EU is facing existential crisis, says Jean-Claude Juncker

The European Union is facing an existential crisis, the president of the European commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, will say on Wednesday, as he announces a raft of economic and security plans in the search for common ground in the wake of the British vote to leave.

In his annual state of the union address to the European parliament, Juncker will say commonality between EU member states has never been so low, with governments everywhere quicker to say what they don’t want from Brussels rather than work together.

The EU executive hopes to find the elusive common ground with a plan to boost the EU’s infrastructure fund by increasing its value to €500bn (£425bn). Juncker will also press for speedy implementation of a recently agreed law to create an EU border and coastguard to ensure better control of migrants arriving from the Middle East and Africa.

But a poisonous diplomatic spat between Luxembourg and Hungary over the treatment of asylum seekers underlined just how difficult it will be to find agreement on the migration crisis. At least 3,169 people died or went missing in an attempt to reach Europe during the first eight months of the year.

Juncker’s speech, which was still getting the finishing touches on Tuesday night, comes just two days before EU leaders meet in Bratislava for a summit without Britain, aimed at charting a way forward for the EU after Brexit.

Neither event is expected to result in detailed discussions on the EU27 strategy for dealing with the UK as it heads towards the EU exit.

Juncker will, however, refer to the murder of a Polish factory worker in Harlow, Essex, as he speaks out against violence and discrimination.

EU officials are increasingly resigned to the likelihood that the UK is unlikely to trigger article 50 in the near future, a fact that causes varying degrees of angst.

Martin Schulz, the president of the European parliament, who will meet Theresa May in London next week, called on the British government to trigger article 50 by the end of the year to provide clarity and avoid “weakening” the EU. “To wait more than a year is completely counter-productive,” he told the Guardian and five continental papers.

He dismissed the argument – advanced by some British government sources – that it would be better to wait until French and German elections are over, before triggering article 50 in late 2017.

“This is not an acceptable argument. There are always elections in the European Union in some member states.” Waiting until after Germany’s elections in autumn 2017 could mean the UK would still be an EU member during the next round of European elections, throwing up complications for all sides. But the British government is unlikely to be face immediate pressure from other governments to trigger exit talks.

In a letter to the 27 governments sent before the meeting, the man organising the summit, European council president, Donald Tusk, said it would be “a fatal error to assume that the negative result in the UK referendum represents a specifically British issue”.

He writes that “it is true that the leave campaign was full of false arguments and unacceptable generalisations”, but the Brexit vote was also “a desperate attempt to answer the questions that millions of Europeans ask themselves daily”, citing border control and the fight against terrorism.

“People in Europe want to know if the political elites are capable of restoring control over events and processes which overwhelm, disorientate, and sometimes terrify them. Today many people, not only in the UK, think that being part of the European Union stands in the way of stability and security.”

The EU institutions are converging on the idea that Europe needs to concentrate on practical policies; both the nuts and bolts of deepening the single market and extending it to the internet through a digital single market will feature in Juncker’s speech.

Brussels insiders share frustration that national governments are reluctant to defend EU policies and complain that ministers lack EU knowledge, sometimes unaware when they say “something must be done”, that a policy already exists, or is being discussed.

According to Schulz, too many governments want to cherry pick the bits of the EU they liked, such as generous European funding for poorer regions, while ignoring the bits they don’t. If countries continued to take the advantages without fulfilling their duties, this would end in “destroying the European Union” he said.

In his speech, Juncker will also mount a defence of trade policy, amid ongoing doubts about whether the controversial transatlantic trade deal (TTIP) can ever be agreed, as well as questions over ratifying the EU-Canada trade deal, which was seven years in the making.

Tusk echoes this qualified defence of trade deal. “Failing to reach trade agreements ... will inevitably create an impression that Brexit has sparked a process of eliminating us from the global game,” he said. But future trade agreements can only work by restoring trust of workers, consumers and entrepreneurs.