Welcome to the European Parliamentary Research Service Podcasts.

As the newly elected 720 members of the European Parliament take their seats,

one of their first and most important tasks will be to elect the next President of the European Commission,

and shortly after, to green light the Commissioner's designate put forward by the Member

States.

Want to know how the process works?

Stay with us.

One of the most important roles of the European Parliament next to legislating is to hold

the European Commission accountable.

Electing its president is one way of exercising that power. Now, how does that happen?

The European Parliament has long sought to ensure that by voting in the European elections,

citizens do not only elect a new parliament, but also have a say of who will lead the European

executive. That's why since 2014, political parties announce who their candidate to lead the European

Commission is at the beginning of the electoral campaign.

This is known as the Spitzenkandidaten process or the leading candidate process.

The idea is that the candidate of the European political party that gets the most seats in the elections is the one who heads the European Commission.

This is what happened in 2014 when the EPP lead candidate, Jean-Claude Juncker, was elected commission president,

but not when Ursula von der Leyen was elected in 2019 as she was not a leading candidate.

So what will happen this time?

Here's Michaela Del Monte from the European Parliamentary Research Service,

the internal think tank of the European Parliament.

As a first step, the government of the member states will debate

...