Inside politics: EU presidents plotting new phase of integration
Now all of a sudden, there are five of the blighters to worry about. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has collaborated with four other top Eurocrats to produce a blueprint on the future of the EU.
The so-called “Five Presidents’ Report” was slipped out last month virtually unnoticed at a Brussels summit dominated by the Greek bail-out emergency and the migrant crisis.
Yet the document outlines plans for another hugely ambitious advance in European integration.
It details proposals for “completing” an economic union in the 19-nation eurozone and for strengthening the already sweeping powers of Brussels institutions over the rest of the EU.
Under the plan, the power of the European Parliament is to be extended and national budgets are to come further under Brussels control. For Eurosceptics it is a nightmarish picture of what will happen to Britain if voters elect to stay in the EU in the forthcoming in-or-out referendum.
One insider involved in the formation of the anti-Brussels campaign for the forthcoming EU vote told me: “This report has barely been mentioned here but it shows that a load more European integration is on the way.