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Can Britain lead in Europe?
far from innocuous—put forward a scheme for choosing the president by a new method. He suggested that the main pan-European federations of political parties should each campaign in the next European elections with a president-designate at their head. The Party of European Socialists might choose, say, Felipe González; the European Peoples Party (Christian Democrats and Conservatives), Wolfgang Schäuble; and the Liberals, Peter Sutherland. The heads of government would agree, in advance, to select the candidate of the party which won the most seats in the elections. This plan would certainly stir up some interest in the European elections. It would encourage the existing pan-European parties to become more solid entities. Its ingenuity is to change the method of selecting the president without amending the treaties: legally, the European Council would still appoint the president, subject to a vote of confidence from the European Parliament. The snags with the Delors plan are that cross-border party structures may be too weak to ensure that every national component of a party federation supports the same candidate; that there may be too few potential candidates well enough known to have popular appeal in more than a handful of countries; and that the heads of government would be unlikely give up their prerogative to choose the president. A second scheme for choosing the president was proposed in one of the first CER pamphlets.13 The European Council would choose a shortlist of suitable candidates. Each of them would then face hearings 13 See essay by from a committee of the European Parliament, live on television. Charles Grant Depending on how the candidates performed, and on their views, in “Visions for the full Parliament would then vote on who should become the future”, Commission president. This scheme, like Mr Delors’, could be CER, 1996 implemented without changing the treaties. But the heads of government would have to promise to endorse whichever candidate won the parliamentary vote. And they might object to this scheme, like Mr Delors’, on the grounds that it would increase the legitimacy and authority of the Commission president. A group of Foreign Office diplomats has floated a surprisingly radical plan for electing the entire commission. Rival multinational slates of wouldbe commissioners would contest pan-European elections at the same time