David Cameron to meet Van Rompuy amid showdown over Brussels job
David Cameron will meet the European Council president Herman Van Rompuy on Monday to spell out his concerns about the prospect of Jean-Claude Juncker taking the top job in Brussels.
The prime minister's campaign to block Juncker from becoming the next European Commission president looks set to fail but he is prepared to force an unprecedented vote on the issue at a summit of EU leaders later this week.
Work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith warned that it would look like the EU was "flicking two fingers" at voters if Juncker, viewed by ministers as a federalist and potential roadblock to reform, is given the job.
The eurosceptic cabinet minister warned that the UK's future in the EU looked "very bleak" unless there was a commitment to reform.
Cameron will tell Van Rompuy at the Downing Street meeting that unless the European Council is prepared to consider other candidates for commission president he will call a vote to make his fellow leaders set out their positions on Juncker's nomination.
Duncan Smith said the prime minister had been told by other countries – including Italy and Germany – that they shared his concerns in private but looked set to back the former prime minister of Luxembourg.
He said: "I was talking to the prime minister the other day and he said there are a load of countries there who share his view on this, they think this is the wrong man, the Italians were saying it, many were saying it, even privately I understand many Germans say it."
Duncan Smith said Juncker was "by no means a reformer" and backed the prime minister's stance, saying the EU needed to be "roughed up a bit about this".
Juncker's name was put forward by the centre-right European People's Party, the largest party in the European Parliament following the elections last month, but Cameron has made clear he will "fight this right to the very end" rather than allow the European Council, made up of leaders of EU governments, to rubber stamp the appointment.