17 June 2014

EurActiv/Duff: Cameron’s battle against Juncker is futile and misguided

Andrew Duff, a leading former British MEP, argues that the Commission's programme for the next five years is as important as who takes on the presidency. Contrary to British claims, though, none of the Spitzenkandidaten is aiming for ‘business as usual.'

Well, this time it certainly is different. The furious row about who should succeed José Manuel Barroso as President of the European Commission, and how and by whom that person should be chosen, vindicates those who have long argued that each of the EU level political parties should field champions in the European Parliamentary elections.

The Spitzenkandidaten experiment has raised the stakes. The competition between the top candidates has introduced a real EU dimension which previous electoral campaigns for the European Parliament have lacked. Admittedly, these guys have not become federal folk heroes over night, but their engagement in a party political contest at the European level is a useful first stab at making a reality of post-national parliamentary Europe. The ball now lies, where the Treaty says it should, in the hands of Herman Van Rompuy who acts as informateur (in the Belgian sense) on behalf of the European Council. He must propose a candidate who can command a qualified majority in the European Council and an absolute majority in the European Parliament.

The British problem just gets worse

The result of the European elections leaves the UK with even fewer friends in Brussels than it had before. The UK’s insistence on a revision of the treaties to loosen its ties with the EU compounds the problem. The new European Parliament has the right to insist that the overhaul of the treaties is conducted in a full-blown constitutional Convention. David Cameron’s renegotiation of Britain’s terms of membership will have to find its place on the agenda of such a Convention whose main purpose will be a push in the federal direction.

The British prime minister should know that a Convention provides no hiding place: only good proposals for reform which command a consensus on their own merits will surface at the end of the process. We wait with trepidation to see the catalogue of demands Cameron is to make on his partners. If his bid is not pitched at settling Europe’s British problem for good, he will be laughed out of court. His antagonism against Juncker hardly starts the British renegotiation off on a good footing besides making it even more likely that the former Luxembourg prime minister ends up in Barroso’s job.

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