Senior diplomats from Poland, Denmark and Cyprus, the countries holding the next trio of EU presidencies, delivered what appears to be a well-coordinated message: the role of the General Affairs Council (GAC) should be strengthened in view of important decisions, such as the adoption of the EU budget (see 'Background').
The General Affairs Council normally meets at least six times a year. It brings together the EU's 27 foreign ministers and is the highest EU decision-making body after the European Council of heads of state and government, which meets every three months.
In order to raise the body's political profile, Poland, Denmark and Cyprus now want these meetings to be chaired by the prime minister of the country holding the six-month rotating presidency.
The statements were made at a Brussels presentation of the contribution of 16 European think-tanks to the upcoming Polish, Danish and Cypriot Trio Presidency of the European Union. The meeting was hosted by Notre Europe, a think-tank led by former European Commission President Jacques Delors.
In a policy paper made available to participants, various researchers agued in favour of boosting the GAC.
Piotr Maciej Kaczyński, a research fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), suggested that the meetings should be chaired by the prime ministers or presidents of the countries holding the rotating presidency. Cyprus is a presidential republic.
Putting an end to backroom deals
According to some sources, disenchantment is growing with respect to the functioning of the GAC, which is attended very unevenly by member countries. Some are represented by foreign affairs ministers, others by European affairs ministers, deputy foreign ministers, junior ministers or merely by the country's permanent representative in Brussels.
In addition, diplomats fear that the current trend - set by Council President Herman Van Rompuy - of consulting with member states in informal formats, with a small number of participants gathering in "dark rooms" by invitation only, is setting a dangerous precedent as a substitute for official decision-making.
Jan Tombiński, ambassador and permanent representative of Poland, the country holding the next EU rotating presidency, said he didn't believe in ideas that Prime Ministers should lead the GAC council.
"It is the substance which is creating the actors," he said, mentioning that councils such as Ecofin of JHA, the Justice and Home affairs council, had been of extreme importance in the last period due to the unffloding events in those fields. Regarding GAC, he said that this was going to be the "major actor" with regard to the discussions on EU's long term budget.
The European Commission is due to present its draft budget proposal on 20 June and budget discussions will begin thereafter.
The ambassador also advocated establishing mechanisms for providing information to the European Parliament at a very early stage.
A year and a half after the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, the EU is still struggling to fulfill its treaty obligations with regard to relations between its institutions and is still in a phase of shaping a new culture of cooperation, he said.
Claus Grube, permanent secretary of state at the Danish Foreign Ministry, also took the view that the rotating presidencies needed to streamline work done in the different ministerial formats. This work should not only be done well, but must also be done on time, he said.
Trio format to chair budget talks 'from beginning to end'
The Danish diplomat, who has held the post of permanent representative to the EU and has been involved in several of Demmark's six EU presidencies so far, spoke of the need for "administrative and political leadership" in the EU's Council of ministers, saying that his country would be happy to provide such leadership during its stint at the bloc's helm in the first half of 2012.
Grube said it was remarkable how much the next trio of presidencies had been able to agree upon, despite being very different countries – one old and two new members, one from the north, one from the south and one from the east. He singled out the EU's long-term budget and the single market as areas where the rotating presidencies' coordination of work would be "extremely important".
Compared to 2005, Grube said he expected the negotiations over the EU's long-term budget for 2014-2020 to be much more complicated because all the elements would come into play, both on the income side and on the expenditure side.
"No rotating presidency would be able to lead the negotiations from beginning to end. But within the eighteen months at our disposal, we might be able to finish the job," he said.
Nicholas Emiliou, permanent secretary in the Cypriot Foreign Ministry, also spoke in strong terms about the need to strengthen the GAC, in order to better prepare EU summit meetings and to give "added value" to the work of Council President Herman Van Rompuy.
In particular, Emiliou called for budget talks and EU enlargement to be addressed in a transparent and democratic manner.
"In a family, the way you spend the family fortune and whom you let in as a new family member matters," he argued. He made no mention of Turkey, but made clear that Cyprus would not delegate to others the right to decide on Ankara's EU bid.
The Cypriot diplomat also said that climate change was an issue to be discussed in the GAC format. Cyprus is particularly sensitive to this topic, as the country is already experiencing desertification and a lack of water resources as a result of climate change.
Georgi Gotev
