The Juncker system

This blog is not sponsored by EPP. Nor does it provide any „exclusive“ information from the executive board of the EU Commission. This is not „Politico“ – otherwise you would not be able to read what follows.

It is about Commission President Juncker and his Director General M. Selmayr. Both have established a tight and authoritarian system in the EU Commission, which they call „political“ but which evades any political responsibility.

This has become clear again when the European Parliament examined Selmayr’s controversial lightning promotion by Juncker. German budget commissioner G. Oettinger is once again allowed to play the defender of last resort.

The CDU politician affirmed that everything has been done in the right way. But the answers that the Commission has given to the MEP can hardly prove this. Important documents are missing, allegedly for data protection reasons.

In addition, there are barrage fires from the CDU and CSU. The party leader of the EPP/EPP, Weber (CSU), supported Juncker even before the hearing. The Luxembourger naturally had the right to choose „his“ Secretary General, Weber said.

Juncker’s political „advisor“ for relations with the USA, CDU veteran E. Brok, simultaneously fires journalistic broadsides against all who dare to attack his protégé from Bertelsmann’s time, Selmayr. They are – at least partly – „anti-German“, Brok says.

In addition, Juncker has some good old friends from the Bertelsmann Foundation and the Chancellor’s Office. They too are behind „their“ commission head. Chancellor Merkel even praised Selmayr’s „efficiency“ at the last EU summit; no criticism came over her lips.

All in all, we have a network of CDU, CSU, Bertelsmann and the German government (i.e. mainly German interest representatives) who support the „System Juncker“ and let it provide them with favors.

Things are not looking so good elsewhere in the EU. UK is leaving the EU, Poland and Hungary are opposing Brussels, Italy has voted against Juncker. Even in his homeland Luxembourg, people no longer care about the former prime minister.

Like the LuxLeaks affair, the „Selmayr case“ offers the rare opportunity to reveal this system not provided for in any EU treaty and to put an end to undemocratic undesirable developments. But you also have to want to want to.

In the European Parliament, however, the will for transparency seems to be waning again. The EPP, Social Democrats and Liberals, for example, rejected a proposal by the Greens to personally harass Juncker.

Instead, Oettinger must take responsibility for his boss. But Merkel’s  man for Brussels also failed – as the person responsible for the staff, he should have been the first to sound the alarm bell. But he nodded everything…

Translated with the help of www.DeepL.com/Translator