[logifail]

> no need to bleed political capital

I'm not sure the EU needs to worry about political capital in the way that many national and regional governments do. Power moves through negotiations between institutions, party groups, lobbyists, activists, and heads of government rather than through anything voters can trace. If one is being unkind, it's basically backroom deals all the way down. Naturally, the EU has more respectable terms for this sort of thing, like "trilogue".

Look at how the President of the European Commission got her job in 2019 - there was an election campaign in which major parties presented lead candidates for the post and she wasn't one of them, then post-election - ta da - she's nominiated for the post and there's a confirmatory vote in the Parliament on which the ballot paper had precisely one name listed - hers.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48853746

https://www.alamy.com/16-july-2019-france-france-straburg-a-...

[jltsiren]

That's how multi-party parliamentarism usually works. A minority is not allowed to choose the leader just because they are a slightly larger minority than the others.

Because no party has an outright majority, there are weeks of negotiations after the elections, as the parties try to find a compromise acceptable to a majority. Once a deal has been reached, the parliament votes to confirm it. If the vote fails, the parties return to negotiations.

Von der Leyen was chosen to head the Commission, because she was an acceptable compromise. All lead candidates had been tried before her, but all of them failed to obtain majority support in the negotiations.

[logifail]

All the European Council's negotiations were private.

No public hearings, no public votes, not even any public parliamentary debates(!) about different candidates for the Commission. This is indeed "the EU way", trying to find compromise via party-family bargaining ... in private.

> All lead candidates had been tried before her, but all of them failed to obtain majority support in the negotiations.

The Parliament didn't actually get to vote on any of the other candidates, did they?

[jltsiren]

All real negotiations are private. When politicians debate or negotiate in public, they inevitably start talking past each other to the general public.

Voting rituals would be a waste of time. The confirmation vote is not just about the President of the Commission but the entire package, including other major positions in the Commission and major policy directions. If no party has a majority, no candidate can hope to get majority support before the whole package has been agreed on.

[logifail]

> The confirmation vote is not just about the President of the Commission but the entire package, including other major positions in the Commission and major policy directions

It's two votes, not one; the President and the rest of the Commission are confirmed separately. In this case there was a four month gap between the two votes!

VDL was confirmed by the Parliament on 16 July 2019, by 383 votes to 327 against, with 22 abstentions[0].

Her Commission was approved by the Parliament on 27 November 2019 by 461 votes to 157 against, with 89 abstentions[1].

[0] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20190711IP...

[1] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20191121IP...

[psychoslave]

On the other hand people don’t all want for negotiations to happen in private: https://european-republic.eu/en/

[coldtea]

All of those should be voted directly by the people.

[budududuroiu]

I agree, my point about political capital was about the overton window shifting to allow a more mainstream EU-skeptic platform for national parties, platforms which up until recently were easily labelled Russophiles or European traitors for US money.

I was aware that VDL obtained her role by routing around the Spitzenkandidaten process, but I was never aware that her confirmatory vote was done in this way.

Her unpopularity at home also reinforces the idea that unpopular politicians can be sent to Brussels, because "in Brussels, you can't hear them scream".