Candidate for the European Commission presidency Jean-Claude Juncker of the European People’s Party wipes his forehead as he leaves the party’s headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. Photos: Reuters

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi yesterday promised reforms to cut red tape and encourage investments and suggested Jean-Claude Juncker may not get Italy’s backing to be the next president of the European Commission.

Speaking at an economic conference in the northern Italian town of Trento, Renzi said that by the end of July he would present a package of measures called “Unblock Italy,” to try to get the economy moving after a two-year recession.

The legislation would eliminate complicated authorisation procedures for all sorts of economic initiatives and “unblock programmes that have been held up for 40 years,” said the 39-year-old former mayor of Florence.

Juncker has no guaranteed majority and no automatic right to the job

When asked about European affairs during a 90-minute question and answer session, Renzi said a discussion was needed over who would be the next president of the European Commission and that Jean-Claude Juncker was not the only candidate.

Juncker, the former president of Luxembourg, was presented as the candidate to lead the Commission by the European People’s Party, which won the most seats in last week’s election for the European Parliament.

However Renzi, leader of Italy’s centre-left Democratic Party which won more than 40 per cent in the election, said Juncker has no guaranteed majority and no automatic right to the job.

“Juncker is ‘one’ name for the Commission, but he is not ‘the’ name,” he said.

German news magazine Spiegel said on Saturday that British Prime Minister David Cameron had warned fellow EU leaders that if Juncker were elected to the job, he would no longer be able to ensure Britain’s continued membership in the European Union.

The European Commission president is selected by EU leaders but must be approved by the assembly, where Eurosceptics from the right made gains in last week’s election. The European People’s Party, which won the most seats in the vote, had chosen Luxembourg’s ex-premier Juncker as their candidate.

Spiegel said that, on the sidelines of an EU summit in Brussels last Tuesday, participants understood Cameron’s comments to mean that a majority vote for Juncker could destabilise his government to the extent that the planned “in-out” referendum would have to be brought forward.

That in turn, they understood, would most likely lead to the British people voting to quit the EU, it said.

A spokesman at the Prime Minister’s office declined to comment on the Spiegel article.

But Juncker called on the majority of leaders not to bow to pressure from the minority in their decision, according to an advance extract of an article due to be published in Germany’s Bild am Sonntag newspaper yesterday.

“Europe must not allow itself to be blackmailed,” Juncker said, adding that a broad majority of Christian Democratic and Socialist leaders in the European Council backed him.

He said he was in favour of getting “all of the other heads of government on board too” in the coming three to four weeks, and offered to hold talks on priorities for the next Commission.

Spiegel said Cameron, who regards Juncker as too federalist and likely to damage his hopes of reforming Britain’s EU ties, dismissed the candidate during a recess with the words: “A face from the ‘80s can’t solve the problems of the next five years.”