As a Luxembourgish citizen, for the first eighteen years of my life there was only one prime minister: Jean-Claude Juncker, now the president of the European Commission. That said, I can tell you that Juncker’s tough talk over Brexit isn’t worth nearly as much as the the media make it seem.
Juncker embodies everything wrong with politics as it is: A law-student who never practiced the job, Juncker became party secretary in a large center-right party (the same ideological family as German Chancellor Angela Merkel). He got taken under the wing of former Luxembourg prime minister and later European Commission president Jacques Santer, and Juncker ended up serving more than 30 years in government.
Juncker was, and still is, unbearably popular in tiny Luxembourg. When Luxembourg held a referendum in 2005 on the European Union Constitution, Juncker made the campaign all about himself by threatening to step down if his favored side didn’t win.
That seems like a logical political response in the United Kingdom, but Luxembourgish voters were frightened. Juncker so effectively convinced Luxembourg that the country is only relevant in the world through him. What would they do if he left office? In the end, more than 56 percent voted with Juncker.
Recall for a moment why Juncker stepped down as prime minister to begin with: In a massive spying scandal, the secret service repeatedly and systematically conducted illegal operations. Juncker did not take responsibility (the secret service reports only to the prime minister).
When confronted with a 140-page report of his wrongdoings and failure to address the situation, Juncker just pointed out his great leadership skills. If not for the mighty Juncker, he claimed, who would even know about Luxembourg? Rather than addressing the situation at home, Juncker fled the country and preferred to visit his friends in the international community to prove his importance in the European Council.
Needless to say, his socialist coalition partner eventually got sick of it and broke up Juncker’s flawless career.
There is a narrative that one must have lost an election to become part of the European Commission, the current president being an example. But Juncker did not lose the snap elections following his eventual resignation in 2013. His party overwhelmingly won more than one-third of the vote. But the three major opposition parties formed a coalition with a very thin majority, expelling Juncker and his party from power.
Still, his appointment to European Commission president would have happened no matter what.
Most of the scare talk about what would happen to the U.K. if it chose to leave the EU did not affect British voters (much of it has since been proven untrue). Most barely know who Juncker is — he should realize his European appeal outside of Luxembourg is marginal at best.
Political reality overtook his idealism by a large margin. The same will happen during the negotiations with the new British government when Volkswagen (a German company) and Stella Artois (a Belgian company) want to be on the British market. This time, Juncker is not negotiating with an electorate of 300,000 but with the fifth largest economy in the world.
Juncker is the master of pretend wisdom. He wants the public to equate his name with Jean Monnet or Robert Schuman. He wants the old European Union above anything else, and he thinks the way to reach it is the same tough talk he practiced in Luxembourg.
Reality will prove him wrong.
Juncker’s resignation as European Commission president, as requested by the Czech foreign minister, would not remotely affect the fundamental problem posed by the centralization of power in the EU. Power is turning men into worse people less than it is attracting bad people to begin with.
“The unscrupulous and uninhibited are likely to be more successful,” Friedrich Hayek said. What better words to depict the charade of retired national politicians catapulted to the EU’s top jobs.
If anything, Jean-Claude Juncker is not the disease, he is the symptom. The disease is power.
Bill Wirtz is a law student at Universite de Lorraine in Nancy, France. He is originally from Luxembourg. Thinking of submitting an op-ed to the Washington Examiner? Be sure to read our guidelines on submissions.
