Mr Juncker’s Indian summer

A YEAR ago Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, surveyed his dominions and found them wanting. “Never before”, he told the European Parliament in his annual state-of-the-union address, “have I seen such little common ground between our member states.” Battered by economic and political crises, the European Union was staring into the abyss. Britain had just become the first country to vote to leave the club, and populists were on manoeuvres across the continent. Difficult elections loomed. “Our European Union is, at least in part, in an existential crisis,” Mr Juncker said.

Twelve months on, the mood has lifted so dramatically that last year’s fears have come to seem almost quaint. There is a whiff of change in the air, explained by two things. The first is a sense of optimism. It is fostered by defeats for anti-European parties in France, the Netherlands and elsewhere; and by a cyclical economic upturn that has seen the EU outpace America’s GDP growth for two years. There is also a confidence among officials that, rather than encourage Europe’s disruptive forces, the horrors of Brexit and Donald Trump have helped Europeans recover their love for stability. One calls the EU “super-vaccinated” by uncertainty elsewhere. And the election of Emmanuel Macron in France, along with the imminent re-election of Angela Merkel in Germany, offer a window of opportunity for reform.

Thus was the scene set for Mr Juncker, on September 13th, to declare the wind back in Europe’s sails. In an hour-long address to MEPs he scampered through an ambitious set of proposals designed to illustrate that Brussels still matters. Some of his more outlandish notions—eg, to merge the presidencies of the European Commission and Council, thus creating one mega-president for the EU—reminded sceptical observers why they were reluctant to give the commission presidency to the old federalist Mr Juncker in the first place. But other ideas were broadly welcomed. Among other goodies, Mr Juncker offered a rash of trade deals, a beefed-up cyber-security agency and a promise to expand the EU to the troubled countries of the western Balkans. Mrs Merkel’s chief of staff called it an “important and great” speech.

The second driver of Mr Juncker’s ambition is a quiet fear that it could all go wrong again. Gone in the president’s address were the pleas of previous years to help the teeming masses of irregular migrants crossing the Mediterranean; in their place came a celebration of border guards and praise for Italy in slashing migration from Libya. The trade deals Mr Juncker promises with friendly partners like Australia and Japan are tempered by plans to screen foreign investments in “strategic” sectors that cut across countries (think Chinese state-owned firms buying large European ports). Put all this under the rubric “a Europe that protects”, a phrase that, with Mr Macron’s approval, looks set to serve as a mantra in the years ahead as the EU seeks to draw the sting further from Eurosceptic parties.

Look, too, to the insistence on extending the signature achievements of the EU to all its members. Mr Juncker peppered his speech with treats for eastern European countries that have lately felt neglected, even finding time to promise action against food manufacturers who offload dodgy fish fingers onto Slovak consumers. Lurking beneath was a vision that may give some pause. Brexit barely featured in his speech, but Mr Juncker believes the departure of the country that, with its endless opt-outs, threats and prevarications, served as a constant brake on integration offers a chance to set the EU back on its natural path.

What of those countries that do not share Mr Juncker’s ambitions? The leaders of Denmark and the Netherlands swiftly dismissed some of his more outré institutional proposals; Mr Juncker, who was kite-flying, will not much mind. More serious is the euro area which, officials now like to note, will account for 85% of the EU economy once Britain leaves. Mr Juncker poured cold water on Mr Macron’s proposals for a discrete euro-zone budget overseen by its own parliament, insisting that such things should be managed by the EU as a whole. That debate will be resolved in Berlin and Paris, not Brussels, but provides a clue to Mr Juncker’s thinking on the EU’s future. All its remaining members bar Britain and Denmark are obliged to join the single currency. Mr Juncker pressed the point this week, proposing a new “pre-accession fund” to help countries that remain outside the euro.

In passing

Mr Juncker is placing two bets with all this. The first is that meaningful integration is possible via stealth. The commission knows that changes to the EU’s treaties, with all the accompanying paraphernalia of referendums and summitry, are off the table for now. Instead officials are unearthing so-called passerelle clauses that allow for changes to the EU’s rule book to be made quietly. Mr Juncker also hopes to remove national vetoes from some areas of decision-making, such as tax and bits of foreign policy.

The bigger gamble is that there is a single vision for the EU that is broad enough to include everyone. The intra-Europe divides that Mr Juncker lamented a year ago have hardly disappeared. Rows over migration, money and the rule of law run so deep that some, not least in Germany and France, have increasingly been tempted by the old idea of a Europe running at different speeds. Mr Juncker, to the surprise of some, rejects that. Here, then, is the new mood in Brussels: confident but not cocksure, impatient for change after years of uncomfortable stasis, but jittery that it could all yet be unwound. It is true that Mr Juncker, an ageing Europhile of the old school, has never looked much like an agent of change; after making his speech in Strasbourg he cut short his replies to MEPs, pleading illness. And his plans will go nowhere if they do not capture the imagination of Europe’s national governments. But after years of crisis, they do at least show that there are still signs of life in Brussels.