The Netherlands, Austria “and all too often Germany” are preventing deeper eurozone integration, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker told German newspaper Handelsblatt.
French President Emmanuel Macron has pushed for sweeping eurozone reforms but has met resistance from northern European countries loathe to bind themselves more closely to weaker economies in the euro zone’s south.
“There is no progress with the deepening of the monetary union because the Netherlands, Austria and all too often Germany stand in the way when it comes to solidarity in action and joint responsibility,” said Juncker.
“However I am still hopeful. Germany is not ready for it yet but many German politicians want to make progress in this area,” he added in the interview to be published online on Thursday.
Asked whether so-called Eurobonds, or jointly issued debt for euro zone members, could be expected at some point, Juncker replied: “Yes, but in another form and with another name.”
He declined to talk about failed merger talks between Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank. “But no one can claim that all is rosy in the German financial sector.”
Juncker, whose term as president of the EU’s executive expires this year, said he was “not advocating for or against” Jens Weidmann, the chief of Germany’s national central bank, to succeed Mario Draghi as president of the European Central Bank.
“I wouldn’t mind at all if there was a German president of the ECB or of the European Commission,” he said. “I definitely do not share the view that is prevalent in parts of southern Europe that a German may not be president of the ECB.”
Turning to trade relations with the United States, Juncker said the EU did not want to reach a comprehensive deal along the lines of the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), which failed to materialise after three years of talks.
“No, there will not be a TTIP II. But we will agree on a few key points,” Juncker said, adding that he planned to talk about trade with US President Donald Trump on the sidelines of a meeting of the G20 economic powers in Japan in late June. [...]
Brexit was a “warning shot, a continental wake-up call” for the bloc’s other members, Juncker said. “It has become clear to EU citizens that they cannot take the EU for granted and that leaving it could have disastrous consequences.”
Full article on EurActiv
Related article on The Guardian: Jean-Claude Juncker: Europeans have lost 'libido' for each other
Jean-Claude Juncker has warned the danger for the EU is that Europeans have “lost their collective libido” for each other, but added that in Britain the “bride” – the EU – had been “systematically reviled” from the start and then “rejected”.
A few days before a leaders’ summit on the future of the bloc in the Romanian city of Sibiu, the president of the European commission offered a whimsical analysis of the state of the continent.
Juncker, who is set to leave his role in November, said that he believed that the EU’s executive branch under his leadership had focused on the “big things” while exercising “modesty in the small things”.
“I have ensured that the commission no longer gets involved in every tiny detail of citizens’ lives,” he said. “I am both surprised and disappointed that no one has notice this.”
But the former prime minister of Luxembourg, weeks before the European elections, conceded that the growth of Eurosceptic parties was an ominous sign for the continent.
“We don’t love each other,” Juncker said. “We have lost our collective libido … Five or six years after the second world war there was one. Yet these days it should be much easier for Europeans to fall in love with each other than it was in 1952.”
Juncker added: “Brexit is a special case. If you pepper a nation for 40 years with the message that it doesn’t actually belong in the EU, then the decision to leave is the logical outcome. The bride was systematically reviled and then rejected.” [...]
Full article on The Guardian
Related article on POLITICO: Juncker: No UK politician is ‘passionate about Europe’
British politicians aren't "passionate about Europe," European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker told Hungarian media in an interview published Thursday, saying the U.K. had always insisted the EU was "about economic interests, not values."
"Over decades of meeting British politicians, my impression has always been that they don’t feel at home in the EU," Juncker told Hungarian outlet HVG. "I’ve not met anyone in their political elite who was passionate about Europe."
Juncker drew a link between the U.K.'s 2016 vote to leave the EU and the fact that British politicians "for decades" told voters that the EU is primarily about economic cooperation, not about common values.
"This was the reason why they so eagerly supported the 2004 enlargement," when Brussels welcomed 10 new countries into the bloc, and failed to "introduce any transitional restrictions whatsoever" to restrict access to the U.K.'s labor market, Juncker said.
"And now we all bear the brunt of this measure," Juncker added, referring to the anti-immigration backlash that followed, including the calls to "take back control" of the country's borders that helped fuel the Brexit campaign. [...]
Full article on POLITICO
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