The year of a thousand changes. This column is written just before Christmas and will reach the majority of readers just when the new year begins. It will be the year of a thousand changes. The first change will be institutional: the rotating presidency of the Council will go to two countries from Eastern Europe in turn, Hungary, first of all, then Poland. A member state from this zone has already assumed the presidency of the Council, beginning with Slovenia and followed by the Czech republic. A whole year, however, is an entirely different thing and a new experience, even if the principle of triple presidential programmes (covering three successive presidencies) particularly involves close coordination with the country that is just concluding its half yearly presidency (Belgium).
The role of the Hungarian presidency and its limitations. The most recent elections in Hungary won by the Conservatives, followed eight years of socialist governments. The current government emphasises the determination to continue Community action along the same path, with no turning off but with a certain number of obvious priorities and specific projects. EUROPE 10281 provided a report on the programme presented by the Hungarian Minister for foreign affairs (who will be chairing the “General Affairs” Council). Nonetheless, a few comments made in this previous column, concerning the increasing weight of the European Council (and whose activity is outside the remit of the rotating presidency), should be taken into account. Some of the events mentioned by Mr Martony will effectively occur in the first half of this year but will not be dependent upon the presidency of the Council. This is particularly the case of the first European Summit on energy. The importance of the summit is something to be emphasised, as well as euro zone management. This institutional situation has now become permanent and does not reduce the overall role of the Hungarian presidency and the specific initiatives that it has announced. It should be underlined, that this presidency does not, however, intend to launch the institutional debate on the financial perspectives of the EU for the post-2013 period. It considers that it is necessary to await the proposals from the European Commission on this subject, therefore at the end of its presidency. Its priority will be discussing the objectives and programmes, before there is any talk of the figures. This is understandable and is also the in-principle position of the Commission itself but the fact remains that the debate on future EU funding has in practice, already been launched, even if it will not enter into the operational phase until the second half of the year. The Polish presidency will have as many misgivings as its Hungarian predecessor about the restrictive position advocated by five member states, as already described in EUROPE 10282. In other areas, the Hungarian government will also, no doubt, wish to clarify the question of press freedom, as discussed in our publication yesterday.
A few events. I am therefore going back to what is beyond the specific programme of the Presidency of the Council and will provide a rough list of the events occurring throughout the year that is about to begin. 2011 will be:
the year of the first European semester of economic governance, during which the national budgets of member states will be discussed in common, before they are approved in the respective countries;
the year of the entry into force of the new European rules on the functioning and, particularly, the common supervision of financial activity;
the year for approving the small European level reform of the Lisbon Treaty (on the condition of ratification by member states), which will allow the creation of the new permanent financial instruments for supporting Eurozone countries experiencing budgetary difficulties;
the year of the first European Energy Summit. It is hoped that the summit will partly remove the grey areas that currently prevail by bringing some clarification in this essential domain and in which there are so many fault lines(see EUROPE 10271).
Towards the extension of European “economic governance”. Other important developments are expected, including the extension to new areas of debate between member states on national budgetary policies. The demand to expand this field covered by the European semester already mentioned, is increasingly emphasised by the fact that certain aspects of fiscal policy have been included in it (corporation tax !), as well as the analysis of respective policies in the social field. The latter is not exclusively a demand from the socialist group at the European Parliament and Pervenche Berès; it was overtly requested by the president of Eurogroup, Jean-Claude Juncker, (EUROPE 10280) and other heads of government, particularly with regard to pension policies, where a certain coordination is considered indispensable.
(F.R./transl. fl)