(EU) Commission Crusade: Cameron Outmaneuvered in Battle over Juncker

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/cameron-and-juncker-fight-over-role-in-european-commission-a-975528.html



British Prime Minister David Cameron is determined not to let Jean-Claude Juncker become president of the European Commission. But he is increasingly isolated. He might face his Waterloo as early as next week.

Commission Crusade: Cameron Outmaneuvered in Battle over Juncker
By SPIEGEL Staff
June 19, 2014 – 12:37 PM

Reading the newspaper hasn't been particularly pleasurable for Jean-Claude Juncker in recent days. First, British historian Timothy Garton Ash compared him to King Louis the XVI, who was executed by the guillotine. Then, the Swiss paper Weltwoche lumped him together with Hitler and Mussolini and the British tabloid Sun described him as "the most dangerous man in Europe."

Juncker had suspected that the British press in particular would go on the attack against him, but he recently had to summon the police after paparazzi climbed over a fence into his property. Furthermore, his 90-year-old father burst into tears when a tabloid accused him of Nazi association. (The older Juncker was forceably recruited into the Wehrmacht following the occupation of Luxembourg.)

The situation is a delicate one: British Prime Minister David Cameron continues to categorically reject Juncker as the next president of the European Commission. Yet a majority in the European Parliament supports the former Luxembourg prime minister. The European Council, made up of EU heads of state and government, has the power of nomination, but the body is divided.

Several voices, including the influential German weekly Die Zeit last week, have called on Juncker to withdraw his candidacy as a final service to Europe. It is a potential solution that Berlin, too, could live with, despite Chancellor Angela Merkel's official support for Juncker's candidacy.