President Miliband?

By Joe Kirwin / @joekirwin

The 2014 European parliamentary elections could possibly be the most exciting European elections since… ever, as we will potentially be electing a President of the European Commission, as well as MEPs.

Article 17 of the Lisbon treaty enables the European Parliament to elect the Commission President, based on the proposal of the European Council. This is nothing new. What is new (and interesting) is that the Council’s candidate must take into account the European elections.

As a result many European political parties are planning on selecting their Presidential candidates in advance of the 2014 election, effectively giving national parties a European leader and turning a parliamentary election into a presidential election. The Party of European Socialists (PES) made the decision that PES would designate its own candidate before the 2014 European elections. This could have drastic effect on results across Europe depending on the candidates.

PES (not to be confused with the parliamentary group the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats) has not yet decided on the process for selecting a candidate. A campaign was launched by PES Activists for a primary in June 2010. As a result the PES Council meeting of December 2010 decided to set up a working Group “Candidate 2014” in charge of proposing a procedure and timetable for a “democratic” and “transparent” designation process that promised to involve party members across from across Europe at all levels.

Possible presidential PES candidates for 2014 include:

David Miliband – MP for South Shields since 2001, former Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs from 2007 to 2010. Declined to become a candidate for the EU High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.

Martin Schulz – German politician and Member of the European Parliament for the Social Democratic Party of Germany, since 2004 leader of the Socialists in the European Parliament Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the Parliament

José Luis Zapatero – Spanish Prime Minister since 2004, who announced that he will be stepping down ahead of the general election in 2012.

Margot Wallström – Swedish social democratic, currently first Vice Presidents of the European Commission, also currently the European Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) on Sexual Violence in Conflict. Prior to this post, she served as European Commissioner for Institutional Relations and Communication Strategy.