Jean Claude Juncker

09.06.2014 EU Politics

Reinfeldt, Merkel, Cameron and Rutte in a boat – a roundup

So embattled Swedish PM Reinfeldt invited Merkel, Cameron and Rutte to Harpsund and took them out in a small rowing boat (news summary here), and let photographers take pictures of this. Here’s the original: The Junckermonster – my own effort

08.06.2014 EU Politics

What does “EU reform” actually mean?

A tweet by Philip Oltermann caught my eye: https://x.com/philipoltermann/status/475592040278138880 David Cameron is doing his best to spin himself, and his opposition to Jean Claude Juncker as Commission President, as being the ‘reformer’ versus a defender of the status quo, or

01.06.2014 EU Politics

Democratising the EU in post democratic times

The title of this blog entry is intentionally contradictory. Yet it encompasses the central challenge the European Union in facing. To start, what are we supposed to do about democracy in the European Union, viewing democracy in the classical post-World

28.05.2014 EU Politics

Where now for the Spitzenkandidaten process after EUCO? Keep calm

So the European Council last night did not back Jean Claude Juncker as Commission President, instead inviting Herman Van Rompuy to consult about who should become Commission President between now and the end of June. He should, to use Merkel’s

15.05.2014 EU Politics

Why the Spitzenkandidat process is the best thing to happen to EU-level representative democracy for years

Let’s get the caveats out of the way first. I know the way the parties selected their Commission President candidates was imperfect. I know that none of the candidates has really shone. I know this process has not been dealt with with

21.04.2014 EU Politics

The parties have their Commission President candidates. TV channels, it’s over to you: 15th May debate on prime time TV please.

I write this blog entry as a convinced EU democrat. By that I mean that, faced with the options about how to solve the many problems the EU currently faces, actually trying to make democracy work at EU level is

09.04.2014 EU Politics

At least 4 televised debates between Schulz and Juncker, more to come? (update: now 7!)

One of the supposed advantages of the European Commission top candidate / Spitzenkandidat process is that it gives some personality to the European Parliament election campaigns for the first time. I am hence very happy to see that televised debates

07.04.2014 EU Politics

How is David Cameron not going to be marginalised this summer in the EU’s political games?

I’ve previously written about how the UK is absent from the EU’s Presidential Election (otherwise known as the top candidate, or Spitzenkandidat process), and while the essential content of that earlier post remains valid, I have reflected further about the

12.03.2014 EU Politics

Britain is absent from the EU’s Presidential Election

So the lineup for the first-ever Presidential Election in Europe, to select the Commission President 2014-2019, is complete – Martin Schulz for the Party of European Socialists (PES), Jean-Claude Juncker for the European People’s Party (EPP), Guy Verhofstadt for the

07.03.2014 EU Politics

BREAKING: first picture of EPP’s winning candidate in Dublin, Jean Claude Juncker

So the European People’s Party has a candidate for Commission President – Jean Claude Juncker. Tweet announcing the result is here. He’s going to be Merkel’s poodle. Image above is Creative Commons, Sharealike Licensed – can be used, for free,

14.01.2014 EU Politics

Candidates for President of the European Commission – where we stand in January 2014

Back in the early summer of 2013 I wrote a detailed series of blog posts about the future President of the European Commission. There were posts about EPP, PES and other candidates. Overall those posts have stood up well over