The President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, lambasted the European Parliament over the poor attendance of MEPs at a plenary session he was addressing on July 4, saying of the parliament, “You are ridiculous.”
Speaking to parliament during a review of the Maltese presidency of the European Union, a clearly unimpressed Juncker said, “I would like to welcome those who have actually taken the trouble to turn out this morning. But the fact that there’s about about 30 members of parliament present in this debate only really illustrates that parliament is not serious about this debate.”
Juncker said that if German Chancellor Angela Merkel or French President Emmanuel Macron were present, parliament would have been full.
Interrupted by the president of the European Parliament, Antonio Tajani, who asked him to be more respectful and said that it was the parliament which controlled the commission, not vice-versa, Juncker said, “There are only a few members in the parliament to control the commission. You are ridiculous.”
Tajani again interrupted Juncker, asking him to “change [his] language,” and insisting of the parliament: “We are not ridiculous.”
“I will never again attend a meeting of this kind,” Juncker retorted, before going on to pay tribute to Malta. Credit: European Commission via Storyful
