Taking stock of the Portuguese Presidency of the Council of the European Union of the first half of 2021, the Portuguese Secretary of State for European Affairs, Ana Paula Zacarias, stressed the need, on Wednesday 30 June, for Member States to take “proportionate” measures in terms of public health restrictions, in particular the halt the spread of the Delta variant of Sars-Cov-2.
Concerning the rule of law, she observed that there are not enough Member States prepared to push forwards with the the so-called ‘article 7’ procedures on the respect of the fundamental values of the EU in Poland and Hungary (interview by Mathieu Bion)
Agence Europe - Some countries like Germany are taking measures to slow down the propagation of the Delta variant of the coronavirus, notably from Portugal. Do you understand these initiatives?
Ana Paula Zacarias - We did approve the EU digital Covid certificate. It was one of the fastest procedures in European decision-making history. It's very positive that we start on the first of July. At the same time, we have approved coordination possibilities in case Member states need to put further measures in place.
Regarding this new variant, we have to be careful but at the same time, all the measures taken by Member states need to be proportionate, and Member states need to coordinate with each other.
We need to make sure that the Covid certificate is a helpful tool to facilitate movements within and into the Union. The economy needs this, not just tourism.
On health, what new competences need to be transferred to the EU level to better tackle future pandemics?
The key here is coordination, coordination and coordination.
At the same time, work is needed for a more resilient Europe. I am very glad that the Slovenian Presidency has chosen resilience as a central theme. It means more preparedness in terms of preparing for new crises. We improved the rules of the European Medicines Agency on crisis preparedness and management of medicinal products and medical devices.
The Next Generation EU recovery plan is underway. How tough is the assessment of national plans? How many plans will be adopted in July?
In 6 months, we were able to approve, along with the EU Parliament, all regulations under the MFF, have the 'own resources' decision ratified by all Member states in order to allow the first debt issuance by the Commission, and discuss the recovery and resilience mechanism.
As far as we know, twelve plans have been approved by the Commission. We hope that all of themwill be at least partly assessed by the Ecofin meeting of July so that the money can start flowing into the economy by mid-July (EUROPE 12744/5).
I don't see the Council having any real issues with these plans, because they have been thoroughly revised by the Commission.
The Portuguese Presidency organised two hearings on the rule of law in Poland and Hungary. Are the 'article 7' procedures ready to be taken further?
The rule of law was one of our priorities. So, in the framework of this mechanism of the rule of law annual assessment, we had a dialogue with five Member states - Spain, France, Germany, Greece and Ireland - in March. In April, we organised a high-level conference.
We held two hearings with Poland and Hungary to understand the situation (see EUROPE 12746/1). There was also a debate at the level of the European Council particularly in relation to Hungary, on this new law that has been passed on the protection of children, which very clearly discriminates against LGBTIQ persons (see EUROPE 12748/1). We think it was highly relevant that this debate was held at the European Council, because this is the political debate that we really need to have.
At the level of 'article 7' procedure itself, the situation is not easy. We need to go a step further. For that, we need to have a 4/5 majority of Member states in the Council. Even at this point in time, with this outburst of support for the Union's fundamental values, we only have 17 countries supporting this idea that we need to do something, and we need 22 countries.
There are other mechanisms, like the mechanism of the conditionality of the rule of law with the funds that will surely be unblocked as soon as we have the decision of the Court of Justice. And there is also the continuation dialogue with the annual assessment of the rule of law. We have to combine these 3 elements.
Is the Hungarian law that was discussed during the European summit an example of initiatives that could trigger the conditionality mechanism?
The EU Commission has yet to present its guidelines for the implementation of the regulation on conditionality. They said they would do this in a couple of days. As soon as they do so, it will help Member states to decide.
In the declaration from Benelux supported by other Member states, the central element is that it asks the Commission to assess the compatibility of this law with the basic values of the EU. The Commission has already asked the Hungarian authorities for an answer. This is a process that will go on, I am sure, because there was uproar from society against this type of legislation, which is clearly discriminatory against a group of citizens.
Migration is another very difficult file. How can the deadlock be broken? How will the partnerships with third countries of origin and transit look?
It is probably the most complex file. There are clearly different positions between Member States.
There are 3 things we made possible. On legal migration, we adopted the 'blue card' directive, because we always said we needed to bring to Europe in a legal, certain way migrants with the right skills who can help us (see EUROPE 12721/22).
There was also an agreement on Tuesday on the establishment of the new Agency for Asylum in Europe as well (see EUROPE 12751/14).
Thirdly, we concentrated our efforts on the external dimension of migration. We are now establishing partnerships with countries of origin and of transit in which migration is one element of a broader cooperation that includes support for jobs, digital transition, aid for youth (see EUROPE 12748/4), etc.
Which are these countries the EU wants to focus on?
I think there is a focus on countries in North Africa, that's for sure. And on sub-Saharian countries. We probably need to reinforce partnerships that already exist with countries with high levels of refugees, such as Jordan. We also need to talk with Turkey. And to focus on countries where the situation is the hardest, not only in terms of instability due to conflicts, but also due to the impact of climate change.
Portugal was also keen to find a solution on the trade agreement with Mercosur...
We cannot leave Latin America off our radar. Latin America is experiencing difficult times because of the Covid-19 crisis. We finally established the high-speed cable linking Europe to Latin America.
We managed to keep the Mercosur agreement alive, which is already something! But unfortunately, we were not able to push for more than this. We always said that it is much better to have this agreement in place than not to have it. Even for EU countries that have misgivings about sustainability, or questions related to labour rights. It is for us a much better guarantee of engaging in serious dialogue with Mercosur countries if we have this agreement in place.
Finally, on enlargement, why was it not possible to give the green light to start EU accession negotiations with North Macedonia and Albania?
We are very glad that we were able to organise the intergovernemental conferences with Serbia (see EUROPE 12747/15) and Montenegro (see EUROPE 12747/14) under the new methodology. It sends out a signal to the Western Balkans that during the Portuguese presidency, we did everything we could to proceed on the dossiers of enlargement.
It's also important that we reached an agreement on the regulation that establishes the financial instrument for pre-accession (IPA III).
On North Macedonia and Albania, we did all we could (see EUROPE 12746/4). We put on the table a very balanced, carefully crafted proposal to unblock the difficult situation between Bulgaria and North Macedonia. But unfortunately, the time was not ripe. We really hope that our Slovenian friends will be successful. It is important that we start a process of having North Macedonia and Albania in the European family.
Can it be done before next summit with the Western Balkans countries in October?
We hope it can be done as soon as possible. But we also have to give the stakeholders time so that things are done properly. There are delicate questions at stake, very fundamental issues of culture, language and identity, and it will take them time to smooth their differences out.