Time running out for transnational lists for 2029 Euro-elections

Just over a year has passed since the European elections of 2024, and once again, the results confirmed a stubborn trend: an insufficient European dimension of the electoral process.

Despite the existence of candidates for president of the European Commission, their visibility remained limited.

The so-called 'Spitzenkandidaten' process continues to struggle not only with institutional resistance, but with a structural flaw: citizens can hardly vote in a truly European election. They vote in 27 parallel national elections.

This is not a matter of conjecture.

According to a 2024 Eurobarometer survey, only 15 percent of respondents could correctly name any lead candidate for the commission presidency.

Studies by the European Parliamentary Research Service and the European University Institute have repeatedly shown that citizens tend to vote based on national agendas, national parties, and national leaders.

This is not intrinsically wrong; however, the European dimension of the election is small and does not filter much through the national narratives. There are institutional and political explanations for this.

But there is also a systemic cause: the absence of a genuine European electoral space. As long as citizens are only allowed to vote for national parties, from national lists, presented by national actors, using national symbols, it is unrealistic to expect a European public debate.

That is why the introduction of European lists is not only a matter of symbolic Europeanisation. It is needed for the emergence of a true European demos.

The origins of the European idea

The proposal for European lists is not new. It dates to the mid-1990s when Andrew Duff, among others, laid out the conceptual foundations for a European constituency.

The idea was to reserve a portion of the seats in the European Parliament for candidates elected from pan-European lists presented by European political parties.

This idea was first translated into a legislative initiative in 1998 with the Anastassopoulos report, but it failed to gather a majority of MEPs.

Duff later returned to the issue with two successive legislative proposals — known informally as “Duff I” and “Duff II” — tabled in 2011 and 2012, respectively.

Both versions sought to introduce a pan-European constituency that would elect 25 MEPs via transnational party lists, supplementing the national quotas. Although the Constitutional Affairs committee supported the Duff reports, their progress was stymied in the plenary of the European Parliament. 

A few years later, the 2015 report by Jo Leinen and Danuta Hübner once again took up the idea.

Their report proposed to reserve a number of seats for European lists and to link them to the nomination of the commission president. For the first time, the plenary of Parliament backed the concept.

However, under pressure from several Member States, the Council removed this provision before adopting the final text.

A breakthrough in 2022

In May 2022, the EU parliament approved the Ruiz Devesa report for a reform of the European electoral law. For the first time, the plenary supported the idea of European lists fully developed in legal terms. It included the creation of a Union-wide constituency with twenty-eight seats to be distributed proportionally among European lists put forward by European political entities.

These lists would be led by candidates for president of the commission, thereby making the Spitzenkandidaten process more visible and politically consequential.

It was supported by five political groups: EPP, S&D, Renew, Greens, and the Left. This was not a symbolic vote. It was a formal legislative initiative under Article 223 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, which gives the parliament the right to propose changes to the European electoral system.

However, more than two years later, the Council has yet to begin negotiations with Parliament on this file.

This silence is not merely disappointing. It is unacceptable.

Article 223 requires that such proposals be approved “unanimously by the Council, after obtaining the consent of the European Parliament.”

Parliament has done its part. The Council has not.

Time is running out

Already in the previous term, the European Council, representing EU member states, argued there was no time to agree on a text before the 2024 elections.

If the reformed system is to be applied in the next European elections, in 2029, the legal framework must be adopted well in advance.

Electoral reforms require transposition into national law, often with constitutional implications. Political parties need time to prepare and campaign. Citizens deserve a clear and transparent process.

The window of action is closing. If negotiations between EU member states and MEPs do not begin in the coming months, once again, there will be no chance of having European lists in 2029. That would mean missing, once again, a historic opportunity to finally give European elections a truly European dimension — and to strengthen the link between citizens and European institutions at a time when that bond is under growing strain.

Introducing European lists would not solve all the challenges of European democracy. But it would help reframe the conversation. It would allow voters to compare visions for Europe across borders. It would give European political parties a real role. And it would make the campaign for the Commission presidency more visible and competitive.

Too complex, too premature?

Opposition to European lists often hides behind procedural arguments: it’s too complex, it’s premature, it would require treaty change (which it does not, the Council Legal Service itself has confirmed).

But the real resistance is political. Some national governments fear that Europeanising the election would dilute their influence. Some fear that it will empower European parties that they cannot control. Others simply do not want to take the risk of change.

Moreover, critics offer no alternative but the status quo. But the status quo is not acceptable. It perpetuates a structural disconnect between the Union and its citizens. It weakens the European Parliament. And it undermines the Spitzenkandidaten process, which was created precisely to personalise and democratise European elections.

The creation of European lists is not a technical detail. It is a political act. It is about acknowledging that we share a political space and that democracy at European level requires European tools.

Without pan-European lists, federal political parties will not emerge, leaving us with the synthetic and impotent 'European parties' that we have had since 1979. 

We must develop a continental democratic debate on the management of European public goods with unity, togetherness, and a sense of purpose.

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