The Short Life and Strange Death of the Top Candidate System

Abstract

The introduction of the top candidate system was an important innovation of the 2014 European Parliament elections. Its supporters hoped that the new system would solve the problems of democracy in the European Union, and create political preconditions for a direct relationship between citizens and the EU level. However, although the experiment appeared to be successful in 2014, after the 2019 European elections, Member States did not elect a new president of the European Commission from among the top candidates. The reasons of this, as well as the history of the system, are the subject of this study.