Juncker tells near-empty EU parliament: ‘You are ridiculous’

Strasbourg: EU chief executive Jean-Claude Juncker called European lawmakers “ridiculous” on Tuesday for failing to turn up to an address by Malta’s prime minister, saying they should show more respect for smaller members of the bloc.

Juncker, himself from the small Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, was visibly annoyed as he watched the proceedings in the near empty parliamentary chamber in Strasbourg.

“You are ridiculous,” the European Commission president told the gathering called to listen to a speech by Malta’s Joseph Muscat, in a blunt public rebuke of another EU institution.

“The fact that there’s about 30 members of parliament present in this debate only really illustrates the fact that parliament is not serious,” he said. “The European Parliament is ridiculous, very ridiculous.” Juncker said Malta, the EU’s smallest country that had just completed a stint running the bloc’s presidency, deserved better.

“If Mr Muscat was Mrs Merkel, difficult as that is to imagine, or Mr Macron ... we would have a full house,” Juncker said, referring to the leaders of Germany and France.

Parliament president Antonio Tajani did not address the low attendance, but told Juncker himself to take a more respectful tone.

“You may criticise the parliament, yes, but the Commission does not control the parliament, it’s the parliament that should be controlling the Commission,” he said, to a smattering of applause.

To which Juncker retorted: “There are only a few members in the parliament to control the Commission. You are ridiculous.”

Juncker is considered a key leader of the 28-nation bloc. The Commission prepares rules and regulations for the bloc and runs its day-to-day business. The parliament has increased its clout over the past year but many of the decisions are still made by the leaders of the member states or the Commission.

The exchange at the legislature in Strasbourg, France, was even more amazing since Juncker and Tajani belong to the same EPP Christian Democratic group.

Though the European parliament has increased its clout over the past years after earning a bigger say in a host of issues, it is often still perceived as an easy job for politicians without a big national portfolio and veterans seeking a leisurely way to retirement.

The views of the parliament bore out Juncker’s assertion with row after row of empty seats. Philippe Lamberts of the Greens group, one of the few to show up, was seen applauding the rebuke of Juncker.

Gianni Pittella, the leader of the Socialist bloc, said attendance should have been better but added that “whenever we have major events, votes on major files, members of the European parliament are there and present.”

Slightly more than 400,000 people live on Malta, putting it just behind Luxembourg whose population comes in over the half-million mark.

Muscat, who smiled during the exchanges, gave parliament a briefing on his country’s presidency, focused on the challenges of migration and called Brexit a “disastrous creature which all of us should have seen coming but none of us acted to stop”.