The EU Council Presidency rotates every six months. For the last six months, the Spanish have been responsible for making progress in the EU. Now it’s the Belgians’ turn. A look back and an outlook.
It was no longer possible to keep up with all these historic moments that were announced at the end of this EU year. Accession negotiations with Ukraine, agreement on asylum, rules for artificial intelligence, consumer and nature conservation agreements, new regulation of the electricity market.
At the end of their EU presidency, the Spaniards once again set a rapid pace and took everyone else with them. Gone was the sleep, instead there were negotiations, coffee and, at the end, a very satisfied Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez: “I would like to thank everyone for their work,” he explained. These are “very, very satisfactory results”.
Sánchez under great pressure
Each of the 27 EU countries takes turns chairing the community for six months, a kind of temporary class representative. Six months is not a long time and the Spaniards had a particularly difficult start. Your prime minister wasn’t even in office yet. Pedro Sánchez still had to be elected with the votes of, in the eyes of many Spaniards, rebellious Catalans.
In return he assured them of impunity. The EU MP and CDU member Daniel Caspary took this very seriously. He concludes by writing:
Unfortunately, the Spanish EU Council Presidency has been overshadowed this six months by the unscrupulous hold on power by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and his Socialists. With the amnesty of the Catalan separatists convicted under the rule of law, he has permanently undermined the rule of law, the separation of powers and trust in democracy. And not just in Spain, but throughout Europe.”
Praise from party members
Now Caspary is one of the conservatives in parliament and Sánchez is a socialist. Accordingly, the balance sheet of SPD MP Jens Geier is much milder:
The tough Spanish election campaign did not put a noticeable strain on the presidency. In the European Parliament, Spanish MPs continued their election campaign with mutual attacks, but that was it.
In any case, the Belgians are now taking over. Belgian Prime Minister Alexander de Croo, a liberal, was already whetting his appetite for the next six months: “We have the European Union in our DNA, the European capital and many institutions are here.”
Belgians are considered willing to compromise
But this also means that politicians and journalists will not have to travel far. We’re going to Ghent, Limburg and Bruges to the ministerial meetings. Belgium is a small country with eleven million inhabitants. With enchanting cities, delicious chocolates and comics. Tintin, Lucky Luke and the Smurfs were invented here.
Humor and chocolate, both can be helpful during an EU Council Presidency. The Belgians are used to making compromises. Characterized by the ongoing dispute between the (French) Walloons and the (Dutch) Flemish.
They would prefer to be independent, like the Catalans. Prime Minister de Croo is used to negotiating. He himself controls a government made up of four parties, often called the “Vivaldi coalition”, based on the four seasons. So now winter, it starts on the first of January.
“There are 150 applications on the table, that’s a lot, but we Belgians are used to working overtime and delivering,” said the Belgian de Croo.
Influence through European elections
And the Belgians actually don’t have a whole six months, because the campaign for the European elections begins in April and from then on no more decisions are made anyway. And above all plans lies the difficult present.
How to secure aid for Ukraine? There will be a special EU summit on February 1st, then the Hungarian Vitor Orban will first have to be convinced to release more money for Ukraine. By the way, Hungary will then take over the Council Presidency after Belgium.
Sabrina Fritz, ARD Madrid, tagesschau, December 29, 2023 11:29 a.m