Juncker urges EU to assume stronger world role

Europe must become a ‘global player’ with a muscular foreign policy to match its economic strength, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker urged on 12 September, in his annual address to the bloc's parliament.

Juncker used his State of the EU speech to the Strasbourg body to call for Europe to stand up for the international order in the face of ‘trade and currency wars’, in a swipe at US President Donald Trump's ‘America First’ approach.

Europe's ability to take strong diplomatic action is often hampered by the need to get agreement from all 28 member countries so, in a bid to simplify the process, Juncker announced plans to abolish the need for unanimity on some foreign policy issues.

With Brussels and Washington at loggerheads on a host of major issues from trade tariffs to the Paris climate agreement and the Iran nuclear deal, Juncker said it was time for Europe to play a more influential role on the world stage.

‘We must become a greater global actor,’ the head of the EU executive told lawmakers in French, before switching to English to add: ‘Yes we are global payers, but we have to be global players too.’

The EU must do more to push the euro as a world currency, Juncker said, questioning why Europe pays 80% of its energy bills in dollars when only 2% of energy imports come from the US.

Boosting the role of the euro as a reserve currency would also boost Brussels' diplomatic power by creating a means of skirting US sanctions that it disagrees with, such as those slapped back on Tehran by Trump when he pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal earlier in 2018 in the face of bitter European opposition.

A European diplomat said in advance of the speech that Juncker knows it is a ‘critical’ moment to prepare Europe for a world in which Trump's US is an unpredictable foreign policy friend and a protectionist trade rival.

Juncker urged the EU to strike a ‘new alliance’ with Africa that would create millions of jobs and include a free trade deal – a move Brussels hopes would both showcase its international influence and help to stem the flow of migrants across the Mediterranean.

Juncker's showpiece speech is his last before May elections that will pit Europe's rising populist forces against his centrist supporters, and he issued a rallying cry to maintain a ‘continent of tolerance and openness.’

Populist, nationalist and eurosceptic forces have gained ground in many countries, and the polls for the European parliament could well bring in more of Juncker's opponents to rock the boat just as he tries to consolidate what he sees as real successes in restoring forward momentum to the European project.

As part of efforts to tackle the issue of illegal immigration, which has done much to fuel populist sentiment since the height of Europe's migrant crisis in 2015, Juncker confirmed plans to revamp the bloc's border protection.

Juncker said: ‘The European Commission is today proposing to strengthen the European Border and Coast Guard to better protect our external borders with an additional 10,000 European border guards by 2020.’

The set-piece speech was Juncker's fourth such state of the union. He leaves office on 31 October 2019 after a term marked by crisis after crisis: a refugee influx, soaring debt and Brexit.

Juncker said he respected Britain's choice to leave, but undermined a key part of Prime Minister Theresa May's plan to quit the bloc, warning London it cannot expect to selectively remain in parts of the single market.

He said, while welcoming May's proposal for an ‘ambitious new partnership’ based on a future free trade agreement: ‘We... ask the British government to understand that someone who leaves the union cannot be in the same privileged position as a member state.’