Jean-Claude Junker

Honeyball’s weekly round-up

Labour Party

Tougher consumer rights, introduced on 13 June, will give more protection to customers making purchases online. The new rules, which come from a European Union directive made in 2011, will also put an end to exorbitant credit card fees set by retailers for those making purchases online. And it will give consumers a 14 day cooling off period after they’ve made a purchase in which they can change their mind. The job for the Commission will be to ensure the new rules are properly enforced.

Consumer groups such as BEUC, the European consumers’ organisation, are hopeful this will spell an end to “many everyday consumer headaches to do with dodgy online business practices,” said BEUC’s Director General Monique Goyens.

The Commission is well aware that it will have to ensure the legislation is properly enforced, as Neven Mimica the Commissioner for consumer affairs said that “enforcement action would be a priority”. You can read more here (N.B. You must register for free to read the article in full.)

Alan Johnson was interviewed for the latest edition of New Statesman. During the interview he talks about Theresa May’s disloyalty, calling some of her most recent actions ‘despicable.’

He also offers views on men who wear cufflinks but not double cuffs: “Never trust them”, he says. Sage advice, perhaps!

But it’s his views on disadvantaged young people that are most striking. He suggests that it’s unlikely that anyone can ‘come in like I did’. Meaning it is unlikely that anyone from a similar background to his own would ever get elected to Parliament today. What a terrible concern to think that Parliament may continue to be dominated by and be the preserve of white, middle class, men.

Johnson was interviewed by the Statesman as his memoirs are published to critical acclaim (he has already won the Orwell Book prize for political writing and the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje prize.) You can read his interview in the latest issue, more details here.

As the debate over Jean-Claude Juncker continues the Telegraph’s James Kirkup observed a ‘despondent Cameron’ last week. Kirkup said of Cameron: “David Cameron sounded like a man expecting defeat over the fight to stop Jean Claude Juncker becoming head of the European Commission. ‘I will go on thinking its wrong right up until the end,’ he said. Mr Cameron’s despondency follows signs of a change of heart in Berlin. Angela Merkel, previously lukewarm about Mr Juncker, is now said to be fully supportive.

“Failing to block Mr Juncker would be a disappointment for Mr Cameron, as his gloomy demeanour today demonstrated: the PM has staked a lot of capital on blocking the man he regards as a champion of old-school federalism.”

As I’ve stated previously Cameron’s negotiating efforts over the issue of the Commission President have been less than satisfactory. He has comprehensively failed in his attempts to stop Juncker and has let us down over this.

 

Weekly Round-up

Labour Party

The Labour Party issued a statement last week clarifying its position on the ex-Prime Minister of Luxembourg, Jean-Claude Juncker’s, bid for President of the European Commission.

The party said, in a statement: “The nominee for European Commission President is ultimately a decision for the European Council, including David Cameron.

“Labour will not support Jean-Claude Juncker as a candidate for President of the European Commission. Should Mr Juncker be put before the European Parliament, Labour MEPs would vote against him.

“The message from the European elections was clear – that we need reform in Europe. We need reform so we can promote jobs and growth.

“Mr Juncker’s record shows he would make these reforms more difficult.”

It was also reported that German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, initially favoured Christine Lagarde, head of the International Monetry Fund (IMF) for the Comission President position. It is understood she broached the subject in a private conversation with French President, Francois Hollande. However, it is unlikely Lagarde will receive the support from her own country, and therefore be in the running, as Hollande is reluctant for France to lose its top post at the IMF. So Merkel has given her support to Juncker as I wrote on my blog last week.

Meanwhile, as the European Parliament re-assembles following the European elections, Cameron faces fresh tensions with Angela Merkel after news surfaced that his group, the ECR, which he formed in 2009, narrowly voted to accept Germany’s anti-euro AfD party, the fuer Deutschland into its bloc.

Reuters revealed: “The tally of the secret ballot was not released but members said it was 29 votes for, 26 against. Two members of Cameron’s Conservatives defied his call to vote against AFD, sources said. Had they obeyed, the German party would have been rejected.”

The Tories were forced to seek support and invite interest from extreme right parties because, as I revealed on my own blog last week, they had been struggling to get support from centre right parties who joined the Tories main rival the EPP.

However, despite now being a relatively large group within the European Parliament, Cameron is now in an embarrassing position as Merkal’s CDU party is a key player in the rival EPP bloc.

Cameron needs Merkel as an ally in order to secure an acceptable candidate as president of the European Commission.

David Cameron is no John Major. Britain’s reputation is not safe in his hands

Labour Party

It has come to my attention that the European Council of Ministers has decided to support Jean-Claude Junker as President of the European Commission.

David Cameron has therefore comprehensively failed in his attempts to stop Junker. While I accept that overturning the Junker bandwagon was never going to be easy, we shouldn’t gloss over just how instrumental Cameron was in creating the pro-Junker momentum in the first place.

Frightened out of his wits by UKIP’s strong showing in the European elections, not to mention his obstreperous back-benchers, Cameron came to the view that the arch-federalist Junker was not a good person to head up one of the three European institutions.

Given that under the Lisbon treaty, the European Parliament was to have a say in who would be President of the European Commission, campaigning against Jean-Claude Junker, the candidate of the centre-right European People’s Party Group (EPP), was never going to be easy.

Two things made Cameron’s self-proclaimed crusade even more difficult. As the largest political group in the European Parliament, the EPP has taken upon itself to claim that it, as the largest Group, makes the nomination for Commission President on behalf of the European Parliament. Secondly, and perhaps of more significance in Cameron’s world, is the fact that the Tories in the European Parliament withdrew from the EPP five years ago.

Now that the British Conservatives are not in the mainstream centre-right group, not only has their influence diminished, but they have also alienated European leaders whose support they may have needed to stop Junker. Chief among these is Angela Merkel who was very unhappy when the Tories formed the European Conservative and Reformist (ECR) Group in 2009. She is now even more angry because the Conservatives in the European Parliament have, within the last few days, allied with the Alternative for Deutschland, who are more or less the German equivalent of UKIP. The Tories went down that route because, needing to reconstitute the ECR for this parliamentary mandate, they were obliged to meet the European Parliament rules which state that to form a political group there must be 25 MEPs from seven countries.

Clearly it is rather foolish to upset Mrs Merkel, who in reasonable circumstances would be a Cameron ally. Cameron himself then went on to alienate almost the whole European Council when he threatened that the UK would leave the EU if a federalist became the head of the Commission. Subsequent Cameron interventions proved no more subtle or adept.

Responding to reports that Mr Cameron had warned Britain could leave the EU over Mr Juncker’s appointment, Mrs Merkel is quoted in yesterday’s Daily Telegraph as stating: “I made myself clear by saying that I am for Jean-Claude Juncker. But when I made that statement in Germany I also made the point that we act in a European spirit. We always do that. Otherwise we can’t arrive at a compromise. We cannot just consign to the back-burner the question of European spirit. Threats are not part and parcel of that spirit, that’s not how we usually proceed.”

Given that Mrs Merkel started the discussions on the European Commission by not being particularly pro-Junker, David Cameron has scored a spectacular own-goal. Step forward the Prime Minister who snatched defeat from the jaws of what could possibly have been a victory.

I, and most of my Labour MEP colleagues, share the concerns that the EU is remote. Many of us would not call ourselves federalists and would not support the federalist, integrated concept of Europe against the looser idea of nation states working together as analysed by Daniel Finkelstein in the Times today. But we all recognise that if you want your view to prevail in Europe you have to negotiate skillfully, taking account of the sensibilities of those who have power.

David Cameron is obviously no John Major who successfully negotiated Britain’s opt out from the Euro in the teeth of huge opposition. Cameron instead seems to be trying to ape Margaret Thatcher’s famous hand bagging strategy. Thatcher won the British rebate over 30 years ago. The EU and the zeitgeist are very different now. All David Cameron has managed to do is let the side down.

Crunch Day for Europe President

Labour Party

This is it.  All will be decided later today or perhaps tomorrow if the deliberations in the European Council of Ministers about the position of President of the Council and the High Representative for Foreign Affairs continue late into the next day.  We are already hearing stories about participants taking one, two or even three shirts to see them through.  (They are almost all men – hence the shirt question).

Well, will our very own TB make it?  Tony’s chances do seem to have revived during the past two days, but whether he can overcome the “small country” challenge is still not certain.  Some of the tiniest EU states don’t want a large country holding the post as they fear this will smother them.  So we are now seeing an attempt at a classic EU fudge – find the lowest common denominator and go with that regardless of whether or not that is the best and most effective decision for Europe as a whole.

This mindset has led to Belgian Prime Minister Herman van Rompuy emerging as the front-runner.  I hardly think Belgium is a shining example of how to run a country.  A population of about 10 million is split into two linguistic groups with three federal regions, a system which is so unworkable that Belgium was recently without a federal government for nearly two years as the various parties were unable to agree on a coalition.

The other two small countries who are realistic contenders aren’t much better.  Peter Balkenende from Holland verges on the Thatcherite.  Luxembourg has, as ever, staked its claim.  Yet can anyone take Jean-Claude Junker seriously when the entire population of Luxembourg is only 488,000.  Yes 488,000 compared to over 60 million in the UK and Germany’s 82.5 million.  I am tempted to use that dreadful Americanism – “give us a break!”

There are two other factors working against our Tony.  Most importantly, the Socialists do not have a majority in the European Council.  The system of qualified majority voting used gives that to the EPP.  Moreover, the Socialist governments do not always all vote the same way.  Just to muddy the waters further, the Socialist and Democrat Group in the European Parliament has waged a strong campaign, which some Socialist governments have bought in to, that the Socialists should let the EPP have the President while the Socialists make a concerted bid for the High Representative.

The small country and/or EPP bid for the President position may well be the way it goes today.  I understand that there is everything to play for, and unusually in the EU the result has not been fixed in advance.  Since the Socialists are going for the High Representative, could this be what Tony ends up with?  I gather he may not be averse to the idea.  The job will, after all, be to act as the face of the EU across the whole globe and the post holder will also control the world-wide network of EU missions (embassies).

Crunch time indeed.