Idealist with a flair for compromise

Date: 27/02/1997

JEAN-Claude Juncker may be Jacques Santer's successor as Luxembourg prime minister, but anyone expecting a man in the mould of the convivial, glad-handing European Commission president is in for a surprise.

Whereas Santer is a renowned bon vivant, Juncker is a private person who shuns the cocktail circuit as much as he can; and while Santer exudes affability and tolerance, Juncker is notorious for his inability to suffer fools gladly and feared as a master of the devastating one-liner.

The Santer philosophy in government and in Brussels tends towards “if it ain't broke, don't fix it”. In contrast, his successor at home has a pronounced conviction style of politics and is ready to pursue his agenda without apparent regard for any antagonism he might stir up.

But like his predecessor, Juncker has a flair for finding compromises on sensitive issues, a talent which has at times proved the premier's saving grace at home and has served Luxembourg well on the European stage.

His efforts helped defuse a potentially damaging split between France and Germany over the proposed single currency stability pact at last December's EU summit in Dublin.

He is now increasingly being seen as a key behind-the-scenes mediator in the current round of Intergovernmental Conference talks on EU reform, helping to build bridges between member states on sensitive issues. In this, he is helped by his mastery of French and German (he is fluent in both, as well as his native Luxembourgish and, lately, English).

A series of high-profile meetings with Santer and other leading European politicians in recent weeks has been seized on as evidence of the important role he is already playing in the negotiations.

That role will become even more crucial if the current Dutch presidency fails to achieve its goal of agreement on a new EU treaty at June's Amsterdam summit and the baton passes to Luxembourg, which will be in charge of Union business in the second half of this year.

In addition, with institutional reform in preparation for enlargement of the Union a key issue at the IGC, the question of whether countries as small as Luxembourg should continue to take their turn at the helm of the EU in future is on the table. Juncker's personal effectiveness as a mediator might prove a decisive argument.

Now 42 years old, Juncker was viewed as a future leader of his country from the moment he returned to the Grand Duchy in 1979 after studying in Strasbourg. He immediately climbed two important rungs of the traditional ladder to power by becoming chairman of the youth movement of the Christian Social Party (CSV) as well as secretary of its parliamentary group.

Three years later, at the age of 28, his fast-track rise through the ranks continued when Luxembourg's then Prime Minister Pierre Werner brought him into the government as junior minister for employment and social security.

Following the 1984 general election, at which Santer succeeded Werner as premier, Juncker - already a big vote-winner in Luxembourg's southern electoral district - was promoted to full ministerial office.

He took over the finance ministry in 1989 and the presidency of his party in 1990 - both roles regarded as traditional precursors to the prime minister's job.

When Santer was unexpectedly called upon to head the Commission in 1994, Juncker was the only serious candidate to succeed him as prime minister, as well as holding on to his finance and employment portfolios.

But sotto voce reservations were expressed at the time by some members of his party who acknowledged Juncker's intellectual ability but felt his strength of personality spilled over into arrogance.

He may since have swapped his familiar brown jacket for grey suits and cut back somewhat on his once-prodigious chain-smoking habit, but Juncker has not noticeably lost any of his determination or forcefulness.

Certainly he has not shrunk from imposing his personal will on the government. A well-worn joke in the Grand Duchy denies that the prime minister takes decisions alone - he first consults the finance minister and the employment minister.

Journalists are frequently taken aback by his candour, demonstrated by his scorn for ministerial colleagues who fail to understand the need for budgetary rigour and his rejection of the mediocre thinking of governments which use the Commission or 'Brussels' as a scapegoat for unpopular policies. The Commission proposes, the Council disposes, he reminds them, and to pretend otherwise is stupid.

At times, Juncker seems unconcerned about making enemies among political opponents. His sardonic sense of humour can be amusingly self-deprecatory, but it can also be turned with brutal effect on those who offend or irritate him.

Opponents accuse him of having an underhand side at odds with his reputation for forthrightness. During a long-running battle over government plans to establish an industrial waste tip near his home town of Capellen, residents were surprised to learn that despite his endorsement of the scheme, Juncker had also become a member of the protest group.

“I joined out of solidarity with my constituents,” he explained, not altogether convincingly.

More famously, as president of the CSV in the early 1990s, Juncker was accused of deceiving a leading party member Fernand Rau, who had long harboured ambitions of becoming Luxembourg's European Commissioner.

When René Steichen was appointed instead, Rau stormed out of the party, saying: “Santer is a coward and Juncker is a liar.”

But such incidents never seem to hurt Juncker's standing among the population as a whole. In the 1994 European Parliament election, he out-polled Santer across the country - an unusual reverse for a sitting prime minister.

Political observers in the Grand Duchy say Juncker's popularity reflects increasing economic insecurity even in the EU's richest country and a growing preference for his frank, tough-talking style.

Some of Juncker's associates say his sense of mission has intensified since a serious car accident in 1989, from which he took several years to recover fully. But he denies suggestions that religion is his driving force and especially that he is susceptible to the influence of the Roman Catholic Church, with which his party has traditionally been closely aligned.

“Some people think the archbishop calls me every day to tell me what to do,” he says. “But he does not call me and, if he did, I would not listen.”

What unquestionably does drive Juncker is his background as the son of asteelworker. This can be seen in his determination to retain the post of employment minister, and his rejection of calls to ease Luxembourg's notoriously inflexible labour laws to try to tackle a growing unemployment problem.

One aspect of Juncker's moral drive is his determination, at a time when government spending is otherwise strictly controlled, to increase foreign development assistance to 0.7&percent; of national gross domestic product - the target level set by the United Nations in the 1970s but now forgotten by virtually all western countries. To do any less, he says, would be shameful, given Luxembourg's wealth.

A more pragmatic crusade is to fix Luxembourg's social security and pensions system which threatens to capsize within the next two decades under the weight of over-generous benefits paid to too many pensioners and supported by too few active workers.

In characteristic style, Juncker has not shied away from confrontation with the civil service over, as a first step, cutting back public employees' pensions to the level of those in the private sector.

There is no doubt that he will bring the same determination to any confrontation with Luxembourg's EU partners over the country's role as a magnet for tax evasion. Faced with demands for a harmonised Union withholding tax on investment income, Juncker is ready to agree on two conditions: that harmonisation covers not only EU members but dependent territories and other members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development as well, and that it extends to other areas of taxation such as income tax.

Juncker's enthusiasm for economic and monetary union is explained in part by the fact that he is widely credited with having forged a consensus on the monetary union chapter of what was to become the Maastricht Treaty during the Grand Duchy's last EU presidency in 1991.

His efforts won the admiration of the then Commission President Jacques Delors, who unsuccessfully requested that Juncker be released from his government responsibilities to join the Commission for his final two-year term in Brussels.

Ironically, it was Delors' departure which paved the way for Juncker to fulfil his destiny at home by becoming prime minister.