Jean-Claude Juncker has made no attempt to cover up his hopes of making the European Commission more powerful during his tenure as the legislative body’s chief.
Now member states are reportedly rallying against his goals to lead a more “political commission” after portraying the EU body as more proactive than the European Council – which is made up of the heads of state of each EU nation.
A senior EU diplomat told Politico: “It wants to be, but we are not going to allow them to be the deep state.”
The Commission has opponents on all sides of the debate – with some countries unwilling to forge ahead with Juncker’s plans for a more powerful commission, while French President Emmanuel Macron pushing ahead with his ambition to bind the union tighter together outside of the yoke of Brussels.
A state official added: “Clearly the Commission is partly motivated by its own institutional interests — that’s not abnormal,”
“A lot of member states are not as ambitious as the Commission and are not ready to follow the Commission all the way.
“Secondly, the main ambitious force among member states, France, wants to go down the intergovernmental path, not the communitarian.
“That would marginalise the Commission.”
It comes as Donald Tusk warns the EU is tearing itself apart over issues concerning migrant quotas and the European Monetary Union (EMU) as he begged for unity among member states.
The president of the European Council said the Brussels club can only overcome major obstacles, like Brexit and the signing off of the European defence force, with unity.
As he arrived for a meeting with Visegrad leaders ahead of the EU Council summit, he said: “We will deal with the issue of a lack of unity which is very visible – I am talking about the EMU and migration.
“When it comes to EMU the divide is between North and South when it comes to migration it is between East and West.
“When these divisions are compounded by emotions it makes it hard to find even common language and rational argument for this debate.
“This is why we should work on our unity than ever before.”