Greece steals the spotlight at main presidency debate Alex Tsipras brought little European value to the discussion, focusing on his own national campaign.

Though there have been several televised debates between various combinations of the candidates to be the next president of the European Commission, last night's debate in the hemicycle of the European Parliament was the main event.

Its pride of place wasn't just because this debate was seen by the most people – broadcast on TV stations across Europe and translated into 23 languages. This debate was eagerly awaited because it was the only one to include all five candidates including Alex Tsipras, the firebrand Greek politician who is the nominee of the Parliament's far-left GUE group.

While the other four candidates are all from the Brussels bubble (three are members of the European Parliament and the other was head of the Eurogroup), Tsipras is from the outside. It was hoped he could inject a dose of reality in what have sometimes felt like very ‘inside the bubble' conversations among these other candidates.

But for those hoping Tsipras would bring a new European idea to the table, they will have been sorely disappointed by last night's debate. Tsipras focused almost exclusively on Greece, rarely mentioning anything about European policy and continually bringing the conversation back to the austerity measures imposed on his home country.

It was therefore fitting that he delivered this message in the Greek language. Though the candidates had been asked to speak in English, Tsipras said he preferred to speak in Greek. Upon learning that the far-left nominee was not going to speak in English, centre-right nominee Jean-Claude Juncker said he would speak in French. The other three stuck to English.

But there was little reason for Tsipras to speak anything other than Greek, given that his messages appeared tailored for a national audience and for the success of his own Syriza party. He did not mention the name of the pan-European group which had nominated him.

Still, Tsipras landed several punches. In a discussion over why turnout is so low for the European elections, he said it was because people believe the EU has no respect for democracy. He accused Juncker of conspiring behind closed doors with Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, to “remove democratically elected leaders in Greece and Italy and replace them with bankers and bureaucrats.” It was lines like these which made Tsipras the most-mentioned candidate on Twitter during the debate.

Juncker was Tsipras's main target, and his condemnations of the austerity policy imposed on Greece seemed to genuinely upset the former head of the eurogroup. "For years I worked day and night to avoid Greece having to leave the euro area," Juncker responded. "I did everything because I love Greece, and I love the Greek people." But his self-defence was greeted with boos by some in the chamber.

Guy Verhofstadt, the nominee of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats, came ready with ammunition against Tsipras. He said the focus on banks was ignoring the fact that the crisis in Greece was caused by a “clientele state” and “the bad policies by the two main parties in your country.” He then said that these parties are still funded by public banks, as is Syriza.

Given that her party is losing support to far left parties in countries like Germany, it may have been wise for Ska Keller, the nominee of the Green party, to go after Tsipras as well. However she ignored him for the entire debate, and her answers often sounded very similar to his. The only noticeable difference of opinion came when Tsipras said that sanctions against Russia were returning the world to a new cold war, while Keller said sanctions were the right thing to do.

That Tsipras was able to hijack the debate so forcefully in the direction of one country's national issues underscores the difficulty of creating a real pan-European political debate. Greece may have had the highest proportional viewing figures last night, which would indicate that people are more interested in national issues than European ones.

For the European left, it is unclear how their pan-European interests were served by selecting Tsipras as a nominee. For Tsipras, it is clear that this debate was an excellent platform for boosting the performance of his Syriza party back at home. Whether he motivated anyone outside of Greece to vote for the Left, however, seems unlikely.