There can be few presidential campaigns that have kicked off with the declaration “I am not a dwarf”. But this is what Le Monde quotes Jean-Claude Juncker today as saying in the interview in which Luxembourg’s prime minister reveals he would consider being a candidate for the European Union’s presidency “if the call came”.
I have interviewed Juncker and seen him in action more than a few times over the years, and I can confirm that he is not a dwarf – though I have heard other disparaging terms applied to him that need not concern us here. What most interests me is the enormous gulf in perceptions of Juncker’s potential candidacy between the UK and certain mainland European countries.
In UK government circles, Juncker is seen as a non-starter for two reasons. First, the president’s job will be to represent the EU on the world stage, especially – according to one view - when sudden crises flare up, such as the August 2008 war between Russia and Georgia. During that conflict, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France represented the EU as the holder of the bloc’s rotating presidency, and even he – one of the EU’s true big hitters – found his negotiations with the Russians extremely tough going. Juncker, as the leader of the EU’s 26th biggest country (population 500,000 out of a EU total of 500m), would in the British view just not be taken seriously enough as the EU’s voice in such a crisis.
Secondly, Luxembourg represents a country with a profound commitment to deep European integration, something that is anathema to the British. It is the same objection that caused the UK to reject the candidacy of Guy Verhoftstadt, the former Belgian premier, for the European Commission presidency in 2004.
On the Continent, especially in some of the EU’s western European member-states and in certain smaller countries, Juncker is seen as an entirely credible candidate. Members of the German Bundestag and foreign policy establishment admire him, though it is open to question whether that view is shared by Chancellor Angela Merkel. In the end, she is the only person in Berlin whose opinion matters, since she will make Germany’s choice.
As was pointed out by Le Monde‘s interviewer, Juncker appears to have fallen in Sarkozy’s estimation over the past year because of the Luxembourger’s alleged inability to rise to the occasion when the global financial crisis struck Europe. Accurate or not, this observation prompted a smooth reply from Juncker on Sarkozy’s brilliance as the EU’s president from July to December 2008: ”Europe has never been led with such perspicacity as under the French presidency.”
I feel pretty sure that such compliments won’t ever make Sarkozy support Juncker as the EU’s first full-time president, since the French head of state’s own six months in charge of the EU gave a good idea of the kind of dynamic leadership that he thinks Europe needs.
But that probably won’t upset Juncker, since he is a canny politician whose instincts surely told him long ago that he would never get the job and that the most he could hope for would be to sabotage Tony Blair’s candidacy.
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