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Juncker tells near-empty #EuropeanParliament: 'You are ridiculous'

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European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker called European lawmakers "ridiculous" on Tuesday (4 July) for failing to turn up to an address by Malta's prime minister, saying they should show more respect for smaller members of the bloc, writes Elizabeth Miles.

Juncker, himself from the small Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, was visibly annoyed as he watched the proceedings in the near empty parliamentary chamber in Strasbourg.

"You are ridiculous," the European Commission president told the gathering called to listen to a speech by Malta's Joseph Muscat, in a blunt public rebuke of another EU institution.

"The fact that there's about 30 members of parliament present in this debate only really illustrates the fact that parliament is not serious," he said. "The European Parliament is ridiculous, very ridiculous."

Juncker said Malta, the EU's smallest country that had just completed a stint running the bloc's presidency, deserved better.

"If Mr. Muscat was Mrs Merkel, difficult as that is to imagine, or Mr Macron...we would have a full house," Juncker said, referring to the leaders of Germany and France.

Parliament president Antonio Tajani did not address the low attendance, but told Juncker himself to take a more respectful tone.

Slightly more than 400,000 people live on Malta, putting it just behind Luxembourg whose population comes in over the half-million mark.

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Muscat, who smiled during the exchanges, gave parliament a briefing on his country's presidency, focused on the challenges of migration and called Brexit a "disastrous creature which all of us should have seen coming but none of us acted to stop".

Present throughout the entire plenary debate, when Juncker
boycotted the session, MEP Sven Giegold, financial and economic policy spokesperson of the Greens/EFA group said: "Juncker must apologise to the European Parliament. The President of
the Commission does no good to European democracy when boycotting the EU Parliament. Juncker, as President of the European Commission, has the duty to report to the Parliament. His refusal was self-righteous and arrogant.

"Even though, Juncker's behaviour was totally inappropriate, he is
right in one point: when heads of smaller EU countries speak in the
plenary, it often seems to be of less interest compared to speeches
held by bigshots like Merkel or Macron. The behaviour of the MEPs, however, reflects only the real power relations in the European Council. Because important decisions in the Council are negotiated mainly by the large states, smaller countries can hardly achieve much without the most powerful states. Juncker should criticize the decision-making structures in the Council rather than to scold sharply at the Parliament."

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