Why is there a media campaign against Juncker?

This blogger is no stranger of being part of an anti-Commission President – the old ones among you may remember "Anyone But Barroso" started by Jon Worth in 2008 – but I still wonder why there is and anti-Juncker campaign in EU-media in recent weeks and where it is coming from.

It all seems to have started with Politico's major article on Juncker some weeks ago, followed with pre-Brexit speculations and denials about Juncker's resignation.

Then, on 27 June, the Czech foreign minister went on the record to criticise Juncker, citing the former saying the the Commission President would not be up to the job. Euractiv and Politico both ran the story. The Financial Times had the Polish foreign minister on the record. Politico then ran several stories with denials from Juncker and his surrounding.

Some days later, Politico reported that Juncker still had the backing of a large majority in the EP, the only body that can make the European Commission (and thus Juncker) go, as I've blogged Sunday after the Sunday Times ran another story reporting calls from Germany that Juncker should resign. The Luxemburger Wort covers the attacks in several German media, such as an editorial in

EUobserver simply repeated the Sunday Times story yesterday morning, just to report the opposite in the evening, while still mentioning Commission Vice-Presidents Timmermans and Katainen as potential successors for the job.

I suppose you have to be part of the Brussels bubble to understand where all this is coming from.

Some central and eastern European countries, none of which share Juncker's europhile attitude anyway, and most recently some forces in Germany seem to want to limit the Commission presidents ambitions. A concerted media attack, with few sources on the record, shows that Juncker must have angered quite some people recently.

But since I cannot remember any similar attack on Barroso, this is probably a sign that, indeed, this Commission is more political than the last. Once you are political, you make (political) enemies.

The fact that Brussels (and some other) media play along could mean two things: either Juncker and his team have angered the journalists – I remember Juncker's Chef de Cabinet Selmayr being coined quite a control freak when he was Reding's spokesperson and chef de cabinet, so he may well have angered some journos in his current role – or journalists got bored over the lack of news stories because the EU does so few laws these days.

Or the Brussels bubble is afraid to actually deal with Brexit substantially, so they focus on key players instead. He against them. They against him. The Council fighting back, afraid to lose ground to the supranational level. The media, jumping on board because it makes a simple story.

Since I've been doing anti-Barroso campaigning in the past, I can fully understand the pleasure in running behind Juncker. But it's kind of cheap politics. It's not like Juncker doesn't do anything that could be expected of him when he was elected President; he was known for how he was, his political program was and is more than clear.

All that anyone seems to blame Juncker for post-Brexit is that he speaks out against what seems to have been the most fucked-up political campaign by UK politicians in our lifetime. The EU would do good to strengthen the pro-European Juncker for what will be difficult negotiations over Brexit (or whatever the future EU-UK relations will be called).

Mrs. Robinson, women, and the low profile of the European Council President

A name of woman appears on the media sky, a former president and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights - Mary Robinson - and this name becomes connected to the future President of the European Council. But mind the gap!



There is a Facebook group in her support. Her name appears in blog posts: here, here, here, here, here, here, here or here. Simon & Garfunkel have already written a song for her campaign.

And you know that I am in favour of gender equality and powerful women, that I read the Lisbon Treaty in a way that one woman has to get one of the top EU jobs.

However, I am against women in symbolic positions for the sake of the symbol - I want them in powerful positions for the sake of change!

So if you carefully read the EurActiv article on the pro-Robinson campaign you will find the following lines:

"Instead, Warsaw foresees the new president as a secretary general-type figure who will chair EU summits and coordinate the daily work of the Council, without taking any strategic decisions.

According to European Commission sources, Spain and other EU countries are also interested in the idea of the Council president being more of a low-key organiser, and could back Poland in its motion."

One of the rumours I have heard in Brussels last week was indeed that the Council is working on a job profile or terms of reference for the European Council President, which is confirmed by the Polish announcement. And what is said about the possible profile of the post sounds rather low-key.

In fact, my own interpretation of the Treaty is that the new "Foreign Minister" will be much more important in daily work than the European Council President (see for example my tweets here, here, and here).

This is not least because the European Council just meets four times a year and having in mind that its president will only have a small secretariat that will look tiny in comparison to the large diplomatic service of the foreign minister - who will participate in Commission, EU Foreign Affairs Council, and European Council meetings and will thus have direct influence in three major EU institutions.

I thus fear that those pushing for Mary Robinson as European Council President are not doing her and us a favour.

In the end she might get what women are used to get: Positions where they don't hurt the old male elites, where they can play around, get some media attention, but where they are not supposed to induce major changes.

But I know that now that the campaign is running, there might be no way to stop or change it (not to mention that it is absolutely unclear how her real chances are) - that's how life goes.

So I'd just say: Anyone rallying behind Mrs. Robinson should be aware that in the end the very skilful European male politicians will manage to make their favourite man EU Foreign Minister (who is also Commission Vice-President) and create a largely worthless position of the European Council President, which may then be filled by a woman.

"How active is your MEP" in danger - "Votewatch.eu" in the making - updated

----------------
Update

In a comment to this article, Adrian Moraru who is working at IPP on the "How active is your MEP"-project informs that they have secured funds and that it will continue its work.

Good news, indeed!

----------------

Last month, EurActive told that IPP's "How active is your MEP", a very valuable tool I have discussed in August, might well be closed in the near future due to funding problems - which would be a pity, especially before the European Parliament elections.

In a letter to the editor of EurActive, Sara Hagemann of the European Policy Centre informs, in reaction to the article on the shutdown of "How active is your MEP", about a new project called votewatch.eu, which should be active soon:

"Our VoteWatchEU project will provide updated information on all 785 MEPs’ voting records, presenting details on how they have voted within various policy areas. In a nutshell, VoteWatchEU will make it possible to look up one’s local MEP and see what he/she stands for, get various rankings for the most pro-/anti track records within the different areas, and find out when and how coalitions form between different political groups or between specific nationalities.

All of this happens on the basis of a multi-sponsor approach, whereby a network of interests and expertise provide the necessary professional input to develop a highly sophisticated website and related activities. Also, since this project is closely linked to a number of national capitals, particular interests either in the Brussels ‘bubble’ or in national politics will not able to affect the content of the project."

If this project will work out, I would be more than glad to use it, although it is quite typical that one very good initiative like the Romanian "How active is your MEP" will be replaced by a new initiative, instead of combining activities and funding in order not to double work, not to waste time and money, and in order to focus attention to one single project.

Nevertheless, I am looking forward to votewatch.eu, because if it works, it should add to the transparency of the European Union and its parliament - and there is never enough transparency of democratic institutions!

(originally posted: 04 January 2009, 00:51)

Tracking: European parliament elections 2009 (XVI)

Upon a request from the European Parliament, Eurobarometer has published a 93 pages long special report on the upcoming European elections.

And while Euractiv focuses on the finding that European Union citizens expect the next EP elections to be about the economy, there is much more in the report.

The field operation was done during this spring, so the findings are already six month old. Nevertheless, they are very interesting. The main quotation (p. 14) and main summary might be: "[A]t the current time the 2009 European elections are not a central issue."

When we look at the report, we see that this is actually true. Therefore some more extracts from the survey:

• Only 16% of respondents knew that the elections will be in 2009, an improvement of 6% to the last survey 6 month before. About 75% have no clue at all. People from Luxemburg and Greece were best informed (43% and 36% knew that the EP elections are in 2009), Finnish and British the least (both 3%).

• 8% are very interested while 22% are very desinterested in these elections. The highest interest in the EP elections can be found among Romanians, Maltese, Irish, and Cypriots (all above 60%), the least interested are Latvians, Czeques, Slovaks, and British (all below 40%). Young people are the least interested (Remark: This is a general trend in elections.), and those who trust the EU are much more interested than those who don't trust.
  

• The group most unlikely to vote are the students. 22% definitely do not want to vote (average: 14%).

• Those who do not want to vote think that they cannot change anything (68% of non-voters), do not know enough about the European Parliament in general (60%) or about the vote in particular (58%) or they are just not interested in the European elections (59%). Being against the EU, Europe or the European constitution is no sufficient reason not to vote (only 22% affirm this as reason not to vote).

• Regarding choice for particular candidates, the position on national issues is only minimally more important (somewhat exagerated by the headline Brussels Blogger has chosen) than the position on European issues (37% compared to 36%). However, this shows that national and European issues have an equal weight for voters , even though the elections are European.

• The most important topics are unemployment, economic growth, and inflation. The least important topics are the powers and competences of European institutions, European values and identity, and the preservation of the European social model. Immigration is most important in Spain, Malta, Austria and Great Britain (more than 50% of respondents rank this issue important), the least important for Poland and Bulgaria.

After presenting and interpreting all the data, the authors finish and conclude from their report that

"The two main challenges of the 2009 European elections will be to inform European citizens about the European Parliament’s role and the ability of candidates to offer practical solutions at European level to the economic crisis."

This is not very spectacular, if I might be very direct.

My conclusions are: National media need to give much more attention to the whole process and its political dimensions. Sure, there is a need to better explain the role of the European Parliament and yes, it will be nice if the election campaign will tackle issues that actually interest European citizens, but in the end it is much about the visibility of the process as such.

As long as around 75% of respondents are not aware that in 2009 there will be European Parliament elections while political parties are already preparing their candidate lists, how can we expect any interest in the matter...?!

------------------------------
Under the category "European parliament elections 2009" I am following up national and European activities on the path to the European Parliament elections 2009.

For an overview over all articles in this category have a look at the overview article.

For the five newest post see also the sidebar.