The Czech Republic took over the Presidency of the Council of the EU on 1 July for six months, taking its place in the middle of a trio of Presidencies, preceded by France and to be followed by Sweden. The trio is linked together by a common programme that has lost a good deal of its topicality, having been adopted at the end of 2021, well before the invasion of Ukraine.
The last time the Czech Republic held this position was in the first half of 2009. It was not a glorious Presidency, as readers may remind themselves by revisiting the editorial comment written at the time by the late Ferdinando Riccardi (see EUROPE 9901/1): governmental instability and the refusal by President Václav Klaus to sign the Treaty of Lisbon, amongst other things.
It was in tribute to another Václav – Havel – a more prestigious individual, that the priorities of this new Czech Presidency were introduced, borrowing the title of his 1996 speech, ‘Europe as a Task’. The Europeans, he argued, must take their historical responsibilities in full awareness. They did so quickly and effectively when war made a return to the continent; ‘yet European unity is not one of an authoritarian unanimity’, as the current Czech government points out. It sets out its priorities for the next six months in a six-page document presented on 15 June (see EUROPE 12972/10).
As one might expect, the Ukrainian crisis features at the top of the priorities list, with the colossal challenge represented by the management of an unprecedented wave of refugees. The people of the Czech Republic have already made an enormous effort to host them. Emphasis is rightly laid on the fate of women and children, health care, integration of Ukrainians into our societies. What one might not expect is the sentence ‘the Czech Presidency will work in favour of reaching a consensus on the granting of candidate status to Ukraine’, as if suggesting that Prague harboured doubts as to the granting of this status, which would take place just days later (see EUROPE 12978/1). Even more unexpected is ‘another important task of the Czech Presidency will be the post-war reconstruction of Ukraine’, denoting fierce optimism that the conflict will end before the Presidency – well, we can always hope.
The other priorities are energy security, strengthening Europe’s defence capabilities and cyberspace security, the strategic resilience of the European economy and the resilience of democratic institutions. On the last of these, the Presidency undertakes to continue the debate sparked by the Conference on the Future of Europe, without going so far as to adopt the European Parliament’s calls to convene a Convention with a view to reform of the Treaty of Lisbon (see EUROPE 12977/7). We will see this Wednesday whether the debate with MEPs breaks any new ground. One of the 19 countries that notified their opposition to such reform in writing was the Czech Republic. But on the other hand, it undertakes to work for the success of the European Year of Youth 2022, something the French Presidency appeared to overlook.
The text remains unfortunately silent on several issues: the migration pact (where it talks of refugees, it only means Ukrainian ones), enlargement (other than to Ukraine), the Schengen zone, monetary policy, budgetary discipline, the multi-annual financial framework, external relations, multilateralism, China, the EU-Africa Partnership and even the possible role of the Visegrád group.
The ‘Strategic Compass’ merits one mention, but the importance for security of NATO gets two, confirming the pro-Atlantist line taken by the country. As the idea for a European Political Community launched by France in May, this does not feature anywhere in the document, but since then it has been announced that Prague will host its first meeting on 6 and 7 October (see EUROPE 12979/4 and EUROPE 12983/31), which strongly suggests approval, but also an unprecedented challenge in which the Presidency in exercise will likely have little influence.
What is no doubt particularly importance for Czech interests is being able to derive the maximum benefit from the single market (see EUROPE 12975/14), with the organisation BusinessEurope having flagged up several of its shortcomings (see EUROPE 12964/14). The Chips Act and the future single market emergency instrument (SMEI) are deemed priorities (see EUROPE 12975A14). Various specific economic dossiers need to be taken over the finishing line. The Council must make an implementing decision on the envelopes earmarked under the Next Generation EU recovery plan (see EUROPE 12983/11). The outlines of compromises have been sketched out by the French Presidency on the future regulation on general product safety (see EUROPE 12981/8). The EP-Council agreement on the framework for crypto-assets at EU level needs to be put into effect (see EUROPE 12984/3). As for the future European anti-money laundering authority (AMLA), only a partial political agreement was reached at the Council of 23 June (see EUROPE 12982/17). Furthermore, Prague manifestly intends to make progress on consumer rights: there are two directives in play (see EUROPE 12968/5 and A6).
Objectively, the most politically important dossier is the directive on minimum taxation for large multinational companies, which has still not been adopted by the Council, even as the months go by, following another stalemate situation, this time coming from Hungary (see EUROPE 12974/8), to the great chagrin of the members of the European Parliament (see EUROPE 12980/23). This could jeopardise the EU’s international credibility.
As for climate policy, an historic agreement was concluded at the end of June at the ‘Environment’ Council (see EUROPE 12982/5 to A9) on several key dossiers of the ‘Fit for 55’ package. The aim is both to maintain the shaky balance hammered out at the Council and to seek another, more robust agreement with the Parliament. The trilogue sessions will be an interesting challenge for the Czech Presidency. As an element of the circular economy, the future regulation on sustainable batteries is nowhere near ready to be published in the Official Journal: the first two trilogues showed how far apart the positions of the Council and Parliament are (see EUROPE 12983/17). The other trilogues it will have to oversee are those on the proposed regulation to fight imported deforestation (see EUROPE 12981/9) and the proposed directives on energy efficiency and renewable energies (see EUROPE 12980/2). Within the Council, moreover, work on the proposed regulation on waste transfers (within and outside the EU) has still not been wrapped up (see EUROPE 12982/12).
On social matters, the Presidency intends to work towards an agreement on the directive on workers of digital platforms (see EUROPE12973/6). As for the directive on salary transparency between men and women, the EP and the Council reached their positions months ago (see EUROPE12927/10), but the trilogue has not yet concluded its work. We may also speculate as to whether the Czech Presidency will decide to return to the tricky dossier of coordinating social security systems.
As for space policy, inter-institutional negotiations are expected to open following the unanimous agreement of the Council on 29 June on the regulation on the secure connectivity satellite constellation (see EUROPE 12982/10).
In the framework of short-term Eastern policy, Prague’s gaze will continue to be turned to Ukraine, but a regulation on the temporary liberalisation of the trade in certain agricultural products from Moldova is on the table of the Council, having already been adopted in committee at the Parliament (see EUROPE 12983/6). On 30 June, moreover, the Council adopted a decision whereby any breach of sanctions decided upon (against Russia, most notably) would be added to the list of criminal infractions: the Parliament must give its blessing before it is officially adopted unanimously (see EUROPE 12983/15).
This list is by no means an exhaustive one.
Since the country’s last general election (October 2021), a coalition of five political parties has governed the Czech Republic, led by a pro-European Conservative, Petr Fiala. The former Prime Minister, Andrej Babiš, aka ‘the Czech Trump’, whose shady wealth made headlines, not least in the Pandora Papers, was charged with fraud against European subsidies in March of this year. Could he take over from Miloš Zeman following next year’s presidential elections? This would make him the third President of the Republic hostile to the EU institutions: the country deserves better.
Its population has grown lukewarm towards the EU, but does it really understand how it works? The six months of its Presidency would be a great opportunity to raise awareness and tighten links, for instance by scheduling cultural events.
Given the many and sizeable challenges that await them, we can only wish the best of luck to Petr Fiala and his team.
Renaud Denuit