Will Julian King become the last EU Commissioner from the UK (or will he be blocked)?

"Following the nomination by British Prime Minister David Cameron of Sir Julian King as the candidate to replace outgoing Commissioner Lord Hill, President Jean-Claude Juncker will receive him on Monday, 11 July at 11:00 (CET) for an interview." (COM press release, 8 July 2016)

The announcement that the UK's ambassador to France (since this year), Julian King (Twitter), would be nominated as candidate for European Commissioner for the UK has been floating around for  days, so nothing surprising in the Commission's press release.

What will become interesting is (a) whether Juncker will propose him as a candidate after the interview on Monday, and (b) whether the European Parliament will actually endorse him as Commissioner and (c) whether, in case the EP refuses him, the Council and the Commission President would dare to go against the will of the parliament.

The press release specifies these procedural aspects:

"the appointment of a new Commissioner of UK nationality requires common accord between the President of the Commission and the Council after the consultation of the European Parliament … . In addition, the Interinstitutional Framework Agreement on relations between the European Parliament and the European Commission requires the President of the Commission to “seriously consider” the results of the consultation of the European Parliament – which will audition the candidate – before giving his accord to the decision of the Council to appoint the new Commissioner"

King's CV shows that he had not only experience as representative of his government at the EU Council of Ministers (1998-2003, 2004-08), including as representative to the EU Council Security Committee during the time of the UK's last presidency of the EU Council (as proven by this document). Afterwards (2008-09), he was also in the cabinet of former UK EU Commissioner Catherine Ashton while she was still responsible for trade, not foreign affairs.

Thus, he knows his way around the Council, including at the level of the Council Presidency, and he has served at cabinet-level inside the Commission in a not-so-distant past, which will have given him quite some insights into Commission business.

In other words, the UK sends a person who looks very much qualified for the job, probably better qualified in EU terms than any of his recent predecessors. Don't know anything about him personally, but, short of Jonathan Faull, this sounds like a good choice and I don't see why the EP should not approve him except for broader political considerations.

In 7 minutes or less: Frans Timmermans defends EU parliamentary democracy (videos)

Jean Claude Juncker can be proud of his wingman and 1st Vice President Frans Timmermans for defending not just his president but also parliamentary democracy at European level – and in way that you don't see every day in Strasbourg.

In less than 7 minutes, Timmermans explains what it means to work for a European Commission that is backed by an elected majority in the European Parliament. He stands the shouts from the negative fringes of eurosceptics and eurohating members of the EP, and the gets standing ovations from the positive core of the house at the end.




If I wanted to end on a less positive note, I would say that it is quite telling when the strongest and most convincing voice for the prerogatives of the (European) parliament comes from the (European) executive.

But I don't wanna end on this note, so I highlight that at the time of writing the video already has 25k+ views on the Commission website alone. Must have hit a nerve.

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Update: The video is now also on Youtube, including English subtitles (automatic translation into other languages work, too):

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).

The Great Juncker: Back to the nation state (updated)

Jean-Claude Juncker, Prime Minister of Luxembourg and head of the informal group of EU countries that use the Euro as their currency, was the "star" in an interview at France 2 last week.

Cédric Puisney, the European who is never satisfield, was so kind to give access to the full report in his article, including discussions in the European Parliament, a short presentation of the functioning of money laundering, and from minute six of the video you can see the interview with Mr Juncker.

The interviewer starts with a reference to a statement made by EU Council President Nicolas Sarkozy, in which the latter addresses Juncker directly (in his function as Prime Minister), demanding that if the EU will ask from other countries to close tax havens, some of their own countries (which means, inter alia, Luxembourg) will need to implement better and more transparent rules themselves.

In the interview (in French), Juncker tries to defend his country against the comparison with "classical" tax havens like the Bahamas. However, he looks pretty much in a defence position, trying to discredit the report of France 2 and not really reacting to the argumentation of the news presentor David Pujadas.

Only in one of the last sentences he admits that the common position of other European countries regarding the bank secrecy is not in accordance with the position of Luxembourg (or, vice versa...), which is why the country did not participate in a reunion of finance ministers discussing these questions.

Altogether, a report and an interview well worth seeing, because they reflect the changements the European Union is going through in these days of crisis, and because they present Juncker not in his typical positive European light, but in a national defence position, something that does not suit him too well.

Update:

I just read in an article from Le Monde that the day after the interview had been aired, the Information Director of France 2 excused the report and the interview. Ridicule...

European conservatives want Barroso to remain EU Commission president - updated

EUobserver tells us that the European conservative leaders want Mr Barroso to remain EU Commission president after the next European Parliament elections, when a new EU Commission will be elected.

How boring. How uninspiring for Europe. How... conservative.

I think that Jon Worth, although biased as a social-democrat, is completely right when he demands that Barroso should leave Brussels for a post that offers possibilities for a person without European charisma to work in decent tranquility.

And Jon remains right when he quotes a Café Babel interview that indicates that the lost Lisbon Treaty referendum in Ireland should have been the right time for "the leader of the EU" to resign.

But this is how the EU advances: By remaining boring, even for those of us who have a certain passion for European issues, and even for the project called "European Union".

In the end this means: The next European Parliament elections - the citizens of the European Union - will need to decide over Barroso's future!


Update:

I just read in an article in the German newspaper FAZ that Jean-Claude Juncker was the one to propose Barroso for a second term. I thought, Juncker would be more intelligent, but maybe he is just tired (as the article also suggests) after these demanding days of the financial crisis.