Move deals
blow to David Cameron's attempts to block Luxembourg's former prime minister
from taking up the role
theguardian.com,
Philip Oltermann in Berlin, Friday 30 May 2014
Angela Merkel has thrown her weight behind Jean-Claude Juncker for the next European commission leader, dealing a blow to David Cameron's attempts to block Luxembourg's former prime minister from taking up the role.
Jean-Claude Juncker and Angela Merkel in 2011. Photograph: Ralph Orlowski/Getty Images |
Angela Merkel has thrown her weight behind Jean-Claude Juncker for the next European commission leader, dealing a blow to David Cameron's attempts to block Luxembourg's former prime minister from taking up the role.
The German
chancellor said at the National Catholic Congress in Regensburg: "I will
now lead all negotiations in the spirit that Jean-Claude Juncker should become
president of the European commission."
Both Merkel
and Juncker's parties are members of the European People's party (EPP) bloc,
the centre-right group that gained the most seats in Sunday's European
parliament elections.
David
Cameron, whose Conservative party left the EPP in 2009, as well as Hungary and
Sweden's prime ministers have opposed Juncker, lobbying for a more reformist
candidate.
In the
immediate aftermath of the election, Merkel appeared to have cooled on Juncker
as a candidate, failing to state her endorsement and saying that "anything
is possible". That she has now had another change of heart may be down to
the increasingly critical press coverage of her prevarication in Germany.
The
influential tabloid Bild took the unusual step of publishing an op-ed by its
publisher, Matthias Döpfner, which described Cameron's opposition to Juncker as
a scandal.
"That
much is certain: Europeans want Juncker as EU president. [The German candidate
of the Party of European Socialists bloc, Martin] Schulz got the second best
result. A third, who didn't stand for election, can't be allowed to get the
job. That would turn democracy into a farce. You may get away with something
like that in the GDR or in far-right banana republics. But not in the EU. Or
otherwise it will abolish itself."
The
philosopher Jürgen Habermas has also criticised the resistance against Juncker.
In an interview with Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, he said: "If this
group [the European council] really were to suggest someone else as a leading
candidate, it would be a bullet to the heart of the European project. In that
case you couldn't expect any citizen to ever involve themselves in another
European election again. From a legal and constitutional point of view, I
consider such an act of wanton destructiveness out of the question."
Merkel's
Social Democrat coalition partners had pressured her to state her endorsement
of the leading candidate. The SPD's general secretary, Yasmin Fahimi, welcomed
the endorsement, saying: "Anything else would have amounted to a deception
of the electorate."
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