Jean-Claude Juncker blocked tax plans: Get rid of him

THE EU is one of those great, wealth-generating, peace-sustaining ideas struggling to convince those who live within its orbit that its advantages far outweigh its weaknesses and disadvantages. 

The concept is accused of being less democratic than it should be, and in our case, dictatorial in regard to assuming private gambling dressed as bank debt.

There is a constant struggle between the ideal and the delivery, the hopes of European citizens and how they are undermined by venial, shabby human interventions.

The news that the president of the commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, spent years, while Luxembourg prime minister, secretly blocking EU efforts to tackle tax avoidance by multinationals, can only add to the feeling that we are being led up a very long garden path by politicians whose commitment to the common good is as strong as their sense of probity. International tax evasion — or minimisation as the lawyers might prefer — is one of the scourges of our age. These revelations make the wretched Mr Juncker’s position utterly untenable. If he will not resign, then he must be removed.