The Spitzenkandidaten Process – An Attempt To Europeanise Elections Or A Tool To Influence The Political System Of The European Union?

Abstract

The aim of the article is to investigatehow a change in the election method of the President of the European Commission influenced of the political system of the European Union.Given the 2014 election results and the consequences of actions taken by the European Council in 2019, a question arises: what opportunities did the party families hope to be brought by The Spitzenkandiaten process? Did it strengthen cooperation among national parties belonging to the same European party during the campaign? How has the role of the European parties in the EU’s political system changed? What attitude to The Spitzenkandiaten process did individual European party families display? Has this process exacerbated turf wars between institutions? The purpose of the considerations made in the article is to verify the following hypotheses: H1: The Spitzenkandidaten process was an attempt of strong party families to gain influence in the EU executive. H2: Changes to the election method of the President of the European Commission introduced in 2014 led to the changes in the European parties functions within the EU’s political system. During the studies, the author used the method of in-depth interviews with individual representatives of the European People’s Party (EPP), the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (PES), and the Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists (ACRE). Twenty-five interviews were conducted..