Jean-Claude Juncker, upbeat and ready for a fight

European Commission president weighs in on Brexit, Donald Trump's management style and his own record in office.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker | Sander de Wilde/ID Photo Agency

The European Union is in good shape, and that’s in part down to Jean-Claude Juncker, according to … Jean-Claude Juncker.

The European Commission president, one of the few people left in the Commission this week before he heads off on a summer break, told POLITICO that despite a challenging year, the bloc is in the mood to tackle any problems that come its way — including Brexit and Donald Trump.

“There is really nothing to complain about,” he said in his office on the 13th floor of the Commission’s Berlaymont headquarters. With recent figures showing economic growth and falling unemployment, and with the budget deficits of member countries decreasing, “there is something better to report than a year ago” and that’s “not dependent on my mood, but on facts.”

How big a share of the credit does the Commission get for that? It should be sizable, Juncker said, but in reality it’s “relatively small,” adding that he’s “too old, too experienced” to be bothered by national capitals claiming the credit and Brussels getting the blame.

That’s a pattern likely to be seen in the Brexit talks, and Juncker said he had every reason to believe that would be the case.

Brexit won’t be just an annoyance, he said, more of a headache. “People will become more and more conscious of the density of problems on a daily basis, without always being able to provide a coherent answer to these problems.”

“We are better organized than the Trump administration … if there are any internal difficulties, those difficulties are fixed in a direct conversation instead of by firing people” — Jean-Claude Juncker

But Juncker showed little support for the idea that the Brexit process could be reversed as the talks become fractious.

The Commission’s “working hypothesis” is that Brexit will happen, eventually. “I don’t go as far as the Maltese prime minister [Joseph Muscat] who has not ruled out that it will not come to Brexit,” Juncker said. “My working hypothesis is that it will come to Brexit.”

Speaking in German late on Tuesday afternoon, Juncker repeated what has become a mantra for EU leaders: that Brexit talks are in good hands with Michel Barnier, the bloc’s chief negotiator. That means Juncker only spends “as much time as it needs” on Brexit, without specifying a time, he said; his chief of staff Martin Selmayr in May said the Commission boss wouldn’t devote more than half an hour a week dealing with Brexit. Instead, Juncker said, he’s focused on “the EU’s positive agenda” such as “economic growth and investments, migration and security, the development of a common defense policy, and strengthening our trade relationships with Japan, Canada and Latin America.”

Juncker vs. Trump

The Commission president didn’t hold back when it came to Donald Trump, saying that he had already “explained” to the U.S. president that he “should stop wishing for others to imitate the British” by leaving the bloc.

He also mocked Trump for the disorganized way in which he oversees the White House.

“It’s stunning,” Juncker said when asked about recent events in Washington, culminating in the firing of Anthony Scaramucci as comms director after just 10 days in the role.

“We are better organized than the Trump administration. That is because if there are any internal difficulties, those difficulties are fixed in a direct conversation instead of by firing people,” Juncker said, noting that he had no reason to fire anyone.

If the EU was falling to pieces, as Trump has claimed, “the western Balkans would lose the European perspective,” Juncker said in the interview.

“I’m not in favor of the western Balkans joining the EU soon,” Juncker said. “But if you take away the European perspective, then we will again experience what we experienced in the 1990s. In this respect, the stability of the composition of the European Union is a prerequisite for the Balkans not being at war again. I hope [Trump] understood that.”

He added that Trump hadn’t of late repeated his call for other EU members to leave the bloc.

Juncker said his track record since coming into office in 2014 helped him cope with the arrival of Trump and the U.K.’s decision to leave.

“If the Commission had not ensured that Greece was not expelled from the eurozone in 2015, the balance would be less good,” Juncker said. “At the time, I fought hard for the stability of the Eurogroup, in particular for Greece [against the wishes of German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble]. If I hadn’t done that, the eurozone would have decayed.”

Difficult neighbors

Juncker did acknowledge that Europe faces problems, including with Poland and Hungary, which have refused to accept refugees under the EU’s relocation scheme and come under criticism from Brussels for allegedly undermining the rule of law. He took a tougher line with Warsaw — which will be “more lonely after Brexit” — than Budapest.

Asked about the difference between dealing with the Polish leadership and Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Juncker said: “Well, I’ve got a caring relationship with Orbán. We talk regularly, I see him regularly — even if it’s not always made public — because I think I do not want to lose Hungary.” He didn’t make the same pledge about Poland, or even mention it.

On the subject of noisy neighbors, Juncker said enlargement talks with Turkey should not be halted, on paper at least. That goes against the line taken by the European Parliament and by the government of Austria, both of which have called for an end to the stalled talks in the wake of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s crackdown on opponents.

“Turkey is our neighbor, we can’t simply let it slip into oblivion,” Juncker said. “I am not in favor of ending the accession talks with Turkey, which is a demand from the European Parliament.”

“Because there is the European Union, war doesn’t need to happen” — Jean-Claude Juncker

“But the fact is that Turkey is moving away from its self-imposed obligation to become a member of the European Union almost every minute. It’s not the European Union that joins Turkey, but it’s Turkey joining the European Union.”

Summer reading list

Juncker heads off on vacation soon, to Austria. He’ll be taking books by Turkish Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk (“difficult to read”) and a crime thriller “that talks about Trump, Clinton, Bush. And because I know these guys and don’t see them described accurately, I’ll write the author a letter.”

Also on the summer reading list will be “1913: The year before the storm,” by German writer Florian Illies, which Juncker has read before and recommended “to the young people here at the Commission.”

It’s a book “describing the situation in 1913 in a mood of peacefulness all over Europe. Then the war broke out. I can’t get rid of the thought that it can happen again. But because there is the European Union, it doesn’t need to happen.”

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