BRUSSELS (AP) — The incoming leader of Europe’s most powerful bureaucracy is a master of the backroom deal — and an outspoken and witty career politician who once advocated the right to lie in times of crisis.

Jean-Claude Juncker, who was prime minister of Luxembourg for almost two decades, was a controversial pick as the 28-nation European Union’s new chief executive, not least because the British government vociferously opposed him. The British tabloid The Sun portrayed him as “the most dangerous man in Europe.”

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