Lessons of the EU Leadership Fight

Then, in November, Christine Lagarde is set to succeed Mario Draghi as president of the European Central Bank.

The good news is that each of these candidates would strengthen the EU at a time of global insecurity. The bad news is that the EU itself will continue to face significant challenges from within.

The struggle to fill the top leadership positions resulted in the elimination of the Spitzenkandidaten process - whereby the largest party grouping in the European Parliament selects the Commission president - and the return of backroom deal-making, which many see as undemocratic.

The justification for that change needs to be explained, or the EU's credibility may suffer. After all, the Spitzenkandidaten process was introduced in 2014 to counter the perception that the EU suffers from a democratic deficit.

The leadership struggle has also intensified a clash of perspectives within - and about - the EU's sources of legitimacy.

Whereas member states with a strong parliamentary culture think the top personnel should be selected based on the results of May's European Parliament election, others (like France) consider executive experience far more important than the link to those results.

It is naturally a long process to devise a broadly accepted system for selecting EU leaders.

Despite this year's setback, the principle of the Spitzenkandidaten system should be preserved and combined in the next elections, with additional transnational lists of candidates backed by stronger trans-European party structures.

Beyond that, the EU also needs to strengthen the role of the European Parliament.

A number of MEPs are deeply frustrated by the Council's failure to nominate any of the Spitzenkandidats on offer, and they could...