Wanted: Fresh blood in the European Parliament

With elections scheduled for later this month, Europeans deserve better than a choice between two dull Italian politicians and a veteran Belgian federalist out of synch with public opinion as the next president of the European Parliament.

Martin Schulz leaves large shoes to be filled after five years as the face and voice of the institution. The German Social Democrat raised Parliament’s profile and increased its leverage in EU policymaking.

The former bookseller achieved notoriety, partly because of a public clash with former Italian leader Silvio Berlusconi whose conflicts of interest as owner of a media empire Schulz dared to criticize to his face in 2003. Berlusconi lost his temper and compared Schulz to a Nazi concentration camp guard before having to apologize.

Schulz transformed the role of Parliament president from that of a dignified frontman for a collective leadership into a real player in the complex power matrix of the European Union.

He had a key role in imposing the system of Spitzenkandidaten, under which the leading candidate of the party that tops the European elections is nominated as European Commission president. EU leaders gritted their teeth and swallowed that in 2014, though some are itching to scrap the procedure next time.

There must be better options to lead Europe’s elected assembly over the next two-and-a-half years.

If Parliament were to choose any of the three leading contenders to succeed Schulz — Italian conservative Antonio Tajani, Italian socialist Gianni Pittella and liberal former Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt — it would risk throwing away the gains of his exceptional five-year tenure.

Shortlist comes up short

There must be better options to lead Europe’s elected assembly over the next two-and-a-half years, which will be dominated by battles over Britain’s exit from the EU and the way forward for the remaining 27-nation Union.

Neither Tajani, a former journalist and spokesman for the now disgraced Berlusconi, who sent him to Brussels as EU commissioner for transport, industry and entrepreneurship, nor Pittella, a hereditary centre-left politician from Italy’s poorest region who has the manner of an avuncular doctor, has the required profile.

They are fixers rather than leaders. A victory for either would most likely emerge from the kind of backroom deal that does much to discredit the notion of pan-European democracy.

Pittella, 58, has no such ethical cloud over his head, but his political achievements could be written on the back of a postage stamp.

Tajani, 63, who won the nomination of the center-right European People’s Party, the largest parliamentary group, without convincing many even in his own group of his suitability, faces potential censure by a parliamentary inquiry into Volkswagen’s cheating on carbon dioxide emissions tests.

A draft report last month accused the Commission of negligence on Tajani’s watch in ignoring evidence from its own Joint Research Centre to avoid burdening the automobile industry. That hardly qualifies him to represent an institution where environmental concerns play an important role. If he wins, it will be based on the spoils system. Not on merit.

Pittella, 58, has no such ethical cloud over his head, but his political achievements could be written on the back of a postage stamp. Furthermore, Pittella’s decision to seek the job runs against an agreement signed by his Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D) with the EPP, under which each of the two main political groups would hold the presidency for half of the five-year term.

The EPP has since captured the two other major EU presidencies — Jean-Claude Juncker at the Commission and Donald Tusk at the European Council — so there may be some justification for departing from the original deal.

The pro-European “grand coalition,” which Verhofstadt’s Alliance of Liberals and Democrats (ALDE) later joined to bag a share of committee posts, was forged after a surge in support for Euroskeptics who topped the poll in Britain, France and Denmark in the 2014 European elections.

The drawback of the arrangement is that it drains the chamber of the adversarial left-right debate that is the lifeblood of democracy and a firewall against the extremes. Most issues, including approving nominees for commissioner jobs and holding them to account for screw-ups as well as legislative amendments, are stitched up behind closed doors by the main groups.

If the case against choosing Tajani or Pittella is clear, why not Verhofstadt? There is no doubt that the Flemish liberal, in frontline politics since the 1980s, has the charisma, multilingual communication skills and experience for the job. He was prime minister for nearly a decade from 1999 to 2008, keeping Belgian public finances on an even keel while preserving pensions, shaving the tax burden and legalizing gay marriage and euthanasia.

Outgoing President Martin Schulz | Thierry Charlier/AFP via Getty Images

The problem with Verhofstadt, 63, is that he is an old-school European federalist who aspires to create a “United States of Europe” –— the title of one of his books — at a time when voters in most EU countries, including the core founder states, France and Germany, are strongly opposed to pooling more sovereignty or giving more power to the Brussels institutions.

That is why he failed to secure the presidency of the European Commission in 2004 despite the support of Paris and Berlin. To choose a man whose response to each new crisis or setback for the EU is to call for “more Europe” would be a gift to Euroskeptics. Verhofstadt already has an important role as Parliament’s representative in the Brexit negotiations. He should stick with that.

An injection of youth

So if none of the three frontrunners deserves the job, who does?

First, let’s think about the process. Is it utopian to suggest Europe would be better served if Parliament’s top talents could put forward their candidacy and a platform before party machines confiscate the process? True, Schulz might not have got the job that way, but desperate times call for desperate measures to regain public confidence in the EU.

The job description should be: a pro-European who embodies the public desire for an EU that delivers on the essentials but doesn’t meddle in everything.

Second, consider the lesson from recent elections around Europe and beyond. Voters are frustrated with the old guard and are looking for new faces and new ideas. In the European Parliament, too, isn’t it time to give younger talents a shot at the top job? And in an EU hierarchy stuffed with men in gray suits, why not a woman for the first time in 15 years?

The job description should be: a pro-European who embodies the public desire for an EU that delivers on the essentials but doesn’t meddle in everything; someone who can communicate well in the main EU languages — English, French, German and preferably Italian and Spanish, too — and who cares more about outcomes than about self-aggrandizing power grabs by the legislature; someone who is willing to work more closely with national parliaments rather than insisting that the EP alone embodies popular legitimacy on European issues.

Europe needs fresh young leaders to revive its brand.

Given the “Tammany Hall” nature of European Parliament politics, there is depressingly little chance of this plea being heard, unless deal-making breaks down and there is a deadlock on the floor of the house on January 17. Let’s hope for such a wild card.

Paul Taylor writes POLITICO‘s Europe At Large column