With elections for the European Parliament coming up later this year, the first half of 2014 promises to be a very busy time for the 28 member states.

Other than the elections scheduled to take place in May, European leaders will be tasked with electing a new president for the European Commission in June to succeed José Manuel Barroso, a member of the European People’s Party and former Prime Minister of Portugal who has occupied this position since 2004.

Some of Barroso’s accomplishments as Commission president include a new set of economic and monetary policies aimed at preventing future financial crises, the EU climate change package and the Treaty of Lisbon.

The process for the election of the new president is governed by the 2009 Lisbon Treaty, which has shifted the final decision for the appointment of a new head of the European executive from the hands of national leaders to those of the European Parliament.

This year, the four main European political parties have pledged to name their candidates for the office of president of the European Commission before the elections in May. The European Council will then choose a prime nominee for the position, taking into account the results of the election. The appointment of the parties’ candidate will then be confirmed by an absolute majority vote of the newly-elected Parliament.

Each of the four main European political parties is using different procedures to select its candidates and all of them have already made their nomination procedures and/or selected candidates public.

The first party to name its candidate was the Party of European Socialists, which selected Martin Schulz, a German politician who now serves as president of the European Parliament. Schulz, who ran unopposed for the position, was nominated by his own German party and is supported by 19 member parties across Europe.

The Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party will announce its candidate after s/he is selected during a special congress to take place on February 1. The two politicians running for the post are Guy Verhofstadt, a former Belgian Prime Minister who heads the Liberal Party, and Olli Rehn, a Finnish politician who serves as European Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs.

The European Commission president election has provoked differing opinions

The European Green Party launched Europe’s first online primary elections in November to identify qualified candidates for the position. The results of the primary will be announced on January 29, a day after its closing, and the leading candidates will be presented by the end of February.

Although there is a wide range of opinions on who will be elected to become the European People’s Party’s candidate, the name will not be known before March 7 when the choice will be made at a special congress in Dublin.

The new election process for the position of Commission president has provoked differing opinions regarding its effectiveness and the incentives it provides to voters around Europe. While some argue that the new procedure increases the European people’s stake in selecting the president, given that voters know whom they are choosing, others argue that the opposite is the case.

Supporters of the change in the election procedure outlined in the Lisbon Treaty applaud the decision to take the final decision-making authority from national leaders’ hands, deeming the new process more democratic and arguing that voter turnout will improve as a result of their increased power over who gets the position.

On the other hand, those who do not agree with the new procedure highlight the potential conflict and voter mistrust that will arise if the leading party’s candidate does not win a simple majority of votes in Parliament or if the European Council’s nominee is not that of the leading party. They say that such outcomes could risk voter turnout dropping in the future due to EU citizens realising that, in the end, the final say on who becomes president of the European Commission is not really theirs.

Despite the ongoing debate on the effects of this new procedure on voter turnout and the divergent views on its efficacy, it is not until these elections have been concluded that we will be able to fully appreciate the effectiveness of these new procedures.

David Casa is a Nationalist MEP.