It is on Monday 23 March that the exceptional decision-making process will take place which will enable the Council of the European Union to continue its work in these times of pandemic.
The EU Council will receive Member States' replies to its proposal to ensure that Member States take decisions within the EU Council while respecting the containment measures imposed to stem the spread of COVID-19.
In essence, the idea of substituting the physical presence of members for a presence by videoconference is ruled out because of the many security issues that this solution would raise (see EUROPE 12249/6).
The EU Council is therefore moving towards a temporary relaxation of the use of the written procedure.
It should be remembered that, in normal circumstances, unanimity of the Member States is required to validate the use of this procedure, which then makes it possible to proceed to the legal decision, to which the Member States are asked to give, or not to give, their green light.
The EU Council's approach would be to facilitate the use of this written procedure. Rather than systematically applying unanimity to validate, it would be a matter of reflecting the voting rule applied to the legislative file submitted to the States (see EUROPE 12448/15). Thus, for a decision to be taken by qualified majority, there will also have to be a qualified majority of the Member States to validate the use of the written procedure.
These provisions would be valid for one month and could be renewed if circumstances require it, European sources have confirmed to EUROPE.
These same sources nevertheless stress that this debate is not existential. Diplomats and experts from the national delegations have redoubled their efforts in the preparation of the files in recent days. The written procedure has therefore not, at this stage, given rise to any particular concern.
Consult the documents submitted to the Member States: https://bit.ly/2U65vAl , https://bit.ly/33BjEJi and https://bit.ly/2Qxli9q (Original version in French by Hermine Donceel, with Mathieu Bion)