though technically Ursula the President of the EU commission is more akin to a Prime Minister than the President of USA in election or in powers.
- Citizens of EU member countries vote for Members of the European Parliament (MEPs)
- the MEPs of Parliament vote on who will be the Commission President
- To take office, the President must win an absolute majority vote in the Parliament. For instance, current President Ursula von der Leyen had to secure a majority of 401 votes from MEPs to win her mandate
i suppose the better comparison is to a Presidential cabinet member - they aren’t elected, but they are the top bureaucrats who are to execute the President’s will.
National governments nominate the Commissioners, who must then pass grueling, multi-hour public grillings by EU committees before the Parliament votes to confirm the entire administration
I personally think it would be better if they scrapped the EU parliament and reduced the President of the EU commission to being a pure executor i.e. administrator who does what (s)he is told to do - a glorified program/project manager.
Push it back to being led by the EU council (i.e. the leaders of the 27 countries) while retaining a revolving Primus-inter-pares
They wanted to create a Euro-version of the United States, but had no cohesive social ‘glue’ to hold it together.................