How the Spanish EU Council Presidency can be a success

In two days, the Spanish EU Council Presidency will take over from the Swedish Council Presidency, and the Spanish will be the first rotating presidency under the Lisbon Treaty system.

The new institutional setting will need some adaptation, people and institutions will need time to find their roles and their routines, and we shouldn't be too critical if some things don't work out perfectly at the beginning.

But in my point of view, the Spanish presidency can only be a success if they try to stay in the background, if they focus less on policy and put all their forces behind the new leadership trio - van Rompuy, Ashton, and (to some extend) Barroso - in order to make them look good.

If van Rompuy and Ashton are able to stand out positively throughout 2010, the acceptance of the Lisbon Treaty could be significantly raised, which is important both for the core EU institutions as well as for the member states, including future presidencies.

This doesn't mean that the Spanish need to reduce the power or influence of the member states, but just that this coming presidency should refrain from the typical instincts of large member state presidencies - try to heavily influence the EU agenda and to receive international attention. This will be in favour of the Council and the member states, letting them focus on the legislative work while giving van Rompuy and Ashton the freedom to get into their roles, both within the EU and on the international stage.

As a citizen, there is a second direction into which I would like to see the Spanish work: Openness and transparency.

I have major doubts that the Spanish are the right country to foster these two, but if they managed to bring in at least some more transparency and openness, this would be a major success for their presidency.

The Council is the second chamber of the political system of the EU, and most of its structures are law-making or law-interpreting in character. These laws are not made for that EU institutions or member state officials but for us, the citizens. We should thus be able to observe every important decision taken, including a more detailed insight into bargaining dynamics and the voting and drafting behaviour of our own and other EU countries.

Only if the Spanish are able to bring about changes into this direction, their presidency can be a real success.

And so at the end of June 2010 we shall ask: Were the Spanish able to communicate with us, the citizens? Did they manage to make decision-making in the Council more visible, more traceable, more understandable? Did they follow the Swedish in communicating on Twitter and in blogs or did they even find other innovative means get us, the interested public, involved in their work? And: Were they able, through their intelligent work, to support the implementation of the Lisbon Treaty changes?

In the last 1 1/2 years we had the "Ego-Presidency" of the French, the "Chaos-Presidency" of the Czechs, the "Efficency-Presidency" of the Swedes - what kind of over-simplifying label will we use for the Spanish after the coming semester?

An EU top job summit and the prolonged Commission

EurActiv reports that the Swedish EU Council presidency plans to use the 29-30 October EU summit (European Council meeting) to discuss the distribution of the EU top jobs under the Lisbon Treaty (if it is ratified).

And while the article only mentions the European Council President and the Foreign Policy chief (High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy), I would also add the Commission President, hoping and betting that Barroso won't be re-elected on 15 September - not least because of these considerations.

There is a second indication in the article why we might not see Barroso re-elected:

"Karel de Gucht, Belgium's commissioner-designate for development, said he was taking the job for four months, confirming a public secret: namely that the European executive would stay on beyond its mandate until the end of the year."

So since the Commission will in any case stay in office over its mandate, there might be no need to elect Barroso before the ratification of Lisbon, not least because a failure would also be a personal failure of Barroso himself, unable to represent the Union in an appealing manner for its citizens!

Still, what I ask myself is whether the prolonged Commission mandate is not a breach of article 214 (1) of the Treaty of the European Communities which regulates that Commission members are elected for five years?

PS.: And a "Transitional Commission" as I read in some sources is even more dubious in my eyes than a prolonged term of the old Commission, e.g. in the form of a "Commissary Commission".

The Swedish EU-Council presidency (2): Am I dreaming?

Not one week in office, and this Swedish EU-Council presidency manages to impress me more than the previous presidency did in six month.

Or have you ever seen a video interview with the presidency's ambassador after a COREPER-meeting...?

I think I am dreaming - and I will have to dig for negative news around the Swedish presidency in order not to make this blog become a pro-institutional PR instrument.

But Sweden, please, continue in this transparency direction - and make sure that everyone after you will keep this alive!

(via Anda on Twitter)

The Swedish EU-Council presidency (1): It's a little like with Obama

Today, the Swedish take over the EU-Council presidency and you can feel relief all over the place.

After the presumptuous French presidency under Sarkozy and the [insert friendly but critical adjective that I don't find] Czech presidency, the Swedish taking over the lead among the EU member state is a bit like the change to Obama:

As a realist, I know that the change they can bring in practice is limited. But knowing that the spirit behind their actions is different to the previous presidencies, I have the hope that they will make a positive difference.

Carl Bildt, the Swedish foreign minister confirmed in his blog that he will continue blogging during the presidency because he thinks this is part of the transparency promise on which they run. I love to follow Mårten Wierup on Twitter because he gives insights into the diplomatic work at the Council in Brussels.

Can you imagine any other EU country's officials doing this?

I am also the glad that it will be the Swedish who will be responsible of the Council when it comes to the Copenhagen climate conference at the end of this year.

These were the three issues that marked the hopes connected to Obama:

• A new spirit compared to the previous presidency,
• a call for more transparency, and
• a clear stand on climate change.

Very important: These three points come together in a country that is small but important enough to make them felt realistic.

There is neither fear that they will dominate the Union for their own interests nor that they are not prepared enough to lead the bloc of the 27. They are the perfect broker, and I hope that they will manage to realise some things that will make them remembered in this way.

Whether the hopes will come true has to be seen at the end of the chapter - but at least the book starts extremely promising!

OSCE remains divided after Corfu informal meeting

The Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt who will co-lead the EU-Council presidency from Wednesday concludes in his blog - not very surprisingly - that the OSCE remains divided over the concept of security after the informal foreign ministers meeting on Corfu.

The disagreement that one could already see at last year's Helsinki summit is a division mainly between Russia and the EU (plus the USA).

Russia wants to replace NATO by a NATO-like OSCE - which means influence for Russia - that does not care for human rights, democracy, and non-military security issues which seems unacceptable to the Union.

I have doubts that the newly launched "Corfu Process" will change anything, in particular after the continuing division over the Russian-Georgian war in 2008.

European Parliament elections 2009 (82): Eurotopics' press review on the Eurobarometer results

Eurotopics has a nice little press review with translated article extracts from Luxembourg, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands and Finland on the recent Eurobarometer results that project a low participation rate for the EP elections.

That's worth reading!

Let me also use this opportunity to praise the work of the people from Eurotopics (background information) who provide me and other Europeans with an excellent English language multinational press review (which also exists in German, French and Spanish) every day.

It's taxpayers money involved here, but it is spent for a very good purpose, and it is done in a very pleasant way, so I can only applaud for this initiative!

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Under the category "European Parliament elections 2009" I am following up national and European activities on the path to the European Parliament elections 2009.

For an overview over all articles in this category have a look at the overview article.

For the five newest post see also the sidebar.

The Swedish EU-Council presidency logo unveiled: Stylishly un-European

Un européen jamais content ('A never satisfied European') has published the newly unveiled Swedish EU-Council Presidency logo. When the Swedish take over the Presidency in July, this logo will replace the ugly logo of the Czech Presidency.

However, I don't see a particular reference to the European Union in this logo, especially taking into account that blue and yellow are already the colours of the Swedish flag. That is a clear weakness, despite the fact that it looks quite stylish - or as the never satisfield European qualifies it:

"Sober, nice, efficient, just like an IKEA logo."

I have nothing to add.

Update (04 March): Two comments to this article point to the similarities with the Pepsi and Sony Ericson logos - and Jon Worth has produced a metamorphosis picture from Sony Ericson to the Swedish logo - while a backlink brings us to a post that shows resemblance of the Swedish logo to Obama's campaign logo.

Member states vs. EU Commission on transparency and access to documents - updated

According to EUobserver, member states, and especially Finland and Sweden, are fighting against an EU Commission proposal that aims at reforming the public access to EU documents.

The Finnish Minister for EU affairs, Astrid Thors, is quoted (update: full speech, via Wobbing Europe):

"Our interpretation is that the commission proposes to exclude certain documents, such as documents related to the commission's own inspections. [...] The justification for this exclusion is that it would ease the workload of the commission, releasing them from the duty of assessing the documents one by one. But on the contrary, we believe that considering documents one by one is a cornerstone of this legislation. What we may lose in the end with a little bit more work, we win by having a good and sound administration"

In the Green Paper "Public Access to Documents held by institutions of the European Community - A review" of the Commission this reads as follows:

"Experience has shown that the handling of requests can be burdensome. The purpose of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 being to disclose information in the public interest, the institutions have to balance the interest in disclosure against the workload entailed by the handling of a request. A situation where important resources are devoted to a limited number of voluminous, complex or otherwise burdensome requests would not be in the public interest. Therefore, it might be useful to define criteria with regard to the proportionality of access requests."

I hope that Finland and Sweden will not remain the only countries who will rally against any move to restrict access to EU documents.

It is amazing how a supra-state organisations that is already almost totally intransparent for the wider public is still trying to limit external access to its documents. We need to act, because if we keep quiet, we will lose more and more democratic elements of the European Union, and in the end, the only things remaining will be a number invisible Eurocrats and the priggish cries of pan-European eurosceptics...

I would like to see the European parties to give a very clear position on these issues. I won't vote for anyone who doesn't make access to EU documents and EU transparency a major goal!

Tracking: European parliament elections 2009 (XVIII)

The mastermind of the Swedish social democrats' anti-EU faction will run in the 2009 EP elections.

EU citizens living in Malta will need to register in order to be able to cast their European vote in 2009, which contradicts statements made earlier this year.

The Communist Party of Greece has published its anti-EU "Electoral Declaration". This party received almost 10% at the last EP elections in 2004 and is represented with three deputies in Brussels/Strasbourg.

The British Liberals have chosen "Security" as their major topic for the 2009 EP elections. However, the recently published Eurobarometer (I have discussed it here) makes some of them hesitate.

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Under the category "Tracking: European parliament elections 2009" I am following up national and European activities on the path to the European Parliament elections 2009.

For an overview over all articles in this category have look at the overview article.

For the five newest post see also the sidebar.