(S)election of the PES top candidate for the European Elections

Policy Study

Learning from the past and looking ahead:

Considerable variables for an eventual innovation to a procedure of (s)electing top candidate by the PES

The electoral campaign of 2014 was a breakthrough. It saw a number of unprecedented innovations being introduced. Their protagonists were the Europarties – the European stakeholders, whose role and significance across the political processes have been heavily questioned for decades.

This paper is written as a contribution by FEPS to the discussion about how to safeguard the legacy of the past and move forward, ensuring that PES, together with all its members, remains the protagonist of more democratic, more inclusive and more transparent decision-making processes European Union. As such, its intention is to provide an input from the FEPS research programmes – among them the FEPS Next Left (established in 2009) and one on the Reform of the European Electoral law (which work has been concluded under chairing of Jo Leinen MEP since 2015). The clear objective remains to help map diverse existing questions and point towards possible solutions.