Much Ado About Nothing? Assessing the Impact of the Spitzenkandidaten Process on EU Policy-Making

The introduction of the Spitzenkandidaten process has sparked a rich debate on the implications for the ‘input side’ of EU democracy. In contrast, a limited attention has been devoted to the corresponding ‘output side’. Have European Commission Presidents wielded their power differently depending on whether they assumed office as lead candidates of a transnational European party or not? This chapter seeks to address this gap by examining the track record of Commission Presidents after their elections. The assessment is performed along three dimensions of EU politics: executive-legislative relations, party politics and the institutional balance in the EU. Specifically, three presidential terms are being compared to isolate the effects of the Spitzenkandidaten process: the second term of José Manuel Barroso, the single term of Jean-Claude Juncker and the first term of Ursula von der Leyen. Empirically, the chapter triangulates different methods of data collection and analysis, both qualitative—such as documentary research, process-tracing and interviews—and quantitative—such as voting behaviour in the EP and the textual analysis of official documents. Based on the available evidence, the chapter concludes that a Spitzenkandidat at the helm of the Commission has changed some limited aspects of the decision-making process, creating greater opportunities to cooperation among the supranational institutions, but has not transformed the consensual style of EU decision-making.