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Reuters

Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, Europe's longest-serving leader, resigned yesterday amid a scandal involving the tiny nation's secret services, which allegedly engaged in serious misconduct under his leadership.
Juncker, prime minister since 1995, tendered his resignation to Grand Duke Henri, the royal head of state who himself has been implicated in media reports of espionage.

The government was forced to resign after junior coalition partners withdraw their support in protest at Juncker's apparent failure to rein in a secret service spiralling out of control.
"There was no other choice … I note that a majority favours early elections," said Juncker.
Juncker said yesterday he ''very much" hoped to run again in elections that might be held in October but was waiting for the go-ahead of his party.
In a rare political drama in usually uneventful Luxembourg, the parliament examined a report alleging that the country's SREL secret service, which the premier is supposed to oversee, had indulged in a series of misdemeanours from 2003 to 2009 that included illegal phone-taps, corruption and even a dodgy car dealership.
The report was put together by a parliamentary committee after a Luxembourg weekly last year published verbatim a secretly taped conversation in 2007 between Juncker and the then-head of SREL, Marco Mille.
In a scene reminiscent of a spy novel, Mille recorded the conversation with Juncker in 2008 using a microphone in his watch.
In the conversation, Mille revealed that his staff had secretly taped a conversation with the Grand Duke and that the sovereign was in regular contact with Britain's MI6.
But the parliamentary inquiry set up in the furore that ensued uncovered more dirt: the existence of 13,000 secret files on people and businesses, illegal wire-taps on business leaders, a counter-terror operation that in fact was a front to help a Russian oligarch pay US$10 million to a Spanish spy, and even a murky private dealership in luxury cars.
"The commission of inquiry concludes that the prime minister, as head of the intelligence service, not only had no control over his service but also too often omitted to inform the parliamentary control committee or the judiciary of its irregularities, aberrations and illegalities," the report said.
"The intelligence service was not my top priority," Juncker told parliament earlier on Wednesday. "Moreover, I hope Luxembourg will never have a prime minister who sees SREL as [his or her] priority."

	Juncker has two fatal flaws - he has an opinion and he is not afraid to share it
Alex Bodry, the leader of his Socialist junior partner, said the prime minister "must assume his responsibilities, not because he was dishonest or incompetent but because he made the wrong choices". Addressing the chamber, Juncker said the committee had failed to exercise its supervisory powers over the secret service.
"It could've controlled it … It did not," he said.
Though aged only 58, Juncker has been in office for 18 years and in government for 30.
He is best known in Europe for his recent tumultuous eight-year stint as head of the euro-zone finance ministers group, which ended in January.
Last month, he survived the duchy's first confidence vote in 150 years over a separate scandal.
The last confidence motion in Luxembourg was in 1848 and led to the fall of the government.
A fixture on the European scene and a passionate defender of the euro and the European dream, Juncker steered a tricky path during the financial crisis between the bloc's top two economies, France and Germany, who often held sharply differing views.
"When I want to speak in French, I think in German; when I want to speak in German, I think in French, with the result that I am totally incomprehensible," he joked at one stage.
Throughout his career, he was never afraid to speak out.
One European said Juncker had "two fatal flaws - he has an opinion and he is not afraid to share it".


Luxemburg’s Juncker resigns as spy scandal fells government

Luxembourg's Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker leaves a meeting with Grand Duke Henri at the Grand Ducal  Palace. Photo: Reuters

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Juncker longest-serving EU head of government, at 18 years


Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, Europe's longest-serving leader, resigned yesterday amid a scandal involving the tiny nation's secret services, which allegedly engaged in serious misconduct under his leadership.


Luxemburg’s Juncker resigns as spy scandal fells government

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Juncker longest-serving EU head of government, at 18 years

Juncker longest-serving EU head of government, at 18 years