The EU Ministers for European Affairs are meeting in Brussels on Monday 12 November to review progress in the negotiations with London on the United Kingdom's orderly exit from the EU.
Twenty-eight of them will discuss the EU's multiannual financial framework (MFF) for 2021-2027 and review the Article 7 procedures of the Treaty on respect for the rule of law opened against Poland and Hungary. An informal meeting will be held with representatives of the European Parliament on the Hungarian case.
Brexit. EU Chief Negotiator Michel Barnier will brief Ministers on the state of negotiations with London on the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the EU, while technical negotiators have been on each other for several days to find a mutually acceptable solution to avoid the return of a physical border to the island of Ireland.
At the EPP Party Congress on Wednesday 7 and Thursday 8 November in Helsinki, Mr Barnier reiterated that not enough progress had yet been made to convene an extraordinary European summit in November to seal a possible agreement.
A meeting of the 27 national ambassadors to the EU (Coreper format 'Article 50') was held on Friday afternoon, 9 November, to take stock.
While the Austrian daily newspaper Der Standard argued on Thursday that an agreement could be reached in the coming days, several sources contacted were not expecting any decisive progress to be made.
Rule of law. Ministers will review the rule of law procedures opened against Poland and Hungary by the European Commission in December 2017 and the European Parliament in mid-September (see EUROPE 12118).
On Poland, this will be a new assessment, but not a hearing as was the case on 18 September. A new hearing could take place in December but, at this stage, it will only be a question of seeing where the case stands, whereas the EU Court of Justice issued an order on 19 October suspending the controversial law on the Supreme Court (see EUROPE 12121).
Just before this decision, Polish President Andrzej Duda had allowed the replacement of new judges, which did not prevent the Commission from bringing the matter before the Court of Justice.
The Council essentially wants there to be a change in the situation in Poland "that could allow it to say that the systemic risk identified by the Commission no longer exists", a diplomatic source said on Friday 9 November. "But for this to happen, Polish decisions are needed," she added.
Time is given to Poland and the ongoing legal proceedings could be decisive. The Council expects the Court's final judgment in the coming weeks.
A European source recalled that there is still no majority (4/5th) of Member States required at this stage for the EU Council to find a serious risk of a violation of the rule of law in Poland. But this could change in the future, depending in particular on the judicial procedure, according to a diplomatic source.
For Hungary, the dossier has not progressed much since a first point at the General Affairs Council in October. Hungary and the Commission were invited to make written comments, including an inventory of the infringement proceedings opened against Budapest. The Hungarian government has not yet provided written comments but could submit them on Monday.
On Friday 9 November, the Hungarian government declared that it did not accept the Parliament's resolution which, according to Gergely Gulyás, a representative of the Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, is political and not objective.
Budapest has also challenged the Parliament's vote before the Court of Justice (see EUROPE 12121), but this does not prevent the EU Council from examining the case.
The ministers will also hold their annual debate on the rule of law on citizens' trust in public institutions (see EUROPE 12132). Finally, the Commission will present its work programme for 2019 and its communication on subsidiarity, a priority of the Austrian Presidency.
MFF. Ministers will discuss proposals on the multiannual financial framework 2021-2027 (see EUROPE 12133). They will in some way prepare the December European Council debates on this issue, which will be important to assess the chances of reaching unanimous political agreement on the next MFF before the European elections in May 2019.
Parliament, which will adopt its position on this issue next week in Strasbourg (see other news), and the Commission are pressing for a compromise before that deadline.
Finally, the Austrian Presidency will recall the ongoing work to ensure respect for the principle of subsidiarity, while the European Commission presented, at the end of October, concrete proposals on the subject (see EUROPE 12123), based on the report of the group of experts led by the first Vice-President of the Commission, Frans Timmermans (see EUROPE 12059). (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic with Lionel Changeur and Mathieu Bion)