Jean-Claude Juncker delivered a speech to the European Parliament this morning. Its content was, from the British government’s perspective, provocative. Juncker had one watchword: integration: and a clear idea of how to achieve it. He expressed belief in:
- Tax harmonisation (especially on corporate tax rates)
- Integration of capital markets
- Energy integration and the diversification of energy supply
- 300bn euros extra spending and a commitment to the ‘social market’
- A financial transaction tax
- No new member states for 5 years (how about that, Mr Salmond?)
- The euro as a unifying force across Europe
- Freedom of movement
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James Walton
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In some respects it was a slightly strange speech for Juncker, a man of the centre-right, to have given. A spending stimulus, financial transaction tax: these are agents of social democracy. Indeed, Juncker said that he was a ‘great fan’ of the social market economy, and added that Europe needed to rehabilitate communitarianism.
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