New poll 'destroys' Jean-Claude Juncker's mandate says AECR

An AECR/AMR poll conducted in the immediate aftermath of the European elections has found that only 8.2% of EU nationals could name Jean-Claude Juncker, the European People’s Party’s candidate for the Commission presidency. Only 13.6% of those surveyed could name any of the candidates standing for the position of European Commission president and only 8.8% could name any of the European political parties now claiming their ballots as mandates.

The AECR did not propose a candidate for the Commission presidency as part of the 2014 European election, arguing that the process lacked both legal authority and public support.

The poll, which interviewed 12,132 adults across 15 countries, found that, even when told that EU-level political parties had run candidates for president of the European Commission, 89.9% said that this should not be the criterion for their elevation.

AECR Chairman Jan Zahradi, an MEP for the Czech ODS, said: “AECR rejects the federalism of the old parties. We speak for that large majority of Europeans who have never consented to be citizens of a federal union. The main candidates remain stuck in a 1950s vision of Europe. Jean-Claude Juncker for the EPP, Martin Schulz for the PES and Guy Verhofstadt for ALDE, all offered interchangeable federalist platforms”

AECR Secretary General British Conservative Daniel Hannan said: "How can the European voters have ‘chosen’ the next president of the European Commission when they have never heard of him? To appoint Juncker would be to play along with the pretence that the EU is already a single country with a unified public opinion. In fact, people voted in 28 separate elections on national issues. In Britain, for what it’s worth, only 0.18% of voters supported the candidates of Juncker’s EPP."

AMR interviewed 12,132 adults from 15 countries aged 18+ between the 24-26May 2014. The countries surveyed were Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Spain and the UK.

The AECR/AMR report can be found here.

The AECR campaigns for radical reform of the European Union and aims to spread free-market conservative values. It works alongside the European Conservatives and Reformists Group in the European Parliament, its associated national parties and the New Direction think-tank. The AECR is recognized and partially funded by the European Parliament.

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