The Juncker Affair and the British Question

The European Council's nomination of Jean-Claude Juncker, the former prime minister of Luxembourg, as future European Commission President appears to be a crushing defeat for British Prime Minister David Cameron. Indeed, his attempt to block Juncker's nomination was clumsy and ill-considered: it alienated potential allies and shored up support for Juncker among fence-sitters in other member states. In the U.K., euro-skeptic and opposition critics pour scorn on the prime minister. They claim that his failure to block Juncker demonstrates how little success he would have in securing reforms to make the EU more competitive and to bring powers back from Brussels to London - power over labor markets, for example. Without such reforms to placate euro-skeptics, many now see the U.K. heading toward the EU exit door. If Cameron wins next year's general election, he has promised an "in-out" referendum on Britain's EU membership in 2017. The Juncker affair, the PM himself suggested, makes it more likely that such a referendum would presage U.K. withdrawal.