The challenges facing the new European Commission led by its new president, Jean-Claude Juncker, which takes office today, are many.
Over the next five years, Mr Juncker and his team must focus on boosting the sluggish eurozone economy, preventing the United Kingdom from leaving the bloc, restoring European citizens’ faith in the EU project, strengthening immigration policies and having a more unified European foreign and security policy.
Mr Juncker, a former prime minister of Luxembourg, has put together a Commission that has seven powerful vice presidents whose portfolios include overall responsibility for key areas such as better regulation, the digital single market, the euro, the budget, jobs, economic growth, competitiveness and the energy union.
Working closely with Mr Juncker will be former Dutch foreign minister Frans Timmermans, an EU veteran who has been appointed first vice president, a new post. One of Mr Timmermans’s key tasks is to look at subsidiarity – issues that can best be addressed at a national rather than an EU level – which is a recurring theme among EU member states.
Mr Juncker has said that his first priority as Commission president is to put policies in place that create jobs and economic growth. He said one way of achieving growth and job creation was to have a digital single market for consumers and businesses, which, he believes, could generate €500 billion of additional growth over the next five years, creating hundreds of thousands of jobs. This is certainly a welcome start.
Keeping Britain inside the EU is a huge challenge but it is one he must address vigorously. A British exit would be bad for the UK and bad for the EU; it must be avoided. Mr Juncker will have to find solutions to the UK’s particular concerns and try to broker a pragmatic, fair and reasonable deal between the two sides.
Hopefully, Mr Juncker will put immigration towards the top of his agenda over the next five years. During his visit to Malta last May, he promised he would do his utmost as Commission president to persuade EU member states to show more solidarity with Malta (and Italy) over the immigration problem.
When addressing the European Parliament in July he stressed that “more solidarity between the north and south of Europe in dealing with migration” was needed. He noted that “migration is not just a problem for Malta, Italy, Cyprus and Greece. It is a problem for Europe”.
Mr Juncker also needs to strengthen the EU’s foreign and security policy, which is facing new challenges such as a resurgent Russia as well as the growing jihadist threat and instability in many parts of the Muslim world.
The new High Representative for Foreign Policy, former Italian foreign minister Federica Mogherini, has to work hard in order to convince the EU member states that Europe will be stronger and better able to act on the world stage when it has a united foreign policy.
Other important challenges faced by Mr Juncker are the reform of the EU’s energy policy and creation of a new European Energy Union as well as the negotiation of a fair and balanced trade agreement with the US, both of which could contribute to economic growth.
Last but certainly not least, he must restore Europeans’ faith in the EU, which has been rocked by the eurozone crisis and the perception that Brussels is more interested in grand projects than the everyday lives of ordinary citizens.
Perhaps Mr Juncker’s recent comment that “it is not compatible with the social market economy that during a [eurozone] crisis, shipowners and speculators become even richer, while pensioners can no longer support themselves” offers cause for optimism.