Last week’s very short EU summit (over dinner, inside the Justus Lipsius Council bunker in Brussels), on Tuesday 27 May, two days after the parliamentary elections, left the major groups in the Parliament stunned and furious: the 28 leaders refused to endorse the EPP Jean-Claude Juncker, former Luxembourg prime minister and former Eurogroup boss, as Commission president.
Those who felt most cheated were the Socialists. They had gone as far as to bring their backing to Juncker, candidate of the rival EPP group, agreeing that he should be let to start negotiations for leading the Commission.
As Hannes Swoboda, President of the Socialists and Democrats Group in the European Parliament, bitterly said: “It is comical that Juncker has Socialists’ support but is blocked by the EPP in the European Council”… meaning the big EPP leaders like Angela Merkel, although support for Juncker inside his own faction is also lukewarm at best.
“The European Council is playing a game of hide and seek”, continued Swoboda. "As the Council refuses to accept its responsibilities, we call on Jean-Claude Juncker to start negotiations without a Council mandate. 26 million unemployed people and a stagnating economy do not have the time to follow the Council’s snail's pace.”
The hint to the 26 million unemployed people is, of course, pure rhetoric, as it is unlikely that finding a Commission president more quickly would do anything in the near future for the millions Greeks, and Spaniards, and Eastern Europeans living on dole.
The Council’s refusal to endorse Juncker came as no surprise. All along, the main capitals repeated, on various notes, that they did not agree with the Parliament’s interpretation of the Lisbon treaty and that member countries were not prepared to renounce the prerogative of anointing the Commission boss anytime soon.
The whole process of organising primaries inside the major political parties (on the Socialist side, Martin Schulz was the only candidate) was a ritual of the Parliament’s own making, with which the Council wants nothing to do. The capitals did not ask for it and don’t feel bound to accept the results.The opposition to Juncker is practically unanimous among the 28, and even takes martial tones in Britain’s David Cameron’s mouth.
For the Council, made of the heads of state and governments of the 28, the prerogative to choose a Commission chief of their liking has not only political, but almost metaphysical implications. To lose it, would mean losing control over everything that made the functioning of the EU institutions until now.
Compared with previous nominations of the Commission’s president, the rules are already changed, as it is not possible to use a veto anymore in the Council. The decision will be taken by qualified majority.
Theoretically, nothing stops the leaders to choose an outsider — the name of Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), is often heard—, after having “taken into account” the results of the parliamentary elections, in which case they are set for a head-on collision with the Parliament.
It is in this light that one can deconstruct the tone and the conclusion of a surprising lecture given by Christine Lagarde, the IMF boss in London: “Inequality Threatens Democracy”… Newspapers went with paeans like: “Christine Lagarde, best known for lending money to developing countries on the condition that the those states make policy changes—is taking on inequality too, warning in a speech Tuesday that rising inequality is threatening global financial stability, democracy, and human rights.” And so on...
The big game is easy to deconstruct: one should not think that Christine Lagarde, head of the international loan-sharking institution, is suddenly emulating Chomsky, or the Pope... She is, simply put, the ace up the sleeve of the Merkel-Hollande duo, who, with the complicity of other EU capitals, plot to eventually drop Lagarde at the head of the EU Commission.
The drawback is: she is under investigation in her own country, France, in the “Tapie affair”, over her role in a 2008 arbitration that awarded a massive 400 million euros state payout to controversial businessman Bernard Tapie. She was not yet charged, but appeared already in a French court...
All this show that the rules are not at all clear, that nobody knows what to do, and that everybody is trying to buy time.
There is even speculation that a compromise solution would consist in Juncker’s formally getting the job, in order to immediately resign on health reasons. This will then free the capitals of any debt towards the Parliament.
But the Parliament will have the last say, anyway. The deputies will have to approve the choice of the Commission president in July. In case of a contested proposal, a lot of debauching of individual MEPs will take place before then.
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