EC presidency impasse - Cameron’s difficulties a real threat

A two-day EU summit begins in Brussels tomorrow and the stage is set for a fraught, divisive meeting of the 28 national leaders. British Prime Minister David Cameron’s trenchant opposition to the appointment of Jean-Claude Juncker as head of the European Commission, despite his endorsement by Germany, is the issue.

This relatively minor stand-off may cause disproportionate difficulties and trigger events that nobody could manage, much less accurately predict.

Mr Cameron is caught between a stone and a hard place: The domestic threat posed by the anti-EU Ukip and Mr Juncker’s commitment to ever-closer institutional and economic ties. That Ukip’s advance is over the corpses — metaphorically so far — of Conservative councillors, MPs, or MEPs brings an urgency to Mr Cameron’s purpose. Political survival and expediency, not Mr Juncker’s elevation, are the defining issues.