Talking Europe sits down with one of the most high-profile EU Commission presidents of modern times, Jean-Claude Juncker, who was in office from 2014 to 2019. He shares his thoughts on Ursula von der Leyen's second European Commission and the challenges facing Europe, from migration to Ukraine and the Middle East. Juncker, who had plenty of one-on-one time with Vladimir Putin, says he is "deeply disappointed" by the Russian president, but that it is still important give peace a chance, with the aid of "skilful diplomats".
On Ukraine, Juncker says: "I think that the time has come to put all the cards on the table and to try to bring the situation on the ground to a peace-oriented solution. Because the war is leading nowhere."
"It's difficult, but peace has a chance, if diplomats, foreign ministers, prime ministers and presidents all play their part."
"I had many, many, hours of private eye-to-eye meetings with Vladimir Putin," Juncker continues. "He's fluent in German, so we didn’t need interpreters. I’m deeply disappointed by his behaviour – and that's the least one can say. But nevertheless, I do think that we need skilful diplomats to try to bring this awful war to an end."
Juncker insists skilful diplomacy is needed in the Middle East as well.
"We (Europeans) should produce more noise. And we should visit the parties to the conflict and ask them to consider it from a different point of view. To put themselves in the situation of the victims of these wars. To put themselves in the place of the children who are losing their lives. Perhaps then they would behave in a different way."
Juncker says that Michel Barnier, a man he knows well, "will be an excellent prime minister" of France. "He was an EU commissioner. He was a minister of foreign affairs, of agriculture. And he was the negotiator of the European Union when it came to Brexit. And there he was showing that he has talents that others don't have. He was speaking to everyone: prime ministers, national parliaments, trade unions, the European Parliament and all the countries involved."
Speaking about the new French interior minister's hardline rhetoric on immigration, Juncker affirms that a government minister "cannot change the migration pact which was adopted by 27 EU governments two or three months ago. And the French prime minister can make a point of order, if he feels that is necessary. So I'm not worried about that. But I am concerned by the fact that some of the representatives of the classical parties are echoing the extreme-right parties. Because the general public cannot really make the difference between what is said by the extreme-right parties and by the more centrist parties. So I don't like the wording used by some."
Asked about the new EU Commission line-up and the apparent loss of French influence – Stéphane Séjourné managing fewer portfolios than his predecessor, Thierry Breton – Juncker states: "This happens from time to time. Sometimes the commissioner of the same country had very different competencies and portfolios. There is no rule that the French commissioner – the so-called French commissioner – has to have the same competencies and attributions as his predecessors. Commissioners are not the representatives of their country."
Programme prepared by Isabelle Romero, Luke Brown, Perrine Desplats and Elitsa Gadeva
