Tag: Council

A draft intergovernmental treaty to tighten fiscal discipline in the eurozone has received the green light from the European Council's legal service, paving the way for a final text to be agreed by the end of January, EU officials said on Friday (16 December).

As Sweden prepares to assume the EU's rotating presidency on 1 July, business, civil society and human rights groups alike are lobbying Stockholm to find a way out of the financial, economic and climate crises by promoting structural reform and ambitious policies.

Fisheries ministers from the 27-member bloc have given their unanimous backing to Commission proposals to combat illegal fishing and protect vulnerable marine ecosystems, in a move welcomed by European environmental groups.

The Parliament and Council are locked in a battle over waste targets, after a trialogue meeting on 2 June in conjunction with the Commission produced no agreement on percentage targets for household and demolition waste.

Tony Blair would give the new position of Council President a "public momentum that very few others would," bringing "credibility to the EU project," argues Luis Simon, a teaching assistant at the Centre for European Politics, Royal Holloway College, University of London. But his candidacy ultimately depends on the "ability and will of the EU 27" to balance the divisions evoked by Iraq and his Eurosceptic image, he explains.

It should be possible to reach an agreement over the stalled Constitutional Treaty at the June Summit if two sets of conditions are satisfied, write Sebastian Kurpas and Stefano Micossi in a May 2007 paper for the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS).

The Party of European Socialists, social NGOs and businesses are equally happy about the 23-24 March 2006 Spring Council's commitment to social cohesion, citizen involvement and job creation for young people.