EU Commission debate

In Florence on Friday, frontrunners German Social Democrat Martin Schulz (left in photo) and Luxembourg Christian Democrat Jean-Claude Juncker (right) were joined by the Belgian Liberal Guy Verhofstadt and French Green Jose Bove.

As with previous debates, the left-leaning Greek candidate Alexis Tsipras did not attend. Earlier Friday, the departing European Commission president, Jose Manuel Barroso, warned the suitors for his post about the challenges they would face.

"It's probably the most difficult job in the world - the amount of work, of travel, of hours - I mean it's simply not imaginable," he said in Florence a few hours before the presidential candidates debated.

Differences on budget

Candidates differed on whether member states could receive budget flexibility. Current EU law only allows for deficits to come in at 3 percent of gross domestic product.

Verhofstadt and Juncker, leader of the right-wing European People's Party bloc, said countries shouldn't get exceptions. Bove, known for his anti-globalization campaigns in the past several years, called the ceiling acceptable if the EU had a budget that could make investments on behalf of national governments.

Schulz favored withholding money spent on special projects from official calculations, thus allowing governments to exceed current eurozone deficit thresholds in special cases. "Let's look at what is future investment and what is current spending," said Schulz, who is running on the ticket for the Party of European Socialists.

Bigger role for EU voters

For the first time, the will of individual voters will help determine who gets the post, and not just the decision of national governments or European commissioners - an innovation presented as a major step. Though the popular vote will decide the makeup of the EU legislature, a final decision on who will lead the commission - the body that drafts and enforces laws - will come from national leaders and require confirmation by the European Parliament.

The candidates argued that it would set European democracy back if governments were to disregard voters' choices, especially at a time of already growing disillusion. The rise of anti-EU parties such as Italy's 5-Star Movement, France's National Front, or the UK Independence Party in Britain, as well as the prospect of high voter abstentions, pose major challenges for the winner and the bloc as a whole.

"If they did that I would be very angry," said Juncker, the former prime minister of Luxembourg. "They would be opening the way to a major crisis between the European Parliament and European governments and by the way they would be telling European voters their vote does not count."

mkg/slk (Reuters, dpa)