Wednesday, 22 October 2014

Juncker´s challenge

Jean-Claude Juncker has won the vote at the European Parliament. He managed to get the support of a very large grand coalition of centre-right and centre-left MEPs. The way he addressed them was consistent with the process he led up to this day: being smart, saying the things that are mainstream, and paying attention to those who matter. He lost little time on extremists, on anti-EU MEPs, on all those that would vote in any case against him. His vast European experience gave him a strong advantage as well. He knows the issues better than any of the deputies in the EU Parliament.

His mandate will start on November 1. The expectations of the EU citizens are pretty low at the moment. Therefore, Juncker starts from a favourable ground. He just needs to adopt, sooner after taking office, one or two actions that could be perceived by the Europeans as new, a change.

But his time in office will run through a difficult time for the EU. The challenges ahead are immense. Maybe the biggest one will be to keep the Union together. Today more than ever the future on the EU is at risk. His experience might be of great help in trying to achieve the required and missing cohesiveness.



   

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