EU's Juncker wins approval with 'grand coalition' program

By Tom Körkemeier

STRASBOURG, France - Jean-Claude Juncker won broad endorsement from the European Parliament on Tuesday to be the next head of the executive European Commission after setting out a "grand coalition" investment program to help revive Europe's economy.

Belying his reputation as a grey back-room fixer, Juncker spoke with passion and fire of his ambition to "reindustrialize" Europe and put the European Union's 25 million unemployed, many of them young, back into work.

He promised a 300 billion euro ($409 billion) public-private investment program over the next three years, combining existing and perhaps augmented resources from the EU budget and the European Investment Bank with private sector funds, to build energy, transport and broadband networks and industry clusters.

"We need a reindustrialization of Europe," the 59-year-old former Luxembourg prime minister said. He won support from the Socialists and Liberals as well as his own center-right bloc, the largest in the EU legislature.

The position Juncker assumes is the most powerful in the EU. The Commission proposes and enforces laws for 500 million Europeans, from Ireland in the West to Lithuania in the East.

Juncker acknowledged many Europeans had lost confidence in the EU and said only economic results and full employment, not endless debate over EU institutions, would restore their trust.

Euroskeptic parties topped May European Parliament elections in France and Britain and won more than a quarter of the seats in the Strasbourg-based assembly.

The EU assembly approved Juncker by a clear majority of 422 votes with 250 against, 47 abstentions and 10 spoiled ballots.

The score, bigger than his center-right predecessor Jose Manuel Barroso of...