Jean-Claude Juncker presented a five-year work programme to the European Parliament on Tuesday (15 July) that had been agreed in advance with the ‘grand coalition’ of three parties that had promised him their support for his nomination as president of the European Commission.

The leaders of the centre-right European People’s Party, centre-left Socialists and Democrats, and liberal ALDE groups had made agreement on the programme a precondition of Juncker’s confirmation as president of the Commission.

For the centre-left, Juncker stressed his commitment to the social welfare state and described himself as an enthusiastic champion of the social market economy. For the centre-right, Juncker promised enforcement of the EU’s fiscal rules and an attack on burdensome regulation. The liberals extracted promises to increase investment in renewable energy and energy efficiency, and warm words about having a commissioner dedicated to human rights and anti-discrimination.

Business
He promised investment to stimulate growth and said that smart use of EU public funds would “mobilise up to €300 billion in additional public and private investment in the real economy over the next three years”. He said regulation of small businesses would be made “less burdensome”.

Digital market
Legislative steps would be taken to create a connected digital single market, including reform of telecoms rules, modernising copyright rules and simplifying consumer rules for online and digital purchases. He promised “ambitious legislative steps” within the first six months of his mandate.

European Energy Union
Reform and reorganisation of energy policy should pool resources, combine infrastructure and unite negotiating power relative to third countries. This energy union should become the world’s number one in renewable energies, Juncker said.

Internal market
Juncker promised investments in new technologies, improvement to the business environment and easier access to markets and finance so that Europe could maintain a global leadership position in engineering, chemicals and pharmaceutical industries. The continuing problems of the banking sector need to be solved by stricter controls on banks through the Single Supervisory Mechanism.

Monetary union and the euro
Legislative and non-legislative initiatives to deepen economic and monetary union would be launched during the first year of Juncker’s mandate. Proposals for further structural reform would follow from a stability-oriented review of the ‘six-pack’ and the ‘two-pack’ legislation, possibly including financial incentives and a targeted fiscal capacity for the eurozone.
Juncker promised that the troika, which has supervised EU support to eurozone countries receiving bail-outs, would be replaced with “a more democratically legitimate and more accountable structure”.
Any support and reform programme should go through not just a fiscal sustainability assessment, but a social impact assessment as well, he said.

Reaction

Markus Beyrer, secretary-general of BusinessEurope, gave the document seven points out of ten. “It’s a rather political paper, it’s not written in a bureaucratic style,” he said. “It gets the emphasis right on a number of issues. The emphasis needs to be put on investment. We are still far below the level we had pre-crisis.” Beyrer said he welcomed the programme’s emphasis on cutting red tape and bureaucracy, and the idea to establish a commissioner for better regulation. He said he also welcomed the programme’s commitment to the free movement of workers. However, he said its major flaw was that it did not adequately address the urgent problem of rising energy prices. “There’s a total lack of acknowledgement that one of the major problems we’re having is cost competitiveness in the energy sector,” he said. “It says we need to put emphasis on industrial competitiveness. This would be hard to do without addressing energy prices.”

Transparency campaign group ALTER-EU applauded Juncker’s backing for the idea of an inter-institutional agreement with the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers to create a mandatory lobby register covering all three institutions. “This step is long overdue and the proposal needs to follow quickly, by the end of 2015 at the latest,” said Max Bank of LobbyControl, a member of the steering committee of ALTER-EU. The political groups that were shut out of the drafting of the work programme reacted less positively. Gabi Zimmer, the leader of the far-left GUE group, said that the programme failed to spell out specific changes to the policies of austerity pursued by the EU and the troika of creditors to crisis-hit eurozone countries.

Rebecca Harms, co-leader of the Green group, said the programme did not have the right answers on climate and energy policy, the EU-US trade negotiations, migration or taxation policy.

The European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) said the programme placed too much emphasis on increasing EU spending and not enough on EU reform. ECR leader Syed Kamall said: “Instead of focusing on how to raise more money from own resources, let us lead the debate towards how we spend taxpayers’ money better.”

Free trade
The Commission would negotiate a reasonable and balanced trade agreement with the US, in a spirit of mutual and reciprocal benefits and transparency, Juncker said. He promised that he would not “sacrifice Europe’s safety, health, social and data- protection standards or our cultural diversity on the altar of free trade”.

Justice and rights
Juncker said that he would strengthen scrutiny of member states’ respect for fundamental rights and the rule of law. In view of recent mass-surveillance revelations, close partners such as the United States would have to convince the EU that the current ‘safe harbour’ arrangements were safe.

Migration
He promised a new European policy on legal migration. Europe’s borders need to be secured: “Our common asylum and migration policies will only work if we can prevent an uncontrolled influx of illegal migrants.”
The budget of EU border agency Frontex should be increased as “a budget of just €90 million a year certainly does not equal the task of protecting Europe’s common borders”.

Foreign policy
He called for stronger co-operation on security and defence. “I believe we cannot be satisfied with how our common foreign policy is working at the moment. We need better mechanisms in place to anticipate events early and to swiftly identify common responses. We need to be more effective in bringing together the tools of Europe’s external action.”
He said that the EU needed to take a break from enlargement “so that we can consolidate what has been achieved among the 28”.

Democratic change
Juncker stressed the importance of enhanced transparency in contact with stakeholders and lobbyists. “Our citizens have the right to know with whom commissioners and Commission staff, members of the European Parliament or representatives of the Council meet in the context of the legislative process.” A common mandatory lobby register of all three EU institutions should be created.
He said he would explore the potential for more interaction with the national parliaments “notably when it comes to enforcing the principle of subsidiarity”. This would be a way of bringing the EU closer to the citizens.

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