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DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Now Jean-Claude Juncker was the Prime Minister of Luxembourg no less for 18 years and now he wants the top job in Europe, to be President of the European Commission but the Prime Minister David Cameron doesn’t want him to get that job and says he’ll fight it right to the very end.  In a moment I’ll speak to Lord Liddle, he was Tony Blair’s former Special Advisor on European Policy and subsequently worked for three years in the European Commission itself, first in the Trade Commissioners cabinet and then advising the President at the moment of the Commission, José Manuel Barosso.  Let’s say a very good morning then to Lord Liddle and tell me first of all about Jean-Claude Juncker, what do you know about him, what kind of personal dealings have you had with him, what is he like?

LORD LIDDLE: Well he has been around a hell of a long time and I think in a way that’s why he is probably not the right man for the job, because he has been around a long time.

DM: But that’s probably why he is going to get it.

LORD LIDDLE: He is too much a creature of the status quo.  We do need change in Europe but my worry about the whole thing is the way that David Cameron has gone about it.  I think he has failed to engage at an early enough stage, I think he has misread European politics, particularly the politics of Germany and I think his negotiating tactics are very bad and I find it very worrying because if he does remain Prime Minister after 2015 and we’re going to have this process of renegotiation which obviously I as a pro-European desperately want him to succeed, I am very worried about whether he is going about it the right way.

DM: We’ll follow that more in a minute or two but as you say, a pro-European, then why is Jean-Claude Juncker, as you say an insider, a man who knows his way round it, why is he in your view the wrong man for the job?

LORD LIDDLE: Just because I think he is … I don’t want to be unkind but he is a classic European compromise politician, a man of the centre who goes for compromise.  What we need is someone who is going to show a bit more leadership on reform, that’s why I think he’s not right.  That doesn’t mean to say I think that some of the things the British press have said about him are quite deplorable.

DM: Arch federalist and also he likes a brandy at breakfast.

LORD LIDDLE: Well they’ve also said he’s a Nazi or his family were Nazis and that causes great offence on the continent and that’s the sort of thing, and although David Cameron can’t be blamed for what the British press says, it does poison the atmosphere.  I think on arch-federalist, I don't think he is an arch-federalist in the sense that my experience of him was that he fought for the rights of his nation states, Luxembourg, as strongly as Britain fights for the rights of hers and one of the instances of this was on a proposal for European tax harmonisation ten years ago and Juncker fought like a tiger to resist the majority in order to defend Luxembourg so I don't think that charge is a very fair one actually.

DM: Right, Mr Cameron’s tactics, I mean there is a body of thought articulated by the former Prime Minister, John Major, that says well okay he’s gone into battle on his charger on this issue, he’s going to lose it, he’s going to be swatted aside but the other leaders might feel a bit sorry for him and then be more attuned to his calls for reforms for the United Kingdom. 

LORD LIDDLE: Well let’s hope so. 

DM: But does that wash?

LORD LIDDLE: Yes I think it does as long as Cameron plays his cards at the Council well.

DM: Is pushing for a vote a good idea?

LORD LIDDLE: Well I’m not sure that is actually to tell you the truth.  I would push it really hard if I felt – if I were Cameron – I had the support of our closest allies and we know we’re not going to get Germany but what about the Swedes, what about the Dutch?  I’m sure that they have the same reservations that David Cameron has but are they actually prepared to push it to a vote?  What about Matteo Renzi, the Prime Minister of Italy, who is a real reformer and wants to see change?  If Cameron can’t get the support of those people then I think he should gracefully accept reality.  After all in 2004 Dermot, this is all European history and context stuff but in 2004 Gert Schroder, who was then Chancellor of Germany and Chirac who was President of France, strongly proposed Guy Verhofstadt then the Belgian Prime Minister, to be Commission President and they realised round the table that they couldn’t get their way and if France and Germany on these things has to retreat, sometimes we have to as well.

DM: Don’t you think though there is a large dollop, there’s a huge dollop of domestic politics in Mr Cameron’s stance …

LORD LIDDLE: There’s too much. 

DM: … that he knows with Jean-Claude Juncker there it makes it less likely potentially that he’ll win a referendum if he wants to stay in which we presume he does, that he doesn’t want someone like that there and the British public, the British press saying look we don’t want to be part of the European Union with this man at the top?

LORD LIDDLE: Well he is responsible for that problem isn’t he because he’s build this up …

DM: Is he? 

LORD LIDDLE: He’s built this up into a big issue.  I think there are other things that David Cameron should now be fighting for like the European Council’s  job is to set the agenda for the new Commission, we have a window of opportunity to do this in the next six months.  What are we seeing in terms of concrete British proposals for what reforms the new Commission should be pursuing?  I think he could be doing that and I hope that out of the council this week he may make some progress in that area.  I mean we have failed, we’ve failed to engage on this issue.  There has been a debate on the continent for ten years at least about is the Commission a kind of independent regulator that holds the ring in Europe or should it be democratically accountable to the parliament, to the European parliament?  There has been that debate but we haven’t engaged in it at all and now we’re just losing out because we haven’t engaged.

DM: It’s an opportunity for your own party isn’t it, for the Labour party to make these points, do you think, I mean the leadership is just taking the view here aren’t they that this is a Conservative muddle and we’ll leave them to sink into the swamp?  It’s not really a developed policy is it?

LORD LIDDLE: Well the major failure I think has been on the Conservative side, particularly Cameron’s decision to withdraw his MEPs from the main centre right grouping, the EPP, was a major mistake.  Now Labour hasn’t engaged enough in this European debate about the role of the Commission as well.  One of the reasons why Juncker is going to get the job is because the national political leaders through their European political parties signed up to the process, this Spitzenkandidat process by which Juncker is going to get the job.  We just sat there and did nothing and that applies as much to Labour as it does to the Conservatives. 

DM: Would you like to see Labour, the leadership, taking a more positive tone on Europe?  Nick Clegg did it before the European elections, much good as it did him.

LORD LIDDLE: I think if you’ve got concerns among the voters about Europe we should be trying to address them.  We should be saying what we should do and yes, I would like to see Labour talk more positively about Europe.  Labour is a pro-European party but you can’t avoid talking about it and explaining why you think it’s in Britain’s national interests to remain a committed member of the EU.

DM: Well thank you for doing just that.  Lord Liddle, very good to see you, thank you for appearing on Murnaghan.