Jean-Claude Juncker yesterday won broad endorsement from the European Parliament to be the next head of the European Commission after setting out a “grand coalition” investment program to help revive Europe’s economy.
Belying his reputation as a gray back-room fixer, Juncker spoke with passion and fire of his ambition to “reindustrialize” Europe and put the EU’s 25 million unemployed, many of them young people, back into work.
He promised a 300 billion euro (US$409 billion) public-private investment program over the next three years, combining existing and perhaps augmented resources from the EU budget and the European Investment Bank with private-sector funds to build energy, transport and broadband networks and industry clusters.
“We need a reindustrialization of Europe,” the 59-year-old former Luxembourg prime minister said.
He won support from the Socialists and Liberals as well as his own center-right bloc, the largest in the EU legislature.
The position Juncker assumes is the most powerful in the EU. The commission proposes and enforces laws for 500 million Europeans, from Ireland in the west to Lithuania in the east.
Juncker acknowledged that many Europeans had lost confidence in the bloc and said only economic results and full employment, not endless debate over EU institutions, would restore their trust.
Euroskeptic parties topped the May European Parliament elections in France and Britain and won more than one-quarter of the seats in the Strasbourg, France-based assembly.
The EU assembly approved Juncker by a clear majority of 422 votes with 250 against, 47 abstentions and 10 spoiled ballots.
The score fell short of the combined 479 votes of the center-right, center-left and liberal groups.
He will take office on Nov. 1 barring any delay in the formation of the full 28-member commission, whose members will undergo confirmation hearings in September before an overall vote of confidence in October.
In a speech delivered in French, German and English, Juncker sought to reassure Germany and other north European fiscal hawks that the bloc’s strict rules on budget deficits and debt reduction would be maintained.
However, his emphasis on public investment, reaffirmation of a target of raising industry to 20 percent of EU economic output from 19.1 percent last year and call for a minimum wage in each EU country, were designed to reach out to the left.
To British skeptics demanding a return of powers from Brussels to national capitals, he said that Europe could not be built against nation-states and should focus on the big common challenges and not intervene in “small problems.”
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese