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 Addressing the chamber before his European Commission was approved
by 423 votes to 209, the former Luxembourg premier warned that
voters were losing patience with EU bureaucracy and a failure to
create prosperity. He promised a major plan for new investment
within two months of him taking office on Nov. 1.
"Citizens are losing faith," he said in remarks to an assembly to
which many new Euroskeptic members were elected in May. "Extremists
on the left and right are nipping at our heels.
"We are last-chance Europe. Let's seize this chance."
After a rough ride in parliamentary confirmation hearings for some
of the 28 commissioners, one nominated by each member state, Juncker
made only one change to his original line-up and had no concerns
going into the vote, given support from his own center-right bloc
and from the main center-left party.
That "grand coalition", also supported by the centrists, brought
opposition from other parties, including the Greens, and an array of
Euroskeptics, including French National Front leader Marine Le Pen
and UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage, both of whom sharply
criticized Juncker during the debate.
Juncker, 59, told parliament he would present details of his
previously promised 300-billion-euro ($380-billion) plan for
investment to bolster growth and jobs by the end of this year but
also, in a nod to his conservative ally German Chancellor Angela
Merkel, stressed governments must keep deficits down.
Switching from French to speak in German, he said investment was
vital to restoring growth and creating jobs; Berlin is resisting
calls from deficit-strapped France and Italy for it to spend more to
kick-start growth in the stuttering euro zone.
Juncker stressed, however, that, as Merkel has said, much of the 300
billion euros should come from private investors and that the EU's
budget rules that limit the size of government deficits and public
debt will not be weakened.
"The rules will not be changed," Juncker said. "But they can be
implemented with a degree flexibility."
Investment, he said, was only one part of a three-pillar strategy,
along with structural reforms of national economic policy and
renewed fiscal credibility for governments.
BRITISH SKEPTICS
British Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservatives declared they
would abstain in the vote. Cameron had tried in vain to block
Juncker's appointment by EU leaders. He said he was too much a
veteran of Brussels backroom dealing to make reforms to the bloc
that the British premier says are necessary before Britons vote in a
referendum on whether to quit the EU.
An EU source said Juncker was disappointed by the abstention:
"London failed to honor their part of the deal," the source said,
referring to Juncker's appointment of Cameron ally Jonathan Hill as
financial services commissioner - a move that provoked widespread
opposition in other countries.
A spokesman for the Conservative-led bloc in parliament said there
had been no "deal" and that the decision to abstain was based on an
assessment of the commissioners in their hearings.
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Asked at a news conference after the vote about British doubts over
his ability to reform the EU as London wants, Juncker repeated his
willingness to work to keep Britain in the bloc: "We want a fair
deal with Britain," he said.
Riding high in opinion polls ahead of a British election next
spring, Farage however told Juncker that his EU executive was "the
enemy of the very concept of democracy" and forecast that his would
be the last commission to "govern Britain".
PRIORITIES
Juncker pledged a "very political" team, not "a bunch of anonymous
technocrats", that would focus during its five-year mandate on
carrying out major programs while leaving other matters to national
governments.
He said a new, two-tier hierarchy Commission whose number has soared
with the expansion of the EU to 28 member states, was designed to
make it more efficient and to break down "parochial attitudes" in
which commissioners pursued individual projects. A new layer of
vice-presidents would coordinate them.
Juncker and his team will take over on Nov. 1 from the executive led
for the past 10 years by the former Portuguese prime minister Jose
Manuel Barroso.
Among major figures will be French former finance minister Pierre
Moscovici, the economy commissioner, whose appointment was met with
questions from Germany and conservatives elsewhere due to the
Socialist's part in a government in Paris that has failed to meet EU
targets for cutting its deficits.
Moscovici will, however, share responsibility for upholding EU
policy on the euro and budgets with austerity hawks Jyrki Katainen
and Valdis Dombrovskis, Commision vice-presidents and former
premiers of Finland and Latvia respectively.
The new EU foreign affairs chief will be Italy's Federica Mogherini
while the powerful antitrust commissioner will be Margrethe Vestager
of Denmark.
Juncker's "right hand" will be Frans Timmermans, the center-left
former Dutch foreign minister. Among other tasks, he is to ensure a
planned free-trade deal with the United States does not give too
much power to multinational companies.
(Additional reporting by Robin Emmott, Alastair Macdonald and Jan
Strupczewski; Writing by Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Louise
Ireland)
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