In the European Union, change comes in fits and starts. The early phases are often painfully slow; the later ones recklessly fast. So the true significance of Jean-Claude Juncker’s speech this week may well emerge only in retrospect. My early guess is that it will go down in the history books as a momentous step.

I say this not knowing whether Juncker will achieve what seemed to be the main political objective underlying his State of the European Union address: to close the gap between the countries of Western Europe and the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.

In practical terms, that means resolving differences over the posting of workers, the settlement of refugees, membership of the eurozone and the Schengen zone. Put in other terms, he is trying to preserve the legacy of Helmut Kohl, the long-time chancellor of Germany who was Juncker's mentor and who took political risks in order to reconcile east and west.

Juncker attended the funeral rites for Kohl in the very same European Parliament chamber 10 weeks earlier. Hence, perhaps, his speech’s unexpectedly ambitious tone, and the reference to life’s disappointments being what you leave undone.

But even if Juncker is thwarted in his ambitions to bind the EU27 closer together after Brexit, even if his impassioned defense of European values and the rule of law makes no impact in Poland and Hungary, his speech may yet prove to be a landmark in the EU’s evolution because of what it said about reform of the bloc's institutions.

The suggestion that the president of the European Commission and the president of the European Council should be combined was swiftly derided in some quarters as an attempt to resurrect an argument that took place during the Convention on the Future of Europe back in 2001-2003.

We made our choice, its opponents say, and those decisions were enshrined in the Treaty of Lisbon.

But that is to misread the significance of the step taken before the European Parliament election of 2014: that each of the main political groups would nominate a candidate for the post of president of the Commission — known among EU obsessives as the Spitzenkandidaten process (possibly because Germany was one of the few countries that was aware it was happening). Because, across the EU as a whole, center-right parties belonging to the European People’s Party won more seats than parties belonging to the center-left Socialists and Democrats, Juncker became Commission president rather than the S&D candidate, Martin Schulz.

Flawed but going nowhere

The Spitzenkandidaten process is open to criticism. Whatever the pretense, the Parliament’s elections are an agglomeration of national contests; so Juncker’s name did not appear on ballot papers outside Luxembourg and nobody could cast a vote for Schulz outside Germany. Not all political groups fielded candidates in all countries. The contest was billed as a popular vote, but was decided by the number of seats won, not the number of votes cast (the S&D won more votes than the EPP).

“If you want to strengthen European democracy, then you cannot reverse the democratic progress seen with the creation of lead candidates — Spitzenkandidaten” — Jean-Claude Juncker

Nevertheless, the Spitzenkandidaten contest will be repeated in 2019. Although championed by the European Parliament (which wanted to give its own electoral contests a focus and significance they had previously lacked), no major national figure in Europe is prepared to stand up and say that the Spitzenkandidaten process should not happen next time round. In the meantime, the expectations for 2019 are gaining in momentum — witness Juncker saying in his speech this week that European electoral campaigns should start earlier and there should be transnational lists of candidates.

“If you want to strengthen European democracy, then you cannot reverse the democratic progress seen with the creation of lead candidates — Spitzenkandidaten,” he said.

His proposal to combine the presidencies of the Commission and the Council is of a piece with this thinking.

This is how Juncker put it: “More democracy means more efficiency. Europe would function better if we were to merge the presidents of the European Commission and the European Council … Europe would be easier to understand if one captain was steering the ship. Having a single president would better reflect the true nature of our European Union as both a Union of states and a Union of citizens.”

I find much to disagree with in that statement. I do not equate democracy and efficiency. Many tyrannies are efficient, in their own way. Germany’s Bundesrat probably makes the country more democratic but not more efficient. But Juncker is surely right that Europe would be easier to understand.

A different beast

One of the reasons the EU struggles for acceptance is that it does not fit the expectation that political systems are composed of an executive, a legislature and a judiciary, separated roughly along the lines described by Montesquieu in the mid-18th century. The U.S. constitution most famously and clearly embodies that separation of powers, but it is also found in most European countries.

But the EU was created differently. It is not a state and it is not a government. The role of a legislature is spread across the Council of the EU (the representatives of the member countries), the European Parliament and the European Commission. Their decision-making power varies according to the subject matter.

Those who dismiss Juncker’s suggestion as unrealistic miss the point.

The role of an executive is also split — between the Council and the Commission. At times the Commission even has a judicial function. The EU’s arrangements simply do not fit the Montesquieu model. In many national setups, the government derives its authority from approval by an elected parliament. In the EU, there are competing electoral mandates. The Parliament has since 1979 been directly elected. But the Council of the EU is composed of representatives of elected governments. So whose claim to a democratic mandate is more valid?

These ambiguities are not accidental. The EU’s founding fathers took great care not to create a supranational government that would be perceived as a threat to national governments. The main decision-making body, the Council, was composed of representatives of those governments. The right to initiate legislation lay with the Commission, whose members were not elected but nominated by elected governments. The fairly complicated voting arrangements and the Commission’s hybrid role were supposed to guard against both tyranny and stasis. But the result was something hard to understand and to explain.

Juncker’s suggestion that the presidencies of the Commission and the European Council should be combined would be a step toward a more recognizable structure. It would benefit the Parliament, which would be able to portray itself as the directly elected legislature, and to portray the Commission and Council as the executive/government, supported by their respective administrations. Furthermore, the president of that government would owe his or her mandate to the Spitzenkandidaten contest, to the European Parliament elections, rather than, as in the past, to the collective decision of nationally elected governments.

Those who dismiss Juncker’s suggestion as unrealistic miss the point. It does not matter that at this moment his idea would not get unanimous backing in the European Council. Nor does it matter that there is a paradox underlying Juncker’s ambition to render the EU more understandable: he wants to make the EU more akin to a state even though, as he said in his speech, “Our Union is not a state.”

What matters is that another heavy blow has been aimed against the EU’s existing institutional arrangements, and that no one is prepared to explain or defend them, not even the president of the Commission.

In the longer term, Juncker wants to put the EU on a more secure footing, but in the short term, he’s loosened the foundations.

Tim King writes POLITICO's Brussels Sketch.