The Portuguese Presidency of the Council of the European Union came to an end on Wednesday 30 June. Despite the technical and logistical difficulties linked to the coronavirus pandemic, Portugal can be proud of a positive result, “which goes beyond the initial objectives”, as confirmed the same day by its deputy ambassador to the EU, Pedro Lourtie (in charge of the follow-up of the files in the Committee of Permanent Representatives I – Coreper I).
“We are indeed very happy with what we have been able to do, we have gone beyond our objectives”, Mr Lourtie said, recalling that the Portuguese Presidency was always “building of the shoulders of our preceding presidencies”.
With 2,493 meetings organised in 6 months in Brussels, the Portuguese Presidency is the first in terms of the number of meetings organised in the last 10 presidencies since 2016.
On the interinstitutional negotiation front, the Presidency closed 14 legislative dossiers in interinstitutional negotiation box (trilogues) in the areas covered by Coreper I in 6 months. There were 46 meetings at political level in total, including the thorny issue of the Common Agricultural Policy, which alone comprises three texts.
The Deputy Ambassador pointed out that he had spent a total of 4 full days and 13 hours in trilogues. In addition, there are 90 technical meetings (63 of which were for the CAP alone).
One factor that played out in favour of the Portuguese Presidency was the improvement of the health situation. “It was not always easy in terms of working method either”, admitted Mr Lourtie. He added, "At the beginning of the presidency most meetings were still by VTC, which sometime made the negotiations a bit more difficult, [but] with the improvement of the pandemic, we could also start getting back to physical meetings always with social distancing, [...] which are always very important for negotiations”.
Over the whole of the first half of 2021, 31% of meetings were held face-to-face and 69% were held remotely. From May to June, all ministerial meetings included in the official calendar took place in-person. In June, almost half (42%) of the total number of meetings took place in-person.
Among the major sources of satisfaction for the Portuguese Presidency are: – the final agreement on the Climate Law (with the longest interinstitutional meeting under the Portuguese mandate, i.e. 14 hours – see EUROPE 12703/1); – the agreement on the directive on country-by-country reporting, which has been in limbo for 5 years (see EUROPE 12732/2); – the progress made in introducing a derogation regime on the e-Privacy Directive in order to combat child abuse more effectively; – the ‘Eurovignette’ Directive (see EUROPE 12742/13); – and the Health Technology Assessment (HTA) Regulations (see EUROPE 12746/12).
Social. On the social front, a strong political mark of the presidency, Mr Lourtie welcomed in particular the holding of the Porto Summit at the beginning of May (see EUROPE 12716/3).
“It was certainly the political highlight of the Portuguese Presidency and one that will mark the agenda for the times to come”, he stressed, pointing out that all Member States are fully committed to the social objectives for 2030 set out in the European pillar of social rights action plan.
On the social issue, however, the Deputy Ambassador conceded one regret, namely the impossibility of concluding the interinstitutional negotiations on the regulation on the coordination of social security systems.
“Discussions with the Parliament have always been very constructive, but it has not been possible to bridge the differences between the Parliament’s position and that of the Council”, he admitted. “I hope this will be the case” under the Slovenian EU Council Presidency. “The good thing is that each presidency has its own strategy, its own way of dealing with the issue”.
As for the Minimum Wage Directive, Mr Lourtie acknowledged that negotiations had been slow due to the fact that the EU Council’s legal service was awaiting an analysis of the legal basis for the directive. “The note from the legal service was a very important clarification and allowed us to move forward with the negotiations”, he explained. However, he was confident that the Member States would reach a political agreement again this year.
“Files need time to mature and to Member States to digest. [The Minimum Wage Directive] is a typical example”, commented Mr Lourtie. “We wanted to move forward with this file, we did move forward. But the conditions were not yet met to achieve a result. I am really hopeful that we can get a Council position in the next few months and then move forwards to the negotiations with the European Parliament”, he concluded. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)