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Speaking at an event to commemorate the EU's landmark Maastricht
Treaty, Juncker said that in 10 years Europe's share in the
world economy would fall to 15 percent from 25 percent now. In
20 years, no European countries would be part of the G7 group of
the world's top seven economies.
He said while at the start of the last century, Europeans
represented around 20 percent of humankind, this had fallen to
between 5 and 7 percent at the start of this century and would
further shrink to 4 percent by the end of it.
"So those who do think the time has come to deconstruct, to put
Europe in pieces, to subdivide us in national divisions, are
totally wrong. We won't exist as single nations without the
European Union," Juncker said.
He was referring to the rising support for anti-EU rhetoric
across Europe, culminating in the British referendum to leave
the EU, and the growing popularity of nationalist and populist
movements in France, Italy, Poland, Hungary and elsewhere.
Juncker said the migration crisis, which has seen some 1.4
million asylum-seekers arrive in Europe since the start of last
year, had destroyed the idea of the EU as a bloc based on
commonly agreed rules.
This was because some governments were refusing to comply with
quotas put forward by the Commission saying how many refugees
they must accept.
"That's something new. For the first time in post-war European
history, not all the member states are applying the commonly
agreed rules," Juncker said.
"This is against this basic principle that the European Union is
a rule-based system. It is no longer," he said.
(Reporting by Jan Strupczewski; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
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