Jean-Claude Juncker
Jean-Claude Juncker
Jean-Claude Junckeris a Luxembourgish politician who has been President of the European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union, since 2014. Previously Juncker was Prime Minister of Luxembourg from 1995 to 2013, as well as Minister for Finances from 1989 to 2009. He was the longest-serving head of any national government in the EU, and one of the longest-serving democratically elected leaders in the world, by the time he left office, his tenure encompassing the height of the European...
NationalityLuxembourger
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth9 December 1954
Jean-Claude Juncker quotes about
In politics, there are different categories of friendship. My friendship with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, for example .
My friendship with Martin [Schulz], by contrast, is completely different in that it goes far beyond politics.
Yesterday's shining heroes of Brexit have become the sorrowful heroes of today.
I am in favor of the European institutions being led for the next two-and-a-half years as they have been thus far. We need stability.
Without the Turkey agreement, tens of thousands of refugees would still be stuck in Greece. The Commission presented proposals for securing Europe's external borders early on, but they languished in the Council for months. As you can see, the Commission isn't asleep. Oftentimes it has to wake up the others.
It is always said that Europe is a project of the elite. That's incorrect.
I completely agree with Helmut Kohl. I am not an advocate of the "United States of Europe," nor am I an integration fanatic.
I have always considered it to be a minor miracle that after the war, people in Europe's border regions were able to forget everything and, in accordance with the slogan "Never Again War," develop a program that still works today.
We no longer have the pact from 1997; it was radically amended in 2005 and the Commission is applying this Stability Pact with wisdom and rationality.
I'm not deaf and the Commission isn't operating in a parallel world of legal texts.
The problem is: When two governments or institutions in Europe hold differing opinions, it is immediately a crisis.
I have another explanation [of Brexit]: In its 43 years of EU membership, Britain has never been able to decide whether it wants to fully or only partially belong to the EU.
One can't allow blind loyalty to a friendship to lead one away from acting in the public interest. If Martin [Schulz] were to propose something that was totally absurd, our friendship would not prevent me from doing the opposite.
I'm always quite amazed that people in Europe become unnerved when two institutions or two people have different views.