European centre left agrees to back Juncker for commission president at Paris mini-summit

European centre-left leaders agreed to back right-winger Jean-Claude Juncker for president of the European Commission at a mini-summit in Paris, French President François Hollande, who hosted the meeting, announced on Saturday afternoon.

French President François Hollande with his social-democrat colleagues in Paris on Saturday Reuters/Etienne Laurent

The row over Juncker’s candidacy is set to dominate the two-day summit of all 28 European heads of state that starts on Thursday and split a mini-summit of the mainstream right held in Sweden this month.

After some hesitation, German Chancellor Angela Merkel declared her support for the former Luxembourg prime minister but Britain’s David Cameron, who believes Juncker wants to see a federal Europe, has vowed to fight his appointment “until the end”.

Saturday’s mini-summit of Europe’s nine social-democratic heads of state and prime ministers agreed to back Juncker reportedly in exchange for the presidency of the Council of Europe going to one of their own.

Likely candidates for that post are Jean-Marc Ayrault, whom Hollande recently replaced as prime minister with Manuel Valls, Denmark’s Selle Thorning-Schmidt and former Italian premier Enrico Letta, who lost his job to Matteo Renzi who was present at the Paris meeting.

During May’s European elections voters were told that they were choosing the commission president, on the grounds that he or she would be taken from the largest grouping in the European parliament.

Despite a rise in support for eurosceptic parties, that turned out to be the European People’s Party, a grouping which includes Juncker’s party.

Cameron’s Conservative Party is part of the European Conservatives and Reformists group.

The Paris centre-left meeting was also discussed social and economic priorities for Europe.

The leaders agreed to use all possible leeway in the EU’s Stability Pact to try to boost growth and employment, Hollande said.

But sources said that they intended to rein in Renzi, who has demanded a relaxation of the pact’s demand that states limit their deficits to 3.0 per cent of GDP and their debt to 60 per cent.