BERLIN — Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany made it clear Wednesday that Britain would fail if it tried to stop the nomination of Jean-Claude Juncker as the next head of the European Commission.
“It is no tragedy if we end up voting with only a qualified majority,” Merkel told Parliament, referring to the candidacy of Juncker, the former prime minister of Luxembourg.
Juncker headed the center-right bloc that won last month’s European parliamentary elections, but he is seen by Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain as the kind of remote technocrat who stirs anti-EU sentiment. Anger at Brussels propelled nationalist and populist parties to their strongest showing in last month’s vote since European elections started in 1979.
Cameron has promised that if he is re-elected next year, there will be a referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union by 2017, partly in response to pressure from within his own Conservative Party over Britain’s role in Europe.
Germany views Britain as a bastion of liberal economic thinking that helps dampen the statism of France and what Berlin views as the profligate tendencies of southern European countries.
Merkel, a Christian Democrat, won strong backing for that pro-British view Wednesday from her Social Democratic coalition partners, although it was qualified with support for Juncker’s candidacy.
“No one wants Britain to leave the EU,” said Thomas Oppermann, the leader of the Social Democrats in Parliament. “But no one has the right to veto the choice of the top candidate” in a vote.