Over many years, it was considered the covert centre of power in the EU Parliament –the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee. Membership of the ECON, as the committee is known in Brussels jargon, was highly coveted – both by political parties and individual MEPs. After the financial crisis, this was where the action was – the recovery was being shaped here. The ECON enjoyed attention not only from banks, but also from the general public, for many years following the Lehman collapse and the Greek crisis.

Anyone who wanted to gain influence and respect on the committee was well advised to take the lead on an important dossier as rapporteur. Many German MEPs made a name for themselves at the time, such as „Mr. MiFID" Markus Ferber (CSU) or "Mr. Solvency II“ Burkhard Balz (CDU). Many of those who were actively trying to leave their mark on financial market regulation, especially from 2009 to 2019, now hold important positions in finance and monetary policy in Germany. Sven Giegold (Greens) as State Secretary for Economic Affairs, Jakob von Weizsäcker (SPD) as Finance Minister in Saarland, Michael Theurer (FDP) as State Secretary for Transport and soon to be a member of the Bundesbank board – and the aforementioned Balz, also as a member of the Bundesbank board. In addition, Fabio De Masi (Die Linke) later gained prominence as a Wirecard investigator, and Peter Simon (SPD) as Managing Director of the World Savings and Retail Banking Institute.

However, the ECON has lost its status as the most important committee in the EU Parliament. Just as financial market policy has been overtaken on the political agenda by external, security, and health policy issues, the ECON has also fallen out of the public eye recently. CDU MEPs Ralf Seekatz and Stefan Berger are less in the spotlight than their predecessors – except when it comes to the digital euro. The same goes for the Social Democrat Joachim Schuster. And even the Green Rasmus Andresen is only gradually working his way up in terms of influence and shaping power, trying to follow in the footsteps of his predecessor Giegold. The FDP even decided not to send a full member to the committee in the current legislative period, and instead gave their seat to Engin Eroglu of the Free Voters.

The AfD politician Gunnar Beck has essentially only made headlines with his – more than questionable – claim that it was thanks to him that Frankfurt was awarded the location of the Anti-Money Laundering Authority (AMLA). Only Markus Ferber is still perceived as an active player, and constantly appears in the public eye, especially since he is also the spokesperson for the European People's Party (Christian Democrat) group within the ECON Committee. One of the interesting questions for the upcoming European elections is whether the decline in the importance of the ECON can be reversed.

It is clear that – assuming there are no unexpected outcomes on election day and the CSU secures a minimum of five seats – the 59-year-old Ferber will once again be part of the ECON Committee. With his 30 years in the EU Parliament, he is one of the established figures, and has both experience and influence. The 54-year-old Stefan Berger is running for the CDU list in North Rhine Westphalia in 6th place – which is promising but not 100% secure. In the case of the Social Democrats, René Repasi (44) could gain financial policy importance over the next five years. The qualified lawyer has been the head of the SPD group in the Socialists & Democrats Parliamentary faction since March – and has already attracted attention with his clear opinions and committed statements on policy disputes, such as the prohibition of commissions on the sale of financial products. It is quite possible that he will succeed his party colleague Schuster.

A sharp mind in the Green Party is the Dutchman Bas Eickhout, who has been appearing on the lists of the most influential MEPs for several years – albeit more in climate and transport policy than in finance. Eickhout and Terry Reintke are the Green Party top two for the election. In the first duel between leading candidates at the end of April, the 48-year-old was considered by many to be the big winner and the most rhetorically convincing candidate, partly due to his verbal spats with Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. But the Greens are likely to continue to have Andresen in the ECON Committee. The 38-year-old, who considers himself to be on the left wing of the party, believes in strong regulation, and was recently the rapporteur on the Commission's Own Resources proposals.

There is likely to be a comeback for Fabio De Masi in the new EU Parliament. The German-Italian is no longer running for the Left (Die Linke), but for the new „Alliance Sahra Wagenknecht - Reason and Justice" (BSW), and is the top candidate of the BSW alongside Thomas Geisel in the EU elections. De Masi's political career gained momentum in the ECON in 2014, before he moved to the Bundestag in Berlin in 2017. The 43-year-old describes his candidacy is a "return to the future“.

De Masi's successor in the European Parliament, Martin Schirdewan, co-chair of Die Linke, recently participated as an acting member of the ECON. Schirdewan comes from a very political family: His grandfather Karl Schirdewan, a communist who survived the concentration camps, was considered for a time in the 1950s as the second man in the GDR behind Walter Ulbricht. After his daughter Rosemarie was elected for the PDS to the People's Chamber of the collapsing GDR in 1990, it is now up to the grandson to help shape politics. Schirdewan describes himself as a „pragmatic visionary.“

The biggest remaining question mark concerns the FDP's appointment to the Committee. It is still unclear whether the party will once again give precedence to Eroglu from the Free Voters.