For the 13th time, Belgium took up the presidency of all meetings of the Council of the EU between 1 January and 30 June, with the exception of those of the foreign affairs ministers, which will be presided over by the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell.
This six-month period will be punctuated by an extraordinary meeting of the European Council on 1 February, a tripartite Social Summit on 20 March, Enrico Letta’s submission to the European Council of his report on the internal market on 21 March, the final plenary meeting of the European Parliament of this legislative period, to take place between 22 and 25 April, the 20th anniversary of the largest wave of enlargement on 1 May, the European elections from 6 to 9 June and a critical meeting of the European Council on 27 and 28 June. For the second half of this year, Hungary will hold the Presidency of the Council, even though some have questioned its right to do so, given the very special behaviour of its prime minister and the nature of his regime. Two Europhile Presidencies (Spain and Belgium) will be followed by a Eurosceptic if not Europhobic one, although we should not prejudge its results.
The fact remains that there is considerable weight on Belgian’s shoulders since, despite the very many agreements achieved by the remarkable Spanish Presidency, all pending legislative dossiers should ideally be put to bed before the end of the legislative period – and they are legion in number. Our last daily bulletins of December 2023 provided readers with a selection of these (see EUROPE 13316/6 and 13316/13, EUROPE 13317/6, 13317/12 and 13317/17, EUROPE 13318/13 and 13318/14 and EUROPE 13319/17). The amount of time available to do this will be short, particularly as the first ministerial meeting is scheduled for 15 January, the Easter, Ascension and Pentecost public holidays will eat up five working days and the MEPs will be heading off to start their campaigns no later than 26 April.
A founding member state, Belgium enjoys a long pro-European tradition and its diplomats have earned their stripes in this area. This time, its six months at the helm will bring an extra peculiarity with them, as the federal and regional elections will be held at the same time as the European ones. It is no secret that Belgium is currently prey to centrifugal forces, making the formation of the current federal government, which is made up of Socialists, Christian Democrats, Liberals and Greens, a long and arduous task. At the time of writing, all opinion polls confirm that two populist or Eurosceptic parties have taken the lead in Flanders: Vlaams Belang and the NVA (represented at the European Parliament in the ID and CRE groups respectively), which dream of independence for their region. Furthermore, despite the personal popularity of Prime Minister Alexander De Croo, his party (VLD, liberal) is still bringing up the rear in terms of voting intentions among the traditional parties.
It is therefore an unanswered question: will this Presidency of the Council translate into a tightening of this political formation or into the reverse, an anti-European wave as we saw recently in the Netherlands? Unfortunately, the matter of the federal regional elections will eclipse their European counterparts as, from north to south and everywhere in between, there is little political interest in the European elections.
Even so, the meetings of the Council will be chaired by a minister of the federal government or from one of the three regions, depending on a subtle balance. In particular, it is worth noting that the Belgians have really gone to town, with a budget of 100 million euros and myriad events on its agenda. The Presidency’s priorities were unveiled on 8 December by the Prime Minister and the Foreign Affairs Minister, Hadja Lahbib (see EUROPE 13310/27). The presidential slogan will be slogan “Protect, Strengthen, Prepare”. The use of the word ‘prepare’ is a reference to preparations for a greatly enlarged Union, among other things.
The programme, a document of 52 closely-typed pages of text, is subdivided into 10 chapters corresponding to the configurations of the Council and can be summed up in six priorities: - defending rule of law, democracy and unity; - strengthening our competitiveness; - pursuing a green and just transition; - reinforcing our social and health agenda; - protecting people and borders; - promoting a global Europe.
The document, in which the Presidency argues its case with tenacity, certainly fails to omit any of the legislative projects requiring progress or adoption and is well worth a read (programme_en.pdf (europa.eu)[af1] ). On the other hand, we might have expected a few words on the Convention tasked with reforming the treaties by request of the European Parliament (the Council having reached an agreement on 18 December for its submission to the European Council – see EUROPE 13316/27) or admission of Bulgaria and Romania into the Schengen zone (see EUROPE 13320/4) – which has been partially achieved in the meantime, on the night of 30 to 31 December.
More generally, one might also have hoped for a few words about the principles inspiring the working methods and way in which majorities are sought, the preferred modus operandi to reach a common position or manage the veto (of which there are oh so many the moment), on optimising the Community method, on relations with the European Council and the Parliament (trilogue negotiations). It is, however, worth noting that there is a detailed description of co-decision on the Presidency’s website, from which the general public might learn much.
Manifestly, and quite sensibly, Belgian hopes to take advantage of its Presidency to raise awareness among the citizens of the benefits of the European Union, increasing turnout for the European elections, for which young people aged between 16 and 18 will be able to vote for the first time. This situation makes it very hard to second-guess the outcomes.
What will also evade the Presidency of the Council of the EU, despite its work on it in advance, will be the conclusions of the European Council on 1 February and the end of June. In the case of the former, the aim will be to obtain a unanimous agreement on the revised multi-annual financial framework, currently under the veto of the Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán. In the latter, the name of the game will be to divide up the most senior positions of the European Union on the basis of the results of the European elections. Before then, we can expect to know whether the President of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, intends to seek a second term in office: another major episode of this first half of the year – and beyond the control of the Belgian Presidency, obviously.
Renaud Denuit