The Spanish Presidency of the Council of the European Union is not expected to include the European Parliament’s request to convene a Convention to reform the European treaties on the agenda of the ‘General Affairs’ Council on Tuesday 12 December, deferring the matter to the ‘Energy’ Council on 19 December.
By proceeding in this way, the Spanish authorities will be unable to forward the European Parliament’s request, based on Article 48 of the EU Treaty (see EUROPE 13298/7), to the European Council, which will meet on Thursday 14 and Friday 15 December.
It should therefore be up to the next Belgian Presidency of the Council of the EU, in the event of a green light from a simple majority of Member States at the ‘Energy’ Council, to invite the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, to put the question of revising the Treaties on the agenda of a European summit to be held in the first half of 2024.
At the same time, Mr Michel is actively consulting the EU27 on the EU’s new strategic agenda for 2030.
At the last plenary session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, the Spanish Secretary of State for European Affairs, Pascual Navarro Ríos, spoke of the Spanish Presidency’s “firm intention” to ask the Member States to give their opinion at the General Affairs Council on 12 December.
At the extraordinary summit in Granada, the EU27 initiated a process of reflection on how to make the EU more efficient, more democratic and better adapted to the challenges of the future (see EUROPE 13266/1). This reflection will gain momentum as the timetable for EU enlargement to include new Member States - some of the Balkan countries and even Ukraine - becomes clearer.
On Thursday 30 November, at a meeting with the Belgian Prime Minister, Alexander De Croo, in preparation for the forthcoming Belgian Presidency of the Council of the EU, the President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, recalled the European Parliament’s contribution to the debate on the internal reform of the EU, “a debate that, we’re convinced, needs to happen”. She added that “it is clear that what works for 27 countries will not work for 32 or even more Member States”.
Ms Metsola noted that the Belgian Presidency of the Council in 2024 would come 20 years after the start of the Convention that led to the last institutional reform of the EU, and that Convention had come into being thanks to the Laeken Declaration adopted under the Belgian Presidency in 2001 (EUROPE 8114/1). “We really hope that 23 years later, the Belgian Presidency will take the lead”, she added, promising that the Parliament would support any initiative along these lines.
Mr De Croo said that his country’s priority would be to complete a large number of dossiers before the end of the EU legislative cycle, citing the Pact on Migration and Asylum and the texts setting out the European Green Deal. “After April, the focus will be on the strategic outlook for the EU and the discussion on the future of the EU”, he added. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)