdemont, and his party, Junts per Catalunya, which was left without a group in the previous distribution, or Fidesz, formed by the Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, after the EPP suspended its membership due to the Budapest attacks against the EU.

Each group needs to have at least 23 members and represent at least a quarter of the 27 member states, although there is no term limit and the European Parliament’s rules do not prevent a group from being formed (or dissolved) in the middle of a session. If the legislature wants those groups to be taken into account when distributing commissions in the first session, they must be formed beforehand.

Commission chairmanship

Once the distribution of the European Chamber has been decided, the person nominated by the twenty-seven to preside over the European Commission will have to receive the support of an absolute majority of Parliament, i.e. the support of at least 361 of the 720 active MEPs. What remains is a secret ballot, yet to be determined whether it will be held in September or brought forward to July.

Immediately afterward, the College of Commissioners, together with a representative proposed by each Member State for the elected president of the Commission, will have to appear one by one before the parliamentary committees of their areas of responsibility, so the new Community executive is not expected to begin its tour until late October or early November.