Brussels, 02/05/2002 (Agence Europe) - Germany will preside the EU Council during the first half of 2007 -instead of the second half of 2006 as set out in the decision of 1 January 1995 fixing the order of the Presidencies - and Finland, which should have presided the Council early 2007, will replace it during the second half of 2006. This exchange of Presidencies was decided following an agreement in Council, which took into account the problems raised by Germany for holding the Council Presidency during its electoral period. The same would also have been true for Finland. It is obvious that a Germany which does not have its hands full with the Council Presidency would have more time to negotiate the future financing of the Union.
The Council's decision of 28 January 2002 thus states that the respective periods for the German and Finnish Council Presidencies during the second half of 2006 and the first half of 2007 will be switched around. After this swap, the Council Presidencies will, from next year on, be held by the following countries: 2003: Greece, Italy; 2004: Ireland, Netherlands; 2005: Luxembourg, United Kingdom; 2006: Austria, Finland; 2007: Germany, Portugal; - 2008: France, Sweden; 2009: Belgium, Spain; and 2010: Denmark, Greece.
This does not take into account the new memberships by candidate countries and eventual changes to the rotating Council Presidency system that could be decided by the next Intergovernmental Conference, after the work of the European Convention.