Posted: Sep. 14, 2016 8:00 am Updated: Sep.
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Juncker’s keenly-awaited speech comes two days before the 27 European Union leaders meet without Britain in the Slovakian capital Bratislava for a summit aimed at drawing up a roadmap for the future after the British vote to leave.
There can be no “à la carte” access to the single market; Jean-Claude Juncker, European Commission president, told the EU Parliament, suggesting that United Kingdom will not have access to the EU single market after Brexit.
With Europe wracked by fears over extremism, the refugee emergency and economic woes, Juncker told legislators that European Union integration can not be for individual member states to manage alone and insisted that “too often national interests are brought to the fore”.
“The facts are plain: The world is getting bigger”. He also told Members of the European Parliament that the EU needs a military headquarters to work towards a common military force, as the lack of a “permanent structure” resulted in money being wasted on missions. “We can no longer depend on the singular power of individual member states”.
However, Brexit champion and former Ukip leader Nigel Farage slammed Juncker’s proposals.
In a summit invitation letter published late Tuesday, EU President Donald Tusk said it would be a “fatal error” for the EU to ignore the lessons of Brexit and urged the bloc to be less “politically correct” on migration.
Europe has opened a new battlefront in its war against big US tech, announcing draft rules that could force YouTube and others to pay more money to the music industry. Instead of obligatory, he said, “solidarity must be voluntary, must come from the heart”. In the lead up to the Brexit vote Farage was warning of the EU’s plans to move forward with the idea – which was tabled as far back as 2011.
With Europe wracked by fears over extremism, the refugee emergency and economic woes, Juncker told legislators that European Union integration can not be for individual member states to manage alone and insisted that “too often national interests are brought to the fore”. European Digital Rights, an association which lobbies for digital freedoms, said the proposed reform “panders to a small number of lobbying interests”. It was Britain that has pushed in recent years for a capital market union, a review of the EU’s many burdensome regulations and for the signing of more trade deals.
“People in Europe don’t want this petty envy between the various institutions”, he said at the assembly in Strasbourg, France. “The next 12 months are the crucial time to deliver a better Europe”.
“Investment [opportunities] mean [the creation of more] jobs”.
The original Juncker Investment Plan, launched in 2015, aimed to stimulate the European economy by 315 billion euros ($350 billion) over three years.
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Among policies he will propose to the European Parliament in Strasbourg will, EU officials said, be a major extension to the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI), as well as a new fund to foster the private sector in Africa as way of curbing emigration to Europe, along with initiatives to promote the expansion of high-speed internet and a single market in digital services.
