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Doesn't everyone think Gordon Brown did well in the financial crisis? Er, no—Jean-Claude Juncker doesn't. Plus, does the EU need super-commissioners?

By Manneken Pis   January 2009

Juncker savages Brown

With the European commission president speculating that Britain might now join the euro, the financial crisis has transformed the continent’s image of Gordon Brown. As chancellor, Brown used to relish his Eurosceptic image and regularly riled his continental colleagues by lecturing them on the superiority of the British economic model. He was, to put it mildly, not that popular in Europe. Now, having played a leading role in efforts to rescue the European economy, Brown’s position is being reassessed and the consensus is that his contribution easily outweighed that, for example, of Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel.


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