ANALYSIS
BY BOB PAPWORTH
EUROPE IN THE SPOTLIGHT
HOW WILL THE SHAKE-UPS OF MAY 22’s EUROPEAN ELECTIONS AFFECT BUSINESS TRAVEL?
ON JULY 14, the new European Parlia- ment embarks on its second plenary session and, over the four-day gather- ing, attempts to reach consensus on the ratification of the new president of the European Commission.
Not only will it be one of the first deci- sions the 751 MEPs make – or defer – it will also be one of the most important. The European Commission president then selects his or her commissioners who, for the next five years, will deter- mine the direction and nature of Europe’s legislative programme. To an extent, May’s media frenzy sur- rounding the likes of UKIP leader Nigel
20 BBT JULY/AUGUST 2014
Farage and France’s Marine Le Pen rather missed the point. Compared to the all- powerful European Commission (EC), the European Parliament is relatively benign. Immediately following the elections,
the European Council – made up of the heads of government or state of the European Union member nations – sat down to dinner in Brussels to begin the process of deciding which of the political groupings’ presidential candidates was mostly likely to garner cross-party support. Names in the frame have included Christine Lagarde, the Frenchwoman in charge of the International Monetary Fund, and Ireland’s taoiseach, Enda Kenny.
But at the time of writing, the most likely candidate is Jean-Claude Juncker, a former prime minister of Luxembourg who is the parliament leader for the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP), which has 213 parliamentary seats. Martin Schulz, leader of the Socialists and Democrats (S&D), with 190 seats, was barely mentioned. Both the EPP and the S&D, along with the Liberals (66 seats) and the Greens (52 seats), are gener- ally pro-Europe. However, despite this, there were significant gains for populist, broadly anti-EU MEPs on May 22. Any pan- European legislative proposals – good
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