Leadership Quote by Jean-Claude Juncker

Juncker’s line is a masterclass in Brussels-era paradox: promise expansion by promising restraint. “Bigger and more ambitious on big things” flatters the grand narrative of European integration - the EU as a geopolitical actor that can bargain with superpowers, police its borders, and buffer citizens from economic shocks. Then he snaps to the second clause, “smaller and more modest on small things”, a prophylactic against the oldest charge leveled at the Union: that it’s a distant machine micromanaging daily life with absurd regulations and democratic thinness.

The intent is coalition-building. Juncker is speaking to two audiences who rarely share a slogan: federalists who want Europe to matter, and skeptics who want Europe to stop meddling. By dividing policy into “big” and “small”, he offers a neat hierarchy that sounds like common sense while dodging the actual fight over who gets to define the categories. Is migration “big”? Is fiscal policy? Is labor regulation? The ambiguity is the point: it lets each listener project their preferred EU onto the sentence.

Context matters: this is the language of an EU bruised by the eurozone crisis hangover, the rise of Euroskeptic parties, and growing impatience with technocratic governance. Juncker’s rhetorical move is to rebrand “more Europe” as “smarter Europe”, trading utopian integration for managerial competence. It’s not just a vision statement; it’s a defense mechanism - an attempt to make legitimacy by promising focus, and to make focus sound like ambition.