Juncker is a piece of work...but is that good?

We should have seen it coming. At his first press conference of the European Council on Thursday night (16 June), Jean-Claude Juncker, who was chairing the proceedings, ran into problems with the sound system, provoking that classic Brussels cry: “Micro! Micro!” Wryly he picked up his microphone, turned it upside down, inspected it closely and then announced with a smile: “Philips!” Inviting public ridicule of a Dutch company might have been an early sign that solidarity among the Benelux countries was crumbling.