Cameron isolated in EU leader search
27 Jun 2014 11:41 PM GMT
Many political battles are ugly - but toss in 28 nations, high unemployment, angry voters and a sceptical Britain and the fight over who will be the European Union’s next chief executive may have profound consequences.
Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron has set himself up for a stinging defeat as his vocal campaign to block the front-runner for the top EU job, former Luxembourg prime minister and long-time Brussels insider Jean-Claude Juncker, fails to gain traction. Many fear that an increasingly isolated Britain could even choose to leave the bloc embracing 500 million people - something that has never happened in the EU’s history.
At their summit on Friday, the bloc’s leaders are set to nominate Juncker as the next president of the European Commission, the EU’s powerful executive arm, which is in charge of drafting legislation, overseeing countries’ budgets and policing the EU’s single market. Cameron views the EU ‘too big, too bossy and too interfering’ and sought to block Juncker, whom he sees as the embodiment of a pro-integration, consensus-favouring, empire-building Brussels clique that won’t hand back power to member nations.
Cameron says the strong results last month for eurosceptic and anti-immigration parties in European Parliament elections in several EU countries, including France and Britain, were a
wake-up call that the bloc ‘must either change or accept further decline.’
Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron has set himself up for a stinging defeat as his vocal campaign to block the front-runner for the top EU job, former Luxembourg prime minister and long-time Brussels insider Jean-Claude Juncker, fails to gain traction. Many fear that an increasingly isolated Britain could even choose to leave the bloc embracing 500 million people - something that has never happened in the EU’s history.
At their summit on Friday, the bloc’s leaders are set to nominate Juncker as the next president of the European Commission, the EU’s powerful executive arm, which is in charge of drafting legislation, overseeing countries’ budgets and policing the EU’s single market. Cameron views the EU ‘too big, too bossy and too interfering’ and sought to block Juncker, whom he sees as the embodiment of a pro-integration, consensus-favouring, empire-building Brussels clique that won’t hand back power to member nations.
Cameron says the strong results last month for eurosceptic and anti-immigration parties in European Parliament elections in several EU countries, including France and Britain, were a
wake-up call that the bloc ‘must either change or accept further decline.’
Next Story
