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BILD am SONNTAG: Mr Juncker, what are the three most important characteristics a Commission President has to have?
Jean-Claude Juncker: „He has to be a good listener, he has to know the Member States very well, or else he won’t hear what’s going on at grass-roots level, and he has to be able to sleep little but well.
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Does Manfred Weber have these characteristics?
Juncker: „He is a good listener and has sufficient knowledge.
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Chef de l‘UE Juncker exige
Plus de femmes, moins de commissaires
Monsieur Juncker, quels sont les trois qualités les plus importantes que doit posséder le président de la Commission?
Will he be your successor?
Juncker: „The President of the European Commission is proposed by the European Council and elected by the European Parliament. I am only involved on the margins.
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Do you want him to succeed you?
Juncker: „There are several candidates, so there’s no sense in me favouring one of them, but like Manfred Weber I am a member of the European People’s Party, which is the largest political group, so it’s logical that he will become President.
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Your Competition Commissioner, Margarethe Vestager, didn’t state that she would also like to be Commission President until after the elections. Unlike Mr Weber she didn’t stand as a lead candidate. Is she eligible nonetheless?
Juncker: „I don’t interfere in my Commissioners’ life plans. Ms Vestager has been a very competent Commissioner, and now that she has expressed her willingness to lead the Commission she is one of the people eligible to be elected.
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Could she be a good President?
Juncker: „Yes, she could, and so could my first Vice-President Frans Timmermans, the Social Democrats’ lead candidate.
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Up to now the Commission has been somewhat of a men’s club – only nine of your twenty-eight Commissioners are women.
Juncker: „When I put my Commission together five years ago, the Member States only proposed one woman! I made sure that at least nine women had posts out of the twenty-eight. I agree, this situation is ridiculous, there are still too few women. That applies to all the other top jobs in the EU. Sixty percent of all graduates are women, so the minimum is that half the Commissioners should be female.
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What about the size of the Commission? Does every Member State really need its own Commissioner?
Juncker: „I have called several times for the number of Commissioners to be reduced. There is simply not enough work to keep 28 Commissioners busy all day. This is why I revamped the Commission, appointed Vice-Presidents and greatly reduced the number of portfolios. My successor will have to take similar measures if the Member States cannot agree to reduce the number of Commissioners.
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During your term in office the UK voted for Brexit and the number of right-wing populists in the European Parliament rose sharply. What went wrong?
Juncker: „It’s too easy to blame the Commission President for everything. The UK government is responsible for Brexit.
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Are the national governments also to blame for the rise of populism?
Juncker: „Governments have a habit of congratulating themselves for what goes right and blaming Brussels for what goes wrong. It’s no wonder that anti-European tendencies are on the rise. The question now is how to deal with populists. There’s only one way: to take a clear stand against them. Our opposition will be a factor in whether they become a threat to Europe.
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Anti-Europeans will make up a quarter of the new Parliament.
Juncker: „We have to differentiate between Eurosceptics and anti-Europeans. There’s certainly nothing wrong in a healthy scepticism about the EU’s everyday activities. I become a Eurosceptic at least once a day.
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Can you give me an example?
Juncker: „A recent example is that probably five of my Commissioners will now become Members of the European Parliament. However, the Commission’s term will not end until November. Each Member State has the right to appoint a new Commissioner for the remaining four months. This would cost the European taxpayer a million euro per Commissioner, for relocation, staff and the lifelong pension which every Commissioner gets, no matter how long he or she has been in office, because the Member States have decided that this is so. I’m trying to stop this.
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How do you think the Commissioners should be replaced then?
Juncker: „The work of the departing Commissioners can easily be shared out among the remaining Commissioners for four months. If heads of state or government insist on replacing them, no citizen will understand this!
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What advice would you give to your successor?
Juncker: „I would advise him or her to make more energetic public statements to counter the repeated attempts to smear the EU. The Commission should set up an anti-fake-news department which would do nothing else but expose these lies. We have been too hesitant about this in the past.
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You were heavily criticised in Hungary and Poland because of the EU’s migration policy, Orban even had anti-Juncker posters put up.
Juncker: „Hungary is attacking me because of a decision made by the other Member States based on a Commission proposal. People always act as if the Commission were allowed to take decisions on its. This would be good, but it’s not the case.
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On climate protection, it’s Germany who is violating the objectives of the Paris Agreement. Shouldn’t there be scope for stronger sanctions in such cases?
Juncker: „I’m no great fan of sanctions, as they make the conversation more difficult. Countries are like wild horses, punishing them is not the way to tame them.
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What was your most difficult decision during your term as Commission President?
Juncker: „The Greek rescue.
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Your most difficult interlocutor?
Juncker: „Donald Trump says I was his worst interlocutor. He calls me a ‘brutal killer’. But I knew how to get along with him – like killers do.
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What will you miss most about Chancellor Merkel?
Juncker: „She is a lovable work of art, and I feel sad when a work of art is taken from me. But that won’t happen any time soon.
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Where do you see the EU twenty years from now?
Juncker: „I would like people to treat the EU with greater respect and affection instead of constantly doing it down. I would also like the Member States to try to learn more about each other. I am sad that the Luxembourgers know nothing about the Sami and the Bavarians nothing about the Sicilians. After all, we have a common European destiny!
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Is it true that you have been living in a hotel for the past five years?
Juncker: „Yes, that’s true – the Commission President doesn’t have a residence. I have been living in a hotel apartment measuring 50 square metres for 3250 euro [per month]. Donald Tusk doesn’t have a residence either, by the way. The NATO Secretary-General, on the other hand, lives in a stately home, and invites us there sometimes when we need a rest. All the ambassadors have residences too – I know many of them.
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That means you did a lot of visiting.
Juncker: „’A lot’ would be overdoing it. The biggest problem was that I couldn’t invite anyone home. I can’t talk to official visitors sitting on my bed! On the other hand, when I flew to visit them by commercial airliner, I was always invited to their private residences.
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The Commission doesn’t have its own aeroplane?
Juncker: „No. When I was talking to Donald Trump, I was constantly looking at my watch so that I wouldn’t miss my flight home. Trump kept saying, ‘Your ‘plane can wait!’ He didn’t realise that I didn’t have my own aeroplane.
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