European leaders gather in Brussels on Friday (23 February) to kick off their debate on how to organise the European Parliament elections in 2019 – a debate that may seem legalistic and navel-gazing to some, but are essentially about European democracy.

One EU source briefing journalists ahead of the summit apologised for a lengthy institutional explanation.

“I know it’s not really interesting in the capitals, but we are here in Brussels and in [the] Brussels bubble this is always the news of the day,” he said.

But the issues on the table on Friday are about how to make citizens care more about what is decided at EU level – since EU citizens have been able to vote for MEPs in 1979, voter turnout has only decreased, from 62 percent in 1979 to just 43 percent in the last elections in 2014.

The most contentious of the institutional topics up for debate is how to select the next president of the European Commission.

The current one, Jean-Claude Juncker, acquired his post by a new system invented by the parliament whereby each political party puts forward a lead candidate.

Juncker was the lead candidate of the European People’s Party (EPP), the EPP received the most seats in the 2014 elections, so the argument was that Juncker should therefore become president of the EU commission.