David Cameron’s desire to renegotiate Britain’s relationship with Europe means we’ll hear plenty of huffing and puffing from various bigwigs on the continent over the next few years. The trick for Cameron, as James said on Monday, is to work out when this huffing is just bluffing and when it’s actually an expression of a serious intention.
Today’s grouching from Jean-Claude Juncker, in which the new president of the European Commission complained about ‘certain Prime Ministers’ objecting to the extra bills foisted upon them two weeks ago, probably doesn’t tell us a great deal about the outcome of the Prime Minister’s renegotiation. Juncker threatened that ‘there will no longer be attacks on the Commission without a reaction’, to which most critics of Brussels might simply shrug their shoulders and say ‘very well, then’.
But rather like the sort of cruel words that people who know one another very well use in the middle of a heated argument, Juncker’s comments did contain a rather unpleasant kernel of truth. He told his press conference the following:
‘I have no problem with Mr Renzi, who I appreciate greatly. I don’t have a problem with Mr Cameron. Mr Cameron has a problem with the other prime ministers.’
At some point, Cameron will have to show who his firm allies in Europe are as evidence that he’ll get something substantial. He has his Northern Alliance – profiled by Fraser in the magazine earlier this year – but they don’t always back him up. Helle Thorning-Schmidt, for instance, is part of that alliance but has said Britain should accept the bill. He seemed sufficiently confident that Angela Merkel is his friend to dispute the Der Spiegel report when Ed Miliband brought it up at Prime Minister’s Questions. But even if he can ignore most of Jean-Claude Juncker’s huffing and puffing, he knows that that problem of the other prime ministers is one he must show he can solve.
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