No Juncker means a blow in the face of voters
Laeticia Markakis, Euranet, 12.06.2014
Quotes
Nearly three weeks after the European election results, the saga around the “top candidate” – frequently also referred to by the German name “Spitzenkandidat” – for the next president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, has made a lot of noise, especially because of the anti-Juncker camp of a few EU member states. During our monthly programme in collaboration with the think tank European Policy Centre (EPC), Janis Emmanouilidis, Director of Studies of the EPC, stressed that if another candidate is nominated by the 28 EU leaders, it would be a “disaster” for the democracy.
According to Emmanouilidis, the top candidate has to be taken as an experiment, as a first try. He already thinks that the EU institutions will come back with the concept during the next EU elections in 2019-2024, but would then work on it differently and improve it. But it has not been failed, he said.
However, if the 28 member states come up with a name other than Juncker, the battle between the European Council and the European Parliament may turn into an institutional war and it would be like “a blow in the face of voters”.
So far the British Prime Minister David Cameron, who launched the anti-Juncker campaign, appears to have the Netherlands, Sweden and Hungary as allies – and possibly Italy.
Concerning the European Parliament’s composition for the next five years, where the anti-EU and populist parties gained voices, Emmanouilidis doesn’t believe the parliament is turning to the right side of the political spectrum.
Listen to the whole interview here
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