Why David Cameron is right in his bid to junk Mr Juncker
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Version 0 of 1. One of the uses of history is the cooling breeze of perspective that it breathes over contemporary hot controversies. Reading some of the hyperbolic commentary and shrieking headlines about Jean Claude-Juncker, the Luxembourger whom David Cameron doesn't want to become the next head of the EU commission, you might come away with the impression that the prime minister is engaged in a life-and-death struggle for the soul of the continent – or at any rate for the survival of Britain. An antidote to that hysteria is to watch the moving commemorations of D-Day. That is to be reminded that Europe has faced graver crises than a squabble about who should head the EU's top tier of bureaucrats. The memorialising on the beaches of Normandy also prompts reflection on the transformation that has been wrought over the seven decades since. Few who stood amid the rubble of postwar Europe envisaged that what was the planet's most violent continent would evolve into a voluntary association of 28 democratic states, the most outstanding example of soft power in world history. Europe is faced with a different order of crisis today. Not one as dark as the black years of the Second World War, but the most challenging since the EU's beginnings in the wake of Hitler's conflict. Many of its economies are sickly. So much so that the European Central Bank, alarmed by the spectre of deflation, has just taken the unprecedented step of experimenting with "negative interest rates". To many of the EU's citizens, the basic deal of the club – that membership was an assured passport to prosperity – is no longer being delivered. The discontents of austerity and the rage against political and financial elites may not be entirely the EU's fault; it may not even be mainly Europe's fault as an institution. During the serial convulsions since the Great Crash, Brussels has usually played second fiddle to decisions made elsewhere, notably in Berlin. But austerity has unravelled public consent for the EU. It has also focused a pitiless light on the flaws in its structures. Who is in charge of Europe? The answer is everyone and no one. National leaders compete for control with each other and with the commission, as they also try to scapegoat each other when things go wrong. A more assertive parliament demands more of a say in the name of democracy. Europe is the only polity with two presidents – one of its commission and one of its council. And neither of them is a president in a way understood anywhere else. This has exacerbated its crisis of legitimacy. In many countries – though it is important to note not in all – the recent European elections saw a surge in support for rejectionist, nativist, nationalist and in some cases explicitly racist and fascist parties. A record number of anti-EU MEPs will sit alongside the British Ukip contingent in the new parliament. In this challenging context, Europe cries out for some smart, reforming, persuasive, visionary leadership in Brussels. The ideal candidate as the next head of the commission would be someone who can command the respect of their peer group while at the same time grasping the imperative for Europe to reconnect with its alienated citizenry. He or she – a she would make a refreshing break from a run of male ex-prime ministers of middle-ranking countries – would be able both to talk with Eurocrats and walk with the people. This person would have the negotiating skills to fashion a stable settlement within the eurozone while at the same time possessing the finesse to agree terms that are satisfactory to the outs. They would believe in Europe, but also grasp that Europe needs serious reform. Whatever the question, the answer does not look like Jean-Claude Juncker. His career is based on being a master of the deal, often ones incomprehensible to anyone not expert in the convoluted ways of the EU and carved out behind closed doors. Everyone I speak to calls the former prime minister of Luxembourg "the consummate Brussels politician". If that was once a compliment, it is now a term of abuse. Even his supporters do not claim that he is the candidate of their dreams. His detractors here describe him as an "arch-federalist", a word they spit out with a venom designed to suggest that it is synonymous with pederast. Reading his manifesto for the job, and his previous expatiation on Europe's future, he does indeed come across as an integrationist of a vintage now well past its sell-by date. To my mind, the biggest problem with him is that he appears suffused with a smug complacency that nothing much has to change. He is deaf to the trumpets sounding at Europe's walls. The money quote, the words that capture his impermeable condescension that the elite always knows best, was the one he uttered in response to the 2005 French referendum on the European constitution. Said the sage of Luxembourg: "If it's a Yes, we will say 'on we go', and if it's a No, we will say 'we will continue'." Some of the Europhobes in the Tory party actually hope Mr Cameron fails to block the Luxembourger. They want him to be the next commission president in the belief that this will accelerate Britain down the road to exit from the EU. Fear of precisely that is one of the prime minister's motives for trying to junk Mr Juncker. But he also speaks for more than his own self-serving interests when he objects to Mr Juncker as "a face from the 80s". On this one, the pro-European Nick Clegg is in the same place as the Tory leader. So, I suspect, is Ed Miliband, though Labour is keeping quiet on the subject at the moment. The leaders of Holland, Hungary and Sweden have publicly expressed aversion to Mr Juncker. The Italian prime minister, Matteo Renzi, one of the few incumbents to do well in the recent elections, doesn't sound enthusiastic either. Angela Merkel was sounding very cool about Mr Juncker until she came under a lot of pressure from the German media and from within her government to flip-flop and express backing for him. The complicating factor is that Mr Juncker is the approved candidate of the European People's party, the pan-European, centre-right grouping that won most seats in the May elections. In a half-nod to making the process look a bit more democratic and transparent, the Lisbon treaty requires national leaders to nominate the president "taking into account the elections". For the few of you who have not read the Lisbon treaty, it is point 7 of article 9D in title II. So Mr Juncker proclaims himself the people's choice, anointed by the sacrament of the ballot box. This registers a 10 on the Rawnsley Scale of political bullshit. In most countries – Germany might be a bit of an exception – that minority of voters who participated were not primarily, if at all, delivering a verdict on who should be the next commission president. They were voting on unemployment, immigration and a host of other issues, not which person they'd never heard of should be the EU's senior bureaucrat. Even in Germany, one poll found that just 7% of voters could identify Mr Juncker as the EPP's candidate. Asked during his "campaign" how many people were really engaged with it, he gave the characteristic impression that he didn't care, loftily proclaiming that it was up to the public to keep themselves informed and not for him to "chase after" the voters. He is not truly the people's choice in any meaningful sense. He is clearly not the desired candidate of many, if any, of Europe's leaders, the people who do have an authentic ballot box mandate from their citizens. For once then, Mr Cameron is not a lonely voice of objection in Europe, but a man with decent arguments and plenty of allies who don't want the Luxembourger either. Yet the prime minister is still taking risks. One is that his very vocal hostility to Mr Juncker is provoking others to support him on the grounds that bullying Britain shouldn't be allowed to dictate terms to everyone else. The would-be president is trying to make that, rather than his own fitness for the role, the issue. He says: "It is wrong if we give in to the British" and asks for support on the grounds that "we cannot allow ourselves to be blackmailed". It might have been more cunning diplomacy by Mr Cameron to keep his opposition low key and let others make the running rather than cast Britain yet again as the country that always likes to say no. If Mr Juncker gets the job despite Mr Cameron's objections, the prime minister will look defeated and the commission will have a president who, if he wasn't already hostile to Britain, certainly is now. If Mr Juncker is successfully blocked, Number 10 will hail a triumph for the prime minister, and plenty of other leaders will be relieved. But the parliament will be cross, and it has the power to retaliate by vetoing Mr Cameron's nominee for Britain's next European commissioner. Andrew Lansley might be well-advised to hold off putting down a deposit on a property in Brussels. |