Five lessons of the Juncker Affair

6 October 2014

It is now three months since Jean-Claude Juncker was elected President of the Commission, against the express wishes of the British and Hungarian governments. What lessons can we draw from this episode about British attitudes to the European Union? I would suggest that there are at least five important lessons to be drawn, none of which indicate that the UK relationship with the EU is likely to become any less fraught.

First, Cameron’s opposition to Juncker, yet his inability to stop him from becoming Commission President reveals a significant failure of imagination. The possibility that the European Council might end up proposing the former Prime Minister of Luxembourg was simply dismissed as something that could not happen. No-one took seriously the fact that the Lisbon Treaty specifically provided for a majority vote for such an appointment and all were inclined to see no reason why Britain could not stop Juncker in the same way. After all, it had prevented two former candidates for Commission President, Jean-Luc Dehaene and Guy Verhofstadt, both Belgian Prime Ministers, from gaining the post and in the latter case, at a time when the Treaty already provided for majority voting. Somehow the force of the Treaties is widely seen as little more than an inconvenience that will bend in the face of concerted. Could it be that the British nominee for Commissioner, Lord Hill, will be a victim of a similar inability to imagine an unwished for outcome, such as a call for a change of portfolio?

Second, the Juncker affair showed a broad British unwillingness to engage with a new political dynamic. Four European political parties (Socialists, Liberals, Greens and the far Left) put forward candidates to challenge Juncker and to lay their own claim to the Commission Presidency. The UK Conservatives effectively excluded themselves from this contest by not agreeing to their own European party putting forward a candidate (having already left the centre-right EPP, where they could have sought to influence the choice of candidate). Perhaps more interestingly, both Labour and Liberals declined to work for the election of the candidates of their respective European parties. Both Schulz, the Socialist candidate, and Verhofstadt, the Liberal, were seen as too “federalist” and neither was encouraged to come to campaign in the UK. Labour did argue that they were not opposed to the process but only to the person selected. So will they (and indeed any UK party) be willing to engage in the selection of a Europe-wide candidate for Commission President in 2019, where they would be obliged to accept a majority decision of their European party? The omens are not good.

Third, the British political class, not just the parties, proved unable to confront a democratic idea. The whole point of putting forward competing candidates for Commission President in advance of the European elections was to challenge the notion that the Commission President should be selected by Heads of State and Government behind closed doors. How could a successful candidate be perceived as legitimate if s/he had not been obliged to explain what they intended to do and to defend that vision against the visions of others? Almost all British commentators refused to endorse the idea of a competition in advance of the European elections. Once Juncker had laid claim to the post after the EPP won the most seats at the European elections, they argued instead that what Europe needed was the “best” candidate and that that had to be someone with new ideas, not an ageing politician tainted by association with the EU for two decades. Apart from the difficulty of finding such a candidate (no names were put forward in public and no-one expressed an interest), the proponents of this approach failed to state openly whether selection of the Commission President by the European Council alone was more or less democratic than an open contest. Confronting the extent of the claims of democracy in the EU is something that cannot be avoided, particularly now that the Treaty specifically includes “provisions on democratic principles”. Is the status quo adequate or not? What, for example, would the British response be to the idea that the President of the European Commission be elected in a Europe-wide electoral competition?

Fourth, there was no recognition of the growing importance of European political parties. The Treaty now states that “political parties at European level contribute to forming European political awareness and to expressing the will of citizens of the Union” (TEU Article 10.4). There is little doubt that the appointment of Juncker has strengthened the position of these parties and given them the opportunity to develop their role further. Many in Britain fervently hope that what happened was an aberration that will not be repeated in 2019 but it seems more likely that much greater efforts will be expended by all concerned, governments as well as parties, to prepare the ground and to generate a Europe-wide debate well in advance of the next European elections. Will Britain and in particular, the British political parties, take part in this process or will no-one be willing to take the risk?

Finally, the Juncker affair shows that reform in the EU has to go with the grain of the institutions. The success of Juncker was due at least in part to the increasing influence of the European Parliament and the reluctance of the European Council to engage in a major institutional battle. Whether you liked it or not, it constituted a reform of the system that fitted into the way in which the institutions work. Hence the great debate in the UK over a “reformed” EU has to start from an acceptance of the constraints and opportunities offered by the present structure. It is not enough to say “I will not take no for an answer”, as the Prime Minister did during the Conservative Party Conference, rather it is a matter of putting questions around which common answers can be devised. Curiously, much of the policy agenda sought by the British government has already been endorsed by the European Council and Juncker, as next President of the Commission. The real issue is not about policies where there is always room for opt-outs, derogations and reviews; rather it is about the institutions which process those policies. Can Britain live at ease with a set of institutions that have an independent, growing role of their own, particularly when their ideas and output conflict with those of the UK government? And is the UK willing to work actively through those institutions in seeking to resolve those conflicts? If not, the next years will be very uncomfortable, with or without a referendum.

Guest contribution by Michael Shackleton, Special Professor in European Institutions, University of Maastricht and Honorary Senior Research Associate, UCL
This post was commissioned on the occasion of the public panel discussion we held on this topic: EU 2014-19: New Faces, Old Problems?, 2 October 2014, UCL, at which Michael Shackleton spoke.