The Juncker Commission promises much, but can it deliver?

Opinion by Denis MacShane

The new European Commission has set the Commissionologists all of a flutter. One can see the Juncker method at work. People often patronize the small EU member states. But the politics there are as tricky and full of rivalries and ambition as anywhere else. Juncker did not stay as long as he did at the top of Luxembourg’s greasy pole, nor be a long serving Eurozone chair, nor segue effortlessly into being president of the Commission without having some very acute political skills.           

Foremost amongst these are compromise, coalition and consensus. They served him well as Luxembourg was transformed from a sleepy steel and coal duchy into one of the world’s advanced financial services nations. The FT and English papers are all proclaiming a great victory for London and the City in the appointment of Jonathan Hill as financial services commissioner. It might be better to see him from Juncker’s perspective as the perfect fit – a quality Tory professional from the city that is the world’s most sophisticated financial industry centre – who will understand perfectly the needs of Luxembourg bankers as well as other under-the-radar banking sectors like Vienna, and the Channel Islands as well as British and Dutch off-shore money-makers in today’s globalized financial world.           

Dubai, Singapore and other city states are trying hard to get more financial services out of the hands of Europe. Hill is the right man to keep the business of money in the hands of the EU.           

There is fascinating tandem in Franz Timmermans and Pierre Moscovici. The Dutch and French social democrats have been in the forefront of rethinking what modern left politics should be over the last 15 years. Both are tireless conférenciers and with their impeccable English are bridges between the different left parties in Europe.           

There is a view expressed by Libération’s Brussels guru, Jean Quatremer, that Timmermans is an Anglo-Saxon puppet. Nothing is further from the truth. As a minority member of Mark Rutte’s government, Timmermans clearly has had to support the harder fiscal line from the Hague. But while he calls for more authority for national parliaments in Europe, he has never adopted the tone or demands of British Tory Eurosceptics and has pleaded for a more integrated Europe as the sine qua non for a Europe of reform and growth that all dream of.           

Moscovici as Economy Commissioner has a general brief but little power to oblige EU member states to change policy. His will be a bully pulpit role. Juncker in giving the centre left such key positions is reinforcing the Grand Coalition nature of his Commission.            Margarethe Vagester, the Social Liberal from Denmark has got the key job of Competitition Commissioner. She has a burning dossier to deal with in the shape of the endless complaints about Google crushing European start-up companies with the quasi monopoly power of its universal search engine guiding everyone to other Google products and blocking competitors. The outgoing Commissioner, Spain’s Joaquin Almunia, has not been able to find a settlement that remotely satisfies those with serious complaints about Google.           

There is a serious case for treating Google like ATT in 1982 or even Standard Oil in 1911. Will the Dane be the EU first big trust buster? There is also the small matter of monopoly power within many EU member states. The French government recently received recommendation to allow competition in its closed shops like pharmacies, the notaries who add loads to house purchases  and business registration which read like something out of the 18th century. Paris had more taxis in the 1930s than today as the taxi cartel blocks any new entries and makes hailing a cab in Paris more difficult than dining at the Ritz.           

The shift of power to East Europe with Donald Tusk as European Council president and a raft of Commissioners from the Baltic States, Romania and Poland getting key jobs is fascinating. In addition, Juncker is taking an important risk with setting up Vice Presidents as kind of supervisory Commissioners. They do not have Treaty power to tell fellow Commissioners what to do and it will be interesting to see how this long-demanded idea of streamlining the Commission into senior and junior Commissioners works in practice.           

Right now the sound of thumbs being sucked can be heard all over Brussels. No one will really know who is going to have power, or use power, or be seen as change-makers. But after the two Barroso Commissions where drift and endless crisis management seemed to predominate this is a fresh start for Europe. Juncker was rubbished by the British press corps including those who should know better on the FT and Economist as well as by Downing Street and disgracefully British diplomats. Now he has produced the most interesting Commission since the Delors years. Will it work? That depends on a return to growth, innovation and confidence in Europe. And that in turn depends on national governments who remain firmly in charge, notably those who speak German.

Denis MacShane is a former UK Europe minister.

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