The European Affairs Ministers of the EU countries will prepare, on Tuesday 21 June, the European Council of Thursday 23 and Friday 24 June, including discussions on the EU membership applications of Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia. They will also discuss the follow-up to the proposals of the Conference on the Future of Europe.
Enlargement. The ministers are expected to discuss the EU enlargement process. The European Council is due to decide whether or not to grant EU candidate country status to Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia following the European Commission’s recommendations.
On Friday 17 June, the Commission recommended that Ukraine and Moldova be granted this status and that Georgia’s European perspective be recognised (see EUROPE 12974/1). On Monday, the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, said he had not heard of anyone objecting to granting Ukraine this status.
The ministers could also discuss the opening of accession negotiations for Albania and North Macedonia (see EUROPE 12853/9) and the French proposal seeking a solution to the Bulgarian blockage. On Monday evening, the Member States’ ambassadors to the EU were to discuss the enlargement dossier.
At the European Summit, the EU27 will also address the EU’s response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the French proposal to set up a European Political Community (see EUROPE 12972/9).
See the draft conclusions of the European Council: https://aeur.eu/f/25q
Conference on the Future of Europe. The ‘General Affairs’ Council will hold an exchange of views on the way forward on the proposals made by the citizens who participated in the Conference on the Future of Europe last 9 May in Strasbourg (see EUROPE 12948/1).
The discussion will be based in particular on the preliminary analysis of the EU Council experts, who consider that the vast majority of the proposals can be implemented under a constant treaty and that eighteen measures require a revision of the European treaties, such as the transfer of competences in the field of health to European level, the change from unanimity to qualified majority voting in certain areas in the EU Council and/or the granting of a right of legislative initiative to the European Parliament (see EUROPE 12971/25).
At the beginning of May, thirteen Member States warned against any hasty action to initiate an institutional reform of the EU, while the Parliament has twice formally requested the convening of a Convention to revise the Treaties.
The follow-up to the Conference on the Future of Europe will also be discussed by the European Council later this week. Last Friday, the European Commission also gave its first analysis of the Conference’s proposals, detailing how it wants to involve citizens more in European policy-making and confirming its willingness to announce its first concrete proposals in mid-September, during President von der Leyen’s State of the Union speech.
See the EU Council’s general note: https://aeur.eu/f/23L
And the detailed version: https://aeur.eu/f/23h
Online political advertising. The ‘General Affairs’ Council will be informed of progress on the draft regulation on online political advertising. The legislative proposal, to be presented at the end of November 2021, contains rules on the labelling of political advertisements and the obligation to reveal the mechanisms behind political targeting and amplification techniques.
Ministers will not reach a political agreement on the proposed regulation on Tuesday despite several attempts at compromise by the French Presidency of the EU Council (see EUROPE 12952/15).
In the spring, the EU Council had adopted its position on the other text of the legislative package aimed at strengthening European democracy, namely that of revising the statute of European political parties and their foundations (see EUROPE 12916/23).
See the French compromise proposal dated 10 June: https://aeur.eu/f/27l
European Semester. Finally, the ‘General Affairs’ Council will approve the country-specific socio-economic policy recommendations for 2022 and forward them to the European Council for approval.
Due to the freezing of the Stability and Growth Pact until the end of 2023, these recommendations do not contain quantitative budgetary targets for Member States. However, they contain specific recommendations on how to reduce dependence on Russian fossil fuels (see EUROPE 12958/1), with the recommended measures being eligible for funding under the Next Generation EU Recovery Plan (see EUROPE 12960/9).
See the country-specific recommendations agreed by the EU Council: https://aeur.eu/f/27n (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion and Camille-Cerise Gessant)