by
Eric Maurice
Part
3 - Democracy and legitimacy
All this
would be just an anecdote about the EU bubble court, worth
entertaining columns, if it had not come amid grand speeches about EU
democracy and the legitimacy of the institutions.
On 14
January, Juncker defended to the public the so-called Spitzenkandidat
process, by which the commission president is chosen according to the
result of the European elections.
The
commission chief, he said, is "not an anonymous bureaucrat or
a putschist who would have forced the doors of the Berlaymont".
Just a
week after, he accepted that his head of cabinet becomes civil
servant in chief in what many inside the house consider as a coup -
and then legitimised the move by a press conference.
The
press conference is now brandished by the commission as the proof
that all was done in transparency. As if journalists called at the
last minute for a news they didn't know had all the elements at the
time to ask the right questions.
When
details about what truly happened leaked to the media - the
commission spokesman, reacted by calling Jean Quatremer, the
correspondent of France's Liberation who revealed the details, a
'Robespierre', the French revolutionary responsible for the Terror
and its thousands of deads.
Tired
with journalists asking for information he did not want to give, the
spokesman also compared them to his children "who don't listen".
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