We have not seen the last of the rotating presidency
We have not seen the last of the rotating presidency
The Lisbon treaty was supposed to change the way the EU does business. But the impact of the changes has already been softened.
The Lisbon treaty that came into effect on Tuesday (1 December) is supposed to usher in a new era of coherence and continuity in European Union policymaking. The effect was not immediately discernible – and that may remain the case for many months to come.
In theory, the innovation of a permanent president of the European Council will give greater continuity to the work of the Council of Ministers and of the European Council than had, up to now, been provided by the national governments taking turns, to preside, six months at a time. In theory, the Lisbon treaty will re-shape the EU’s foreign policy, both in policymaking and delivery. The Council’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, who is also to be a vice-president of the European Commission, is to preside over a corps of diplomats, country specialists, thematic experts and administrative support staff. The declared aim is coherent EU policy, presenting a single face to the world both from Brussels and the EU’s 135 delegations around the world. A new diplomatic corps – the European External Action Service (EEAS) – is to be constructed, drawing staff from the Commission, the secretariat of the Council of Ministers and the member states but, as a service sui generis, keeping its distance from all three.
So much for the theory. The appointments that were made by the national government leaders on 19 November suggest that, in practice, the changes may not be as dramatic as some had hoped. Herman Van Rompuy, on his appointment as European Council president, struck a conciliatory tone, suggesting that no great shake-up was in sight. The choice of Catherine Ashton, the European commissioner for trade, to the job of high representative, sent a signal that diplomats, officials and experts are still trying to decipher. Ashton has nothing like the foreign policy expertise of her predecessor, Javier Solana, or any kind of natural constituency, domestically or internationally. Taken together, the two appointments suggest that the EU wanted administrators and not visio-naries, reliable implementers rather than people with their own ideas and agenda.
But who exactly sent these signals, the member states or the Commission? Or both? José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, managed to get a member of his current College into the new position – an outcome that few in Brussels expected. So does he envisage that Ashton will do his bidding? Or will she work to a British agenda that wants to put more muscle into the EU’s foreign policy?
Such speculation is bound to be more intense in the period before Van Rompuy arrives on 1 January and the new Commission begins its term (perhaps on 1 February). Jobs and power are at stake, after all. The speculators were given further grist for their mill on Tuesday, when the national governments agreed changes to the rules of procedure for the Council of Ministers.
Those rules of procedure constrain Van Rompuy and Ashton’s room for manoeuvre.
In theory, the Foreign Affairs Council will be chaired by Ashton, the high representative. But the rules of procedure have been amended to prescribe that on occasions when Ashton cannot be present (perhaps because she is off globetrotting), it will be for the country that holds the rotating presidency to chair the meeting. So Ashton is not to be allowed to delegate the task of chairing the meeting to someone of her choice.
The rotating presidency also lives on in the day-to-day work of the Council of Ministers. The rotating presidency will continue to chair meetings of the Committee of Permanent Representatives, the group of member states’ ambassadors, and of the committee of deputy ambassadors. All the working groups that prepare meetings of the councils will continue to be chaired by the rotating presidency. There are exceptions to this rule – notably those working groups that deal with foreign affairs and security policy, which will be chaired by a member of the EEAS designated by the foreign policy chief, above all the Political and Security Committee (PSC). But even in foreign and security policy, the rotating presidency takes the chair for a transitional period of six or 12 months (depending on the issue area), which means Spain in the first half of 2010 and Belgium in the second half. The longer transition period of a full year is to apply to working groups dealing with particular geographic regions of the world such as Latin America or Africa – subjects where the rotating presidencies might just happen to have more of an interest than in the drier topics of public international law or consular affairs.
The institutional tussles of recent weeks suggest that many national governments are not (yet) reconciled to a lesser role for the rotating presidency of the Council of Ministers. Van Rompuy and Ashton may eventually succeed in presenting a more coherent message to the wider world, but they are battling against the elements.