Merkel Cites ‘Threats’ in Warning to Cameron
BERLIN — German-British tensions over who should next lead the European Union appeared to heighten on Tuesday as Chancellor Angela Merkel delivered a scarcely veiled rebuke to Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain, warning that “threats” will not work as the 28 members struggle to mend new fissures in their unity aggravated by European Parliament elections last month.
Nationalist and populist parties with a firm anti-European Union stance achieved striking gains in those elections. In France and Britain, such parties shockingly finished in first place, heightening both the unevenness of the Franco-German partnership at the Continent’s core and Mr. Cameron’s problem over whether his country, increasingly skeptical of the value of European Union inclusion, remains a member.
The resulting feud has crystallized around Jean-Claude Juncker, the former Luxembourg prime minister. Ms. Merkel has backed him, if somewhat halfheartedly, to be the new president of the European Commission, the European Union’s powerful administrative arm. But Mr. Cameron has openly opposed Mr. Juncker, casting him as the kind of bland official who wants more European integration but will only make the European Union seem even more removed from its almost 500 million citizens, and certainly from Britons.
As European leaders gathered after the May 25 elections to assess the consequences, Mr. Cameron — who has little support for his position — was said to have threatened that Mr. Juncker’s promotion would hasten Britain’s departure. Mr. Cameron’s office denied the remark, but it has since gained enough currency in news media and diplomatic circles across Europe that there was no mistaking who Ms. Merkel had in mind when she spoke on Tuesday, flanked by the prime ministers of Sweden and the Netherlands, and Mr. Cameron.
“I made myself clear by saying that I am for Jean-Claude Juncker,” Ms. Merkel said.
“But when I made that statement in Germany, I also made the point that we act in a European spirit,” she said. “We always do that. Otherwise, we can’t arrive at a compromise. We cannot just entirely set aside the question of European spirit.”
“Threats do not belong in that spirit; that’s not how we usually proceed,” she added, speaking after she and the three men had conferred at a resort outside Stockholm to discuss how the four, all center-rightists, could shape an agenda to renew Europe — a familiar search that usually draws pledges to stimulate growth and create jobs in the next five years.
The British news media seized on Ms. Merkel’s comments as a rebuke to Mr. Cameron, who in his remarks stood his ground. He said it was “plain and obvious” that if Europe failed to change — in other words, return some powers from European Union headquarters in Brussels to member states — Britain would be more likely to leave.
He said: “I have a very straightforward approach, which is that I want Britain to stay in a reformed E.U. That is my goal. That is what I think is best for Britain and the best for Europe as well.”
Reflecting the calm with which Ms. Merkel usually conducts politics, and preoccupied by deaths and damage inflicted by summer storms over the Ruhrland, the German news media noted her warning against employing “threats” but were much more restrained in reporting her remarks. Agreement on who leads Europe, commentators unanimously noted, is obviously far off.
Ms. Merkel, who has been in office since 2005 and convincingly won a third term in elections last September, was caught between competing claims after the European parliamentary vote.
On one hand, she pledged to support Mr. Juncker if the center-right bloc he headed into the elections emerged with the most seats in Parliament. Under a pre-election agreement designed to bring Europe’s remote structures closer to its voters, the strongest bloc in Parliament was supposed to nominate the new president of the European Commission. Ignoring Mr. Juncker’s victory, critics noted, would make a mockery of the European Parliament, the only directly elected body in the European Union, and undermine both the legislature and future elections.
However, the leaders of the member countries are jealously guarding their right to make that commission nomination, noting that they are constitutionally obliged to take into consideration the outcome of parliamentary elections. For Mr. Cameron, that means heeding the voices who want less governing from Brussels, and less of people like Mr. Juncker.
The power struggle seems likely to take weeks to resolve, which may only weaken Europe further in the eyes of its critics.
As noted in Die Zeit, a German weekly, Ms. Merkel is pulled in two directions. She has given Mr. Juncker less than effusive backing, yet insisted that she is negotiating for his election as president of the commission. Similarly, she has both criticized and praised Britain in her attempt to keep the country from leaving. Despite difficulties, she and many Germans view Britain as a valuable counterweight to the statism of France and the perceived profligacy of struggling states in southern Europe.
Last week, addressing Parliament in Berlin, Ms. Merkel noted that “Britain is really no cozy partner,” yet emphasized that “Germany and Britain share values and interests.” To lightly wish a British exit, she said, was simplistic and wrong. “I consider it grossly negligent, in fact unacceptable, how easily some people say that it is really all the same whether Britain goes along or not, or more: whether Britain remains a member of the European Union or not.”
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