So Jean-Claude Juncker has been chosen to lead the European Commission. And David Cameron has been shot down in flames.

Last week’s European summit was overshadowed by Cameron’s desperate battle to prevent Juncker from being appointed. As was widely expected, it ended in defeat.

Twenty-six out of 28 European leaders effectively consigned the British Prime Minister to an unprecedented public humiliation.

Cameron now has the dubious honour of being the first European leader to be formally outvoted in 40 years of European Council meetings. It is also the first time the person chosen to lead the Commission did not have the full consensus of the Council.

I’m pretty sure these are not the milestones that Cameron would like to be remembered for.

What is certain is that he is playing a dangerous game. It is dangerous for Britain and dangerous for the European Union, not to say anything about his political career.

David Cameron’s weakest moment could be his greatest moment of strength

Cameron has pledged to reform the EU. His basic plan ran as follows: raise the stakes (that is, the possibility of Britain leaving the EU) while calling for reform, carry out the reform, hold a referendum to keep Britain in the reformed EU, ride away into the glorious sunset.

Well, as they say, things do not always go as planned and, clearly, Cameron has strongly misjudged the sentiment of his fellow European leaders. Whether he will in fact manage to force any meaningful reform is already in doubt.

By his own admission, Britain is now closer than ever to leaving the EU. And he is largely to blame.

It may, however, turn out that Cameron’s weakest moment could be his greatest moment of strength. But he will need to change his tactics.

The one brutal truth that emerged from this debacle is that by shrilling and threatening he has achieved little or nothing.

While his opposition to Juncker may have had a logic to it (who really voted for him anyway?) his approach gained no friends.

On the other hand, most European leaders seem to acknowledge that now the EU really has a ‘Britain problem’, which has to be tackled much sooner rather than later. Explicitly linked to this problem is the more serious one of where does the EU go from here?

The fact that nobody wants to see Britain leave the EU, coupled with the significant anti-European vote witnessed in the European Parliament elections, should provide the right platform for some real reforms to take place.

Cameron’s next steps are therefore crucial. If he makes the right moves and manages to take advantage of empathy there is in his regard and the fear of the rise of the Eurosceptics, then he may ironically turn out to be the one who sparks the process of reform.

That reform is needed is beyond doubt. Whether Juncker is the man to lead it is still to be seen although there is no doubt that he is an able negotiator who knows the nature of the EU like the back of his hand.

It is, however, this very familiarity that may prove to be his undoing.

The EU has always moved forward through compromise, by moving one step backwards to then move slowly ahead. This approach has served Europe well.

It has brought peace and stability as well as considerable prosperity for many years. The EU has served its citizens well.

The scenario has however changed. Growth and prosperity are far from guaranteed and many Europeans are living a very difficult reality where finding a job has become an ordeal and providing enough for one’s family is quite a feat in itself.

If the EU is to remain relevant then it must address these everyday relevant issues.

This means that the EU can no longer remain obsessed with its internal machinations.

How can one justify having a European summit dominated by who gets which top job when millions of citizens are still looking for jobs, the world around us (read Iraq, Syria and Libya) is exploding and immigrants are fleeing by the thousands?

The EU has, over the past decades, shown incredible resilience and from a gathering of six nations wanting to escape the horrors of war it became the beacon of hope and opportunity for millions of people within and beyond the continent.

It’s possible that some time in the future we will look back at 2014 as the year that made or broke the Union.

My sincere hope is that our political leaders will have the courage and the vision to make rather than break what has so far been the most successful gathering of nations the world has ever seen.

Stefano Mallia is vice-president of the employers’ group within the European Economic and Social Committee.