EU-Neighbourhood Policy

Working out a compromise between the Presidency of the EU Council and the remaining Community institutions will certainly prove a challenge for Poland, which assumes EU Presidency as of 1 July 2011. Although the Presidency no longer formally represents the European Union in relations with third countries, it can still influence many of its internal and external policies, albeit on a lesser scale. As was aptly observed by Minister Mikołaj Dowgielewicz, the official in charge of the Polish Presidency, its role is not reduced to attending cocktail parties.

Since the American sub-prime crisis swept through Europe, illuminating the unsustainable nature of economic models such as Ireland (the Celtic tiger) or Spain and making it impossible to disguise the damaged state of the Greek economy, the discussions on economic governance that dragged on during the negotiations of the Lisbon constitutional treaty have now resumed with a vengeance.

Since spring 2010, the European Union has progressed with reforms of its economic governance mechanisms at an impressive speed. A first major achievement was the establishment of new European Financial Supervisory structures. On 16 December 2010, the legislation establishing the European Systemic Risk Board (ESRB) came into force. The ESRB is an independent EU body responsible for the macro-prudential oversight of the financial system within the EU. It contributes to the prevention or mitigation of systemic risks to financial stability in the EU and will also contribute to the smooth functioning of the internal market.

In Estonia, cash machines started providing euros on the first of January this year but this event went unreported as it is now fashionable to predict the failure of the euro. It is an understatement to say that the euro area came under pressure last year. Yet, 2010 taught us, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, that euro countries are bound together to such an extent that problems in one country will inevitably affect all the others. By Hendrik Vos and Ferdi De Ville

On January 1, 2011, Hungary, as the third member of the European Union, which joined the club in 2004, took over the presidency of the Council of the European Union. It is, however, the first presidency of a newer Member State under Lisbon treaty rules. After the new treaty entered into force December 1, 2009, all rotating presidencies are, in reality, first time presidencies. Their relative success now depends more on administrative ability than political leadership.

In the past months, the resigning Belgian ministers led thirty-six formal council meetings and sixteen informal meetings. In addition, Belgian diplomats, experts and officials chaired the working parties and committees that prepared all these meetings. We are referring here to 1943 formal meetings of council working parties besides many more informal contacts. Belgian ministers represented the council in the European Parliament, in the European Commission and at multilateral meetings on all kinds of issues, throughout the world. Most observers agree that the Belgian presidency was a success. This is not self-evident. Indeed, at the start of the presidency there were quite some uncertainties. In July, Belgium had no full-fledged government. Never before has the European presidency had to begin under a caretaker government.

Does Europe need good administrators or innovative political leadership? It is too early to give a definitive evaluation of the Belgian presidency response to this issue. It is a question of knowing just how far the presidency went beyond that of playing the honest broker and took on the role of providing the necessary driving force required by the EU with regard to internal and external developments.

Belgium assumed the rotating presidency of the EU at a very difficult time of transition for Europe. On the one hand, the international economic crisis which erupted in 2008 is far from over and is giving rise to global tendencies towards political instability; and on the other hand, the new mechanism of the Treaty of Lisbon reinforcing the role of the EU in the world has not been implemented entirely, resulting in a partial re-nationalisation of the foreign policies of member states. These external and internal uncertainties require particular skill on the part of the rotating presidency in balancing innovation with continuity, new institutional structures with the inevitable inertia of the preceding institutional practices.

After months of proposals and negotiations behind closed doors the efforts of the European Commission to improve and make more effective existing rules regarding the debt and deficit levels in the Eurozone seem to have been thwarted by the Herman van Rompuy task force, i.e. Member States in disguise. The usually stringent German Chancellor Merkel has joined the French President Sarkozy in watering down the Commission’s proposals. At the European Council meeting the heads of governments have decided for a permanent crisis mechanism and have agreed to limited treaty change. How will this new mechanism work in practice and what are the concerns?