On Tuesday 23 March, the EU Secretaries of State or Ministers for European Affairs will prepare the Spring European Council, traditionally devoted to economic issues, which will take place on Thursday 25 and Friday 26 March, potentially in Brussels in the presence of the EU27.
They will review a draft set of conclusions prepared for this occasion in which some relatively stable language will be submitted to them. The first draft of the summit’s conclusions, dated 15 March, stresses the importance of the European Union building its digital sovereignty, including identifying the digital capabilities and infrastructure that will make this possible (see EUROPE 12674/13). EU leaders are also expected to call for the EU’s revised industrial strategy, due to be unveiled on 27 April, to help make the EU more self-sufficient in the supply of strategic goods, notably in drawing lessons from the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic.
As a matter of urgency, the summit will again take stock of the epidemiological situation and deliveries of Covid-19 vaccines in the EU. It will call for work on the recent proposal for a ‘Digital Green Certificate’ to be taken forward urgently (see EUROPE 12680/1). In the Council of the EU, this work was discussed on Friday 19 March at the level of EU ambassadors and, according to a high-ranking European source consulted on Friday 19 March, an ad hoc group of experts will work “day and night” on this dossier starting Monday.
Also on the summit’s agenda are topical international issues, such as EU-Russia relations as well as Turkey (see other news).
See the draft conclusions of the EU summit: http://bit.ly/3vywOE9
‘European Semester’ The ‘General Affairs’ Council of the EU will prepare the discussions of the EU27 on several economic issues.
The European Council is invited to deliver its annual message on the ‘European Semester’ budget process (https://bit.ly/3rbuKyR ) as the debate on the extension of the freeze on EU budget rules until the end of 2022 gets underway (see EUROPE 12679/2). In the ‘enlarged euro area’ format, EU leaders will take stock of the work being done to strengthen the international role of the euro and the banking union. And they will also adopt the fiscal policy recommendation for the euro area (https://bit.ly/2OGHal5 ).
Finally, the draft conclusions reiterate the strong preference of the EU27 for an international solution on taxation of the digital sector to be found by mid-2021 within the OECD (see EUROPE 12679/4).
Conference on the Future of Europe. The Presidency of the Council of the EU will inform ministers about the establishment of the Conference on the Future of Europe after the signature of the interinstitutional declaration laying the foundations for this pan-European citizens’ consultation exercise (see EUROPE 12675/6).
The first meeting of the Executive Board, the body responsible for steering the day-to-day work of the conference, is scheduled for Wednesday 24 March. While the European Parliament has set up a delegation of seven MEPs (three full-time members and four observers) with only one woman, namely the president of the S&D group, Iratxe García Pérez from Spain (see EUROPE 12681/18), the Council of the EU is expected to do better in terms of gender balance.
The Portuguese Prime Minister, António Costa, invited the six Member States that will take over the Presidency of the EU Council after Portugal to identify their representative in the Executive Board. According to our information, the provisional list is as follows: - three members: Ana Paula Zacarias from Portugal, Gašper Dovžan from Slovenia, Clément Beaune from France; - four observers: the Czech Milena Hrdinková, the Spaniard Juan González-Barba Pera and the Belgian Sophie Wilmès. Only the Swedish representative is missing. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)