After days of drama and late-night meetings, EU heads of government recently nominated their candidate to replace the Luxembourger Jean-Claude Juncker when he steps down as president of the European commission in October. As expected, the name to emerge was a German, but not the German who was expected. Rather than Manfred Weber, the lead candidate, or Spitzenkandidat of the biggest political group in the European parliament, the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP), Ursula von der Leyen, the German minister of defence was announced as the nominee. As some celebrated (finally) the promotion of a woman to the most powerful EU position, others (rightly) criticised her nomination for rendering the European electorate irrelevant in the process.

In political science, European elections are referred to as “second-order” elections, as opposed to “first-order” elections, which determine national governments. In fact, European elections don’t even determine the EU’s “government”, which is constituted by the executive body, the European commission and the European council, which is made up of the heads of government of the member states.

In 2014, to make European elections a bit more relevant, or “first-order”, the largest political groups in the European parliament fielded their so-called Spitzenkandidaten or “lead candidates” for the commission presidency. Despite opposition from heads of government, notably Britain’s David Cameron and the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, Juncker, the candidate put up by the EPP, which won most seats in the 2014 elections, was voted president of the European commission for the 2014 to 2019 term.

Five years on, this minimal attempt to give European voters more of a role in the EU’s governance has been abandoned in a return to the traditional horse-trading between national governments over the top jobs. Weber, Spitzenkandidat of the EPP, was opposed within both the European council and parliament, while Frans Timmermans, the lead candidate of the Socialists & Democrats (S&D), was rejected by leaders of the central and east European member states as well as the EPP.

Instead, government leaders came up with Von der Leyen, a candidate no one expected, and who had played no role in the European elections. As a member of Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU), she is supposed to represent the EPP, the overall winner of the European elections.

‘Josep Borrell, the council’s nominee for the EU high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, was fined €30,000 for insider trading last year.’ Photograph: Stéphanie Lecocq/EPA

Despite Von der Leyen being a Merkel ally, the German chancellor had to abstain in the European council vote because her coalition partner, the Social Democratic party (SPD), opposed the nomination. In fact, only a third of Germans believe Von der Leyen is a good candidate for the powerful Brussels position. A majority (56%) think otherwise. This should come as no surprise, as she is currently under fire for her performance as minister of defence and is the second-most unpopular minister in an overall very unpopular German federal government.

But Von der Leyen is not the only candidate for a top EU position with no direct relation to the European elections. Nor is she the worst. Spanish foreign minister Josep Borrell, the council’s nominee for the EU high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, was forced to resign as president of the European University Institute (EUI) over a conflict of interest in 2012, and faced calls to resign from the government after being fined €30,000 for insider trading last year. His undiplomatic statements about American independence or Catalan separatism are right up there with Donald Trump’s. On the former, for example, he said: “all they (Americans) had to do was kill four Indians, but apart from that it was very easy.”

Compared to Borrell, Christine Lagarde, currently managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the nominee for president of the European Central Bank (ECB), is squeaky clean. She “only” has a conviction for failing to challenge the state arbitration payout to a friend of former French president Nicolas Sarkozy, her then boss.

Should the European parliament ratify the European council’s nominations in a vote on Tuesday, it will officially kill off the Spitzenkandidaten system. To be clear, this process was always an insider’s solution to an insider’s problem, namely the frustration of MEPs over their marginal role within the EU, rather than a true solution to the rightly maligned “democratic deficit” exemplified by the second-order status of European elections. Moreover, its top candidate, EPP Spitzenkandidat Weber, has done more than almost anyone to undermine the foundations of the European project by enabling Orbán to create an authoritarian state while remaining within Europe’s so-called “community of values”.

In essence, the failure of the Spitzenkandidaten system is a logical consequence of the withdrawal of most of Europe’s national leaders in the wake of the great recession. Confronted with the unforeseen realities of the eurozone, they chose short-term national interests over long-time proclaimed European solidarity. From Berlin to The Hague they have rejected French president Emmanuel Macron’s reform proposal, which would further centralise governance of the eurozone, and instead called for less rather than more EU.

The 2019 European election results were hailed as a setback for populists, who had “gained votes, but lost initiative,” while the highest turnout in 20 years was celebrated as a victory for democracy. Somewhat overstating his case, the EPP lead candidate, Weber, declared that Europeans had “used their right to vote to decide about the future of Europe and that gives the European parliament much more credibility and legitimacy for the future of the continent”.

One month later, the European council has quashed this short-lived optimism for EU democracy. The governments’ motley crew of nominees shows not only a stunning disregard for the Spitzenkandidaten process but also for the European voter. They undid the little progress the European elections made, instead boosting Euroscepticism and weakening voter participation. For the sake of its own relevance as well as that of European elections, the European parliament should reject the nominees and propose its own list of candidates, who defend not only the interests of the European institutions but also those of liberal democracy.

• This article was corrected on 16 July 2019 to clarify the role of the European council and to make clear that Josep Borrell did not resign from the board of energy group Abengoa.