The sad story of the Spitzenkandidat. Candidates, parties, and campaign dynamics in the 2024 European elections

The European Union has encountered a crisis of legitimacy, exacerbated by a declining voter turnout. In response to this challenge, the EU introduced the «Spitzenkandidat system» in 2014. This system is characterized by the nomination of a leading candidate from a European political party for the role of President of the European Commission. The objective of this initiative is to enhance voter engagement in the European elections by personalizing and reinforcing campaigns. Following a promising start in 2014 and Juncker’s election, subsequent rounds revealed the mechanism’s weakness. The Spitzenkandidat system, conceived as a democratic innovation, has been gradually eroded by political compromises and institutional constraints. In consideration of the 2024 European Elections, the study examines whether the Spitzenkandidaten system can still be regarded as a means of strengthening the EU, addressing this question through four research questions on the system’s institutional functions, the purpose of the campaign, the europeanisation of issues, and the candidates’ autonomy from their parties. Drawing on the theoretical framework of European elections as «second-order elections», the study evaluates the impact of the Spitzenkandidaten on the europeanisation of the public sphere through a systematic content-monitoring procedure applied to candidates’ and parties’ posts on X and to websites during the 2024 campaign. The analysis allows for the observation of patterns of political communication and of representation of Europe in electoral campaigns. While European policy issues are seldom discussed and remain in the background, candidates are primarily engaged in electoral competition, focusing on campaign issues, and display a marked autonomy from their affiliated parties in language and territorial focus. Despite divergent emphases on values and political identities, the leading candidates place greater emphasis on personalization than on programme content, undermining the potential value of the competition. The Spitzenkandidat thus survives as a formally intact but politically weakened institution – the sad epilogue of a project conceived to strengthen, rather than merely ritualise, European democracy.