David Cameron has proved Radek Sikorski completely right

If you followed the Jean-Claude Juncker battle David Cameron has been waging with other EU leaders (my thoughts on the whole thing are here) then you'll have seen that the Polish foreign minister had some less than savory words about the prime minister's strategy when it comes to EU affairs.

Radoslaw Sikorski, Poland's foreign minister, said that Cameron's approach to the Juncker debate had displayed "a kind of incompetence in EU affairs" and accused him of listening too much to the 'stupid propaganda' of Eurosceptic backbenchers. He also said that Cameron had 'fucked up' several earlier encounters including his much noted veto of an EU fiscal union treaty back in 2011.

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Just put Juncker in and do it better next time

A lot of the arguments we hear about the 'Spitzenkandidaten' process have focused on how 9 out of 10 people can't name the person who apparently won it. In Britain his name was scarcely mentioned until after the elections when David Cameron moved to block him as European Commission president.

They talk about how he's a figure from the 1980s when Europe needs change and reform, they talk about how he's too much of a Brussels politician, he's not dynamic enough, he's too "federalist" (which, ironically in this context means he favours centralising power in Brussels).

All of this is true but it also misses the point entirely.


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