You Spitzenkandidaten (leading candidates, in German) are nominated to head the European Commission by European parties in the run-up to the European Parliament elections since 2014.
The presidency of the European Commission, which has 27 members, one from each country, is chosen by heads of state and government and also requires a positive vote by a majority of the 720 MEPs, requiring political agreements between different parties.
In 2014, Luxembourger Jean-Claude Juncker took over as Commission President following a victory by the European People’s Party with 422 MEPs in favour, 250 against, 10 invalid votes and 47 abstentions in the vote held in July.
In 2019, the European People’s Party was again the party with the most votes, but its SpitzencandidateThe German Manfred Weber failed to achieve a majority in the European Parliament.
Berlin’s then defense minister Ursula von der Leyen became the compromise candidate and was elected with 383 votes in favor and 327 against, one zero vote and 22 abstentions, just 9 votes more than the 374 votes then required.
Commitments between the European People’s Party, the European Socialist Party and the Alliance Party of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (European Renewal Group) led to the Dutch socialist Frans Timmermans becoming one of the vice-presidents of the Commission, and the other being the Danish liberal Margrethe Vestager, and Spaniard Josep Borrell remained High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.
The presidency of the European Council, in turn, passed to the Belgian liberal Charles Michel, who replaced the Polish conservative Donald Tusk.
Who Spitzencandidaten?
The current president, Ursula von der Leyen, is a candidate for re-election from the European People’s Party (177 MEPs in the ninth legislature, combining SDP and CDS).
Von der Leyen was born in 1958 in Brussels, where her father was an employee of the European Economic Community. Since 1990 she has been a doctor and a member of the Christian Democratic Union.
She began her political career when she was elected to the Lower Saxony parliament in 2003, and took her first federal position two years later, when she was appointed Minister for Family and Youth Affairs in Angela Merkel’s first Christian Democratic Union government. and the European Union. The Union of Christian Socialists of Bavaria formed a coalition with the Social Democratic Party.
In 2009, he moved to the portfolio of labor and social affairs of Merkel’s second chief executive in a coalition with the liberals of the Free Democratic Party.
Following the 2013 elections, in which the conservatives renewed their alliance with the Social Democrats, von der Leyen became the first woman to head Berlin’s defense ministry.
The first woman to head the European Commission since the creation of the European Economic Community in 1957, von der Leyen is a Lutheran and married with five daughters and two sons.
Luxembourger Nicolas Schmit is the candidate of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats group, which includes the PS, the second-largest force in the European Parliament with 140 seats in the legislature following the May 2019 elections.
The current Commissioner for Employment and Social Rights, born in 1953, comes from Differdange, member of the Luxembourg Labor and Socialist Party and graduate of the Faculty of Economics.
Schmit began advising the Grand Duke’s government in 1979, and in 1983 became a member of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
In 1990, he was appointed to the Permanent Mission of Luxembourg to the Economic Commission for Europe, which he has headed since 1998.
He became Minister Delegate for Foreign Affairs and Immigration in 2004 and in 2009 took over the portfolio of Labour, Employment and Immigration in a coalition government with the Christian Social People’s Party led by conservative Jean-Claude Juncker.
After the 2013 elections, he retained the portfolio, now called the Ministry of Labour, Employment, Social Economy and Solidarity Economy, in the government of liberal Xavier Bettel of the Democratic Party, which also includes the Greens.
Member of the European Parliament since June 2019, he took up the post of Commissioner in December 2019.
Shmit is married and has four children.
First elected to the European Parliament in 2019, Frenchwoman Valerie Ayer is elected by the Renew Europe group (102 MEPs from 24 countries), which she has chaired since January this year, replacing her compatriot Stéphane Séjournet, who was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs. Affairs .
Born in 1986 in Château-Gontier into a farming family, she graduated in law and began her political career in 2008 as a municipal councilor for the centrist Alternative party.
Supporter of Emmanuel Macron, joins A Republica em Marcha (now Renascimento) party in 2017, fails to be elected as a deputy or senator in that year’s elections, but enters the European Parliament in 2019 as the nineteenth candidate on the party’s presidential list.
The member of the third largest group in the European Parliament, to which Maltese President Roberta Metsola belongs, is unmarried and has no children.
The Green/Free Europe Alliance, the fourth largest group with 72 MPs from 17 countries, including Francisco Guerreiro, represents two Spitzenkandidaten: German Terry Reintke and Dutchman Bas Eickhout.
Reintke was born in Gelsenkirchen in 1987, graduated in political science and is active in the Alliance 90/Greens.
She was first elected to the European Parliament in 2014, having previously held no political office in Germany.
He lives in a de facto union with French environmentalist senator Melanie Vogel and has no children.
Eickhout was born in 1976. He is a native of Groesbeek and is a member of EsquerdaVerde.
With a background in chemistry and ecology, Eickhout has been a member of the European Parliament since 2009.
He is the girl’s father.
Among the seven political groups in the European Parliament, whose constitution requires a minimum of 23 MPs and representation of at least seven member states, they still position themselves as Spitzenkandidaten Dane Anders Vistisen (Vridsted, 1987) from the Danish People’s Party from the Identity and Democracy Group (59 MEPs from 9 states, which Chega intends to join) and the Austrian communist Walter Bayer (Vienna, 1954) from the Left Group (37 MEPs from 18 countries, including Left Bloc and PKP).
The group of European conservatives and reformists (68 members of the European Parliament from 9 countries) does not nominate a candidate for the post of President of the Commission.
Among the 10 European parties recognized by the Office of European Political Parties and Political Foundations that do not form political groups in the European Parliament, two are present Spitzenkandidaten.
European Free Alliance, a European party with regional formations and 8 deputies, represents two Spitzenkandidaten: Mailis Rossberg (Westerland, 2000), representative of the Danish minority in Germany, and Catalan Raul Romeva (Madrid, 1971).
The Romanian-Moldovan Baptist pastor Valeriu Ghileschi (Pinzareni, 1960) is a candidate of the European Christian Political Movement, whose legislature had two Dutch, one German and one Romanian deputies.
The centrists of the European Democratic Party are finally integrated into the Renew Europe group.
Author: SATURDAY
Source: CM Jornal
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