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EUROPEAN COMMISSION CHIEF Jean-Claude Juncker said today that Britain’s departure would not hold the EU back, as he unveiled plans for the bloc’s post-Brexit future.
Juncker laid out five possible scenarios including reducing the European Union to just a single market, returning some powers to member countries and creating a “multi-speed” Europe.
“However painful and regrettable Brexit may be, it cannot stop the European Union on its march to the future,” Juncker said as he presented his White Paper to the European Parliament in Brussels.
Juncker also urged national governments to “stop the Brussels-bashing” in a bid to win over increasingly eurosceptic voters, saying the commission had stopped meddling in issues like “toilet flushes or the height of children’s swings”.
EU leaders will now consider Juncker’s options ahead of a summit in Rome on March 25 marking the bloc’s 60th anniversary, where they will make their own declarations about the way forward after Britain’s expected departure in 2019.
The foreign ministers of France and Germany signalled that Juncker’s “multi-speed” option had their backing, saying it would allow some members to move forward with projects like closer defence cooperation without waiting for reluctant countries to get on board.
“Without calling into question what we have accomplished, we must also find ways of better taking into account the different ambition levels of the member states so that Europe can respond better to the needs of European citizens,” Jean-Marc Ayrault and Sigmar Gabriel said in a joint statement.
Since the shock Brexit vote last June, the other 27 EU states have been soul-searching about how to deal with challenges including rising populism, the election of Donald Trump in the United States and an increasingly assertive Russia.
Rome should “not simply be a birthday celebration, it should also be the birth moment of the European Union at 27,” Juncker said.
Elections
Leaders will discuss Juncker’s blueprint at the Rome summit but will not go into depth as “we can’t create divisions” at this stage, a European source told AFP.
The 27 EU leaders are eyeing a further summit in Brussels on April 6 after British Prime Minister Theresa May formally triggers the two-year divorce process, EU sources said.
Analyst Janis Emmanouilidis, of the European Policy Centre, said Juncker’s White Paper was an attempt to have a say in the discussion “before the hot phase starts.”
“Before November or December not much can be decided because of the elections in France and Germany,” Emmanouilidis told AFP.
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@dangle,what a nasty comment!!Wonder what was said by people like you about the Irish in the famine times!Same on you.
Amazing how these people keep on breeding even though food and water is had to come by in a poverty stricken kip
that it is!
You’re talking about human beings, not animals. Saying they are breeding is disgusting.
They are some of the poorest people in the world. Without access to basic needs like food and water, do you really think contraception is available?
Also, culturally African people generally have larger families for a variety of reasons, not unlike Irish people only two generations ago.
But it IS a poverty stricken kip, and they ARE breeding even though they know they will not be able to raise their kids. If I did not have the resources to take care of myself, I would not even think of bringing a child into the world. It would be a life of misery and starvation; nasty, brutish and short.
Gerry b does it need to be breaking news to keep these atrocities in the public domain???
Yawn
That’s the third time in less than 24 hours, that “the journal” has posted a news article on this same issue. It’s not big news, is it?????
I reckon u guys think this sort of story will provoke some interesting comments, as people’s attitudes on this sort of aid appeal tend to be so extreme.
Gerry B, if 10 MILLION people suffering drought conditions, destitute and barely surviving is not big news to you, what is?
Maybe you prefer to live in a bubble where we rehash the bank bailout arguement day in, day out.
Kinda puts our predicament into perspective I think.
Lenny, I accept your point, however, my comment still stands valid. This unfortunate situation Is not really breaking news and the fact that it has been featured on the journal 3 times in 14 hours, seems bizarre. I dont recall any reference to this story on tonights rte 9 pm news.
Ok, well I’ll stick with the journal covering everything from Irish news, columns, live sport updates to chocolate printers than
rte’s biased political reports to dinners flying on fair city.
I accept our differences.
have your say