The genius of Jean-Claude Juncker

For all of the protestations about Jean Claude Juncker’s unsuitability for what is, ultimately, the EU’s top job (sorry, Angela Merkel), the unveiling of his new Commission yesterday has confirmed his reputation as a master of compromise and consensus.

The City’s expectations that the UK would be given a standalone financial services brief were so low that it by and large opposed the job’s split from the Internal Market Portfolio. The shock in Brussels when it was announced that Lord Hill would be given this responsibility reverberated all the way to London.

Dealing with financial services isn’t the total of Lord Hill’s duties, either. He will also have to deliver Juncker’s grand aim of creating a ‘Capital Markets Union’. The implications for this are two-fold: Firstly, the UK will have significant scope to deepen the Single Market and unlock its full growth potential – which happens to be one of its key priorities for EU reform. Secondly, Britain’s Commissioner will have an enormous role to play in implementing the banking union as well as building on it.