For the first time, the European Parliament is so diverse, and a different balance of forces isn't necessarily a disadvantage.
The main groups in the European Parliament, the Socialists and Democrats on the one hand, and the European People's Party, on the other, no longer jointly form the absolute majority of MPs, so we have had the opportunity to observe the negotiations on the leadership of the EU institutions, more challenging than ever. For the head of the EU, president of the European Commission, an agreement between the S&D and EPP with the Liberals and Greens was needed, both parliamentary groups that registered growth at the expense of the first two groups. On the other hand, the predicted tsunami of the right-wing populists and EU opponents did not occur, but the Union's proponents in the EP remain in the majority. The European Parliament's new convocation thus reflects to a great extent the uncertainties and challenges facing the European Union over the last five years, such as the growing inequality between citizens and EU regions resulting from the Great Recession and its inadequate responses to migration security issues, to the influence of external powers that see the strong EU as a barrier to their foreign policy interests.
It is realistic for the European Parliament to say that this is a new parliament, as more than sixty per cent of MEPs have been elected to their first term. Instead of strengthening the democratic legitimacy of the European Union through the leading candidate system, we witnessed an agreement between the heads of state of the largest member states on who would lead the EC, and we received, outside the home country, a relatively unknown president, Ursula von der Leyen, whose main recommendation was that she was a person from trust of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. After more than 50 percent of the voting body, which gave the EP strong electoral legitimacy for its term, this indirectly sends a message to voters to stay home next time, which is a great detriment to the entire European Union as a democratic cooperation project. In addition, the nomination of candidates for EU institutions' leadership positions did not largely respect the idea of ??a fair distribution of seats between old and new members, Eastern and Western Europe, Northern and Southern. They tried to "smooth" things out through the election of the board's leading men, but it is certain that this geographical imbalance will leave some political consequences.
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