MEPs debate on proposals for the lead candidate system ahead of the 2024 elections, after the vote was postponed at November’s plenary session, to allow for more time for deliberation. The proposition includes a mechanism to elect the Commission President, as well as ways to increase turnout and enhance democratic processes. Opening statements by Domènec RUIZ DEVESA (S&D, ES) and Sven SIMON (EPP, DE), Rapporteurs and Paolo GENTILONI, European Commissioner for Economy. The transcription is the result of an automatic process. Please, check against delivery.

statement

Strasbourg

debate

plenary session

GENTILONI, Paolo (IT, EC)

election

RUIZ DEVESA, Domènec (S&D, ES)

SIMON, Sven (EPP, DE)

2024 European elections (T)

Delivery EE2024 (T)

The European Elections 2024: opening statements by Domènec RUIZ DEVESA (S&D, ES) and Sven SIMON (EPP, DE), Rapporteurs and Paolo GENTILONI, European Commissioner for Economy

https://api.multimedia.europarl.europa.eu/documents/20125/73774466/1701967771317_I250301Chapters%5BSD-EN%5D.srt

SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Dom&egrave;nec RUIZ DEVESA (S&amp;D, ES), Rapporteur, 'Thank you. Mr. President. Thank you, Commissioner Gentiloni, for being here on behalf of the Commission. Also, I would like to thank my co-rapporteurs, Mr. Simon, from the EPP and the shadow rapporteurs, Sandro Gozi from Renew, and Daniel Freund from the Greens, Helmut Scholz from the Left for their very constructive and cooperative attitude.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Domènec RUIZ DEVESA (S&D, ES), Rapporteur, I think that we put together a good report at a crucial time. It's a report on the next European Elections to be held in June 2024, and they are taking place after a particularly significant legislature for the European Union. It's a five year period during which we had to face the Coronavirus pandemic. And since February last year, Putin's war of aggression in Ukraine.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Domènec RUIZ DEVESA (S&D, ES), Rapporteur, And I think we can say that the institutions, and indeed the European Parliament, have played their role. We've started to set up a European Health union, with the vaccine purchase plan, and Recovery Plan to try to get our economies growing again.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Domènec RUIZ DEVESA (S&D, ES), Rapporteur, And during the war, we've strengthened our security and defence position and our energy union. And in the middle of all of this, we held the conference on the future of Europe and we launched an EP proposal to activate a procedure to renew the treaties. This is a reform which is unavoidable as we move towards a further phase of enlargement.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Domènec RUIZ DEVESA (S&D, ES), Rapporteur, So the next elections to the European Parliament need to have as a goal to assess these five years of activity in our European institutions in a genuine political and democratic exercise in Europe, and not simply a collection of 27 parallel but separate national elections which are decided on domestic issues within the individual member states.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Domènec RUIZ DEVESA (S&D, ES), Rapporteur, So it's more necessary than ever that we europeanised this debate and stimulate citizen participation in the euro elections. So, we call upon European political parties, the national ones in particular, to commit themselves, for example, to strengthen the visibility of political parties, European political parties, including their logos and names in the brochures that national parties put out and in the various parts of the European hustings.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Domènec RUIZ DEVESA (S&D, ES), Rapporteur, Also, we want to make certain that they respect the values in Article two of the Treaty and that they nominate and appoint their candidates democratically, that they are consistent with the electoral mandate reaching agreement as to how to develop the post electoral procedure for the election of the future President of the European Commission. That's why we think it's important.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Domènec RUIZ DEVESA (S&D, ES), Rapporteur, That unlike what happened in 2019, we can make sure that the lead candidate principle is actually adhered to when it comes to choosing a president of the commission. That means a commitment from ourselves. So we are proposing that it be the candidate that begins the political group which gets most seats in the elections would have the possibility of launching the negotiations with the other groups to see whether we can put together a sufficient majority.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Domènec RUIZ DEVESA (S&D, ES), Rapporteur, If not, then the candidate from the second biggest group, etc., etc. would try the same thing. If the procedure goes as we hope Parliament might, as happened in 2014, have a single candidate to submit to council and that the President of our Parliament would have the task of forwarding that name to the Council.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Domènec RUIZ DEVESA (S&D, ES), Rapporteur, So we mustn't let this opportunity slip. We must not make the mistake of 2019 again. And I call upon the House and colleagues to back this report, which wants to further europeanised the European elections while maintaining this vital process, allowing electors to express a preference, as well over who would be the President of the European Commission. Thank you, President.

SOUNDBITE (German) Sven SIMON (EPP, DE), Rapporteur, President. Ladies and gentlemen, colleagues, following the 2019 European elections, very many people were disappointed. The parties came forward or went into elections to lead candidates. And then something happened that really has to be described as irresponsible in democratic terms. The Socialists did not recognise the lead candidate of the EPP, although the lead candidate of the EPP won the elections. The Liberals for days couldn't be reached because at the level of council they were pursuing other ideas.

SOUNDBITE (German) Sven SIMON (EPP, DE), Rapporteur, 'We can be happy that the president of the Commission, who ended up being elected, turned out to be a very lucky choice for the European Union, as she took up vigorously the issue of the pandemic, making sure that vaccines were readily available, although the EU actually wasn't responsible. And in the terrible war of aggression launched by Russia against Ukraine, she kept us together as Europeans and did what she could. Ursula von der Leyen, in the true sense of the world, gave Europe a face. We are well-represented in her and we can look the rest of the world in the eye.

SOUNDBITE (German) Sven SIMON (EPP, DE), Rapporteur, And yet we have got to be able to better organise the procedure following the European elections on the 9th of June. And that is the purpose of the report submitted today. Voting has to mean something. The upshot of the election on the 9th of June therefore has to have an impact on the choice of the Commission President. That's the purpose of the lead candidate system showing your face so that you can be elected into office but elected out of office too.

SOUNDBITE (German) Sven SIMON (EPP, DE), Rapporteur, But unfortunately, the European elections have no influence on the composition of the European Commission. As I see it that is a design fault in the Lisbon Treaty. It's all the more important, therefore, that we stick to the procedure that is outlined in this the report.

SOUNDBITE (German) Sven SIMON (EPP, DE), Rapporteur, The report is firstly a negotiating brief for reaching agreement with the Council and secondly, we expect the European parties to go into the elections with a lead candidate, a man or woman, and that they appoint such a candidate. And the responsibility for negotiating following the elections has to be given to the candidate who can rally the biggest group within the European Parliament, appoint, hand him or her.

SOUNDBITE (German) Sven SIMON (EPP, DE), Rapporteur, And if that is not possible, if that doesn't work, then the brief is passed on to the second largest group in the Union Parliament. We have to breathe life into the principles of parliamentary democracy. We are facing huge challenges that no country can face alone and we've got to be able to defend ourselves and Europe. Internal and external security People expect us to put an end to illegal mass migration, put an end to deaths in the Mediterranean.

SOUNDBITE (German) Sven SIMON (EPP, DE), Rapporteur, It's not the smugglers who should be deciding who arrives in Europe. Europe has to be competitive. We've got to renew our promises of prosperity. We need European leadership. We need global standards when it comes to shaping the digital transformation, the Green Deal is something that we need to develop further. In order to do all these things following European elections, we need a proper procedure, a procedure that is described in this report, and the European Union has to be able to be viable institutionally.

SOUNDBITE (German) Sven SIMON (EPP, DE), Rapporteur, We need that for a change to the treaty so that those who hold responsibility within Europe are more visible. And that is why we need some kind of agreement amongst the Democrats, because in Europe, casting your vote has to mean something. It has to count, which is why I appeal to you to support the report.

SOUNDBITE (English),  Paolo GENTILONI, European Commissioner for Economy, Chair Honourable Members, thank you for the opportunity to join you today  in this debate on the important report for the next elections. Democracy is about our individual right to be heard, but democracy is also our collective responsibility. Every new generation is responsible to keep our democracy, help make it more representative, inclusive, to protect it from internal and external threats, and to guarantee checks and balances on power.

SOUNDBITE (English),  Paolo GENTILONI, European Commissioner for Economy, The Commission launched what we call the new push for European democracy. Our objectives in that sense could not be better aligned with the parliaments to strengthen European democracy at the next election, to promote citizen participation and enfranchisement, and to promote institutional resilience.

SOUNDBITE (English),  Paolo GENTILONI, European Commissioner for Economy, A focus has been on empowering citizens to participate and engage on elections tomorrow on the college agenda as part of the Defence of Democracy package. There is a recommendation on resilient and inclusive election processes. A particular focus will be on promoting the participation of all groups and addressing their specific needs. This recommendation is intended to support Member States and political parties preparedness to foster trust in our elections.

SOUNDBITE (English),  Paolo GENTILONI, European Commissioner for Economy, It will also support the effective exercise of electoral rights, the European dimension of the elections to the European Parliament to promote election integrity and fair campaigning, election observation, as well as addressed cyber risks, hybrid threats and protection of the information environment around elections.

SOUNDBITE (English),  Paolo GENTILONI, European Commissioner for Economy, We will also be promoting voluntary commitments from political parties to implement a high standard of transparency and respect for fundamental rights and inclusion in the conduct of the elections. Reaching out to citizens is key. We do so by directly addressing citizens, for example, through EU wide get out to vote campaigns by providing common EU channels for informing citizens where and how to register and vote, and spreading best practices, for instance, for citizens with a disability.

SOUNDBITE (English),  Paolo GENTILONI, European Commissioner for Economy, 'The Commission has just announced a guide of good electoral practices for persons with disabilities and a compendium on e-voting and active practices in electoral processes. We also co-organised with the Parliament recently a tabletop exercise on cybersecurity in election. We are dedicated to facilitating a dialogue at all institutional levels. The European Cooperation Network on Elections, or our recent high level event on elections, help bring together Member States with competence in electoral matters to exchange best practices.

SOUNDBITE (English),  Paolo GENTILONI, European Commissioner for Economy, Within this network, the Commission established the Joint Mechanism for Electoral Resilience. Initiative, supporting Member States as capacity building tool to facilitate the exchange of expertise in areas such as disinformation, cybersecurity and online forensic.

SOUNDBITE (English),  Paolo GENTILONI, European Commissioner for Economy, 'Framed by the Commission's European Democracy Action Plan, the report on the 2019 European elections and our European Citizenship Report, we have issued a number of proposals to strengthen the European dimension and resilience of our democracy. This includes the regulation on the transparency and targeting of political advertising, which, thanks to the work of the co-legislator, can become law already ahead of the elections.

SOUNDBITE (English),  Paolo GENTILONI, European Commissioner for Economy, We have proposed to recast the directives which provide detailed arrangements for mobile EU citizens to exercise their rights to vote in the European and local elections in their Member States of residence. I am very encouraged that the Council has put these fights back on the agenda and I understand that discussions are making progress.

SOUNDBITE (English),  Paolo GENTILONI, European Commissioner for Economy, I would also name our proposal on the statute and funding of European political parties and foundations. The Media Freedom Act and our work to protect journalists from strategic lawsuits, aim at silencing critical voices as well as the Digital Service Act.

SOUNDBITE (English),  Paolo GENTILONI, European Commissioner for Economy, One important common thread with this measure has been transparency. Citizens deserve to know where the information that they get comes from and who pays for it. Finally, linked to this, we are finalising our defence of democracy package with the goal to bring covert foreign influence to light. The college will put it forward tomorrow and it will be presented in this hemicycle shortly after. Thank you.