The president or the European Council, Donald Tusk, wants to breathe new life into the world of the European Council by meeting more regularly to discuss the trickier policies, such as migration or deepening the eurozone.
Over breakfast on Friday 20 October, Tusk will present his counterparts with an agenda and a new working method for between now and June 2019. The European Leaders’ Agenda will be updated and amended in line with priorities and circumstances. It relies on work already carried out since the September 2016 Bratislava Summit, where European leaders were shocked by the British exit referendum and started to work on positive work programmes for the European Union with 27 member states (see EUROPE 11626).
Work continued with the Rome Declaration in March on the sixtieth anniversary of the EU. It was recently inspired by the European Commission president’s State of the Union speech, the address at the Sorbonne by the French president, Emmanuel Macron, on relaunching the European project, and the talks at the informal Tallinn Summit (see EUROPE 11873).
'I will propose a more political approach during our discussions, and - whenever necessary - more meetings. Engaging more directly on politically sensitive issues, and ensuring real progress, will require that you are ready to overcome deadlocks in the Council of Ministers,’ said Tusk in his summit invitation letter, giving the positive example of the review of anti-dumping rules. He added: "If the first discussion does not succeed, we will need to decide whether to make another attempt at solving the issue, or if the only way forward is enhanced cooperation among the willing countries".
Whatever issue is discussed, the difficulties will reside in knowing the EU28 or EU27’s capacity to maintain a dynamic while keeping member states unified in the Brexit talks, for instance (see EUROPE 11885). ‘To be clear, unity cannot become an excuse for stagnation, but at the same time ambition cannot lead to divisions,’ added the president of the European Council.
Some countries in central and Eastern Europe, Poland and Hungary, for example, will be very attentive to ensuring that the leaders’ agenda does not relegate them to a lower category. A high-ranking diplomat from a country in central Europe said that Tusk already says a multi-speed Europe exists. The diplomat says the former Polish prime minister (Tusk)’s suggestions fit within the current EU treaty, whereas those of Macron do not.
The draft agenda already foresees no fewer than 13 summits. Listing the usual European Councils scheduled for Brussels, this approach focuses on informal summits in the countries holding the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU (May 2018 in Sofia, September 2018 in Vienna, May 2019 in Sibiu).
The EU28 will discuss the tricky topics, such as migration and security at the EU’s internal and external borders, finalising the Single Market, deepening the eurozone (decision hoped in June 2018), common trade policy, the EU’s Multiannual Financial Framework for post-2020 (policy debate in February 2018) on which a decision is no longer expected ahead of the spring 2019 European elections.
Europe’s leaders will also discuss reform of the way the European Parliament is made up, with the possible creation of a single pan-European constituency to allow MEPs to be elected from transnational lists, an idea argued for by Italy and France (see EUROPE 11882).
The document is not cast in stone and if there is a crisis, it is hard to say that it won’t be discussed because a different high-ranking diplomat said there had been similar plans to talk about other things for eighteen months.
The European Leaders’ Agenda can be found at: http://bit.ly/2zj9QTL. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion with the editorial team)