Politicization and partisanization of the European Union are key issues of the debate among scholars. These two medicines are perceived as good antidotes to the two acute diseases of the European Union: the democratic deficit and the lack of legitimacy. In this paper I show how the European Union institutions are responding to the necessity to introduce more politics in its decision-making process. The link between the votes cast by the European citizens during the European Parliament elections and the subsequent European decision-making is necessary to shorten the distance between European citizens and European elites. The Treaty of Lisbon seems to respond to this exigency: the increasing power of the European Parliament in the decision-making process and, in particular, in the relationship with the European Commission are significant steps forward. Indeed, in this work I show how, during the process of appointment of the Commission, the European Parliament election responds to political logic. The process of appointment of the President of the Commission and of the Commissioners is driven by political games. Through the analysis of the parliamentary debates held at the moment of the appointment of the last four Commissions, from Prodi to Barroso II, I investigate whether the communality of party membership of the European political groups within the EP and the President of the Commission and the Commissioners is an explanation of the votes of the MEPs. The results are surprising but in a sense in line with what the scholars suggest: we assist to the increasing politicization of the European Parliament discourses. The membership of Commissioners to a party rather than another is more and more an explanation of the vote in the EP. These findings can be considered a novelty in the field since they start to deny the idea that EU is neglectful towards European citizens will.
