Finding right formula for Council presidency

By Giovanni Grevi

Date: 23/10/03

THE issue of the presidency of the Council of Ministers is a key item on the intergovernmental conference (IGC) agenda and one that will need patient negotiation to resolve.

A mechanism to ensure coherence between different Council formations and continuity of policymaking is vital - this also affects other issues, such as institutional balance, the European Council presidency and the role of the foreign minister.

Additionally, it is influenced by the nature of the European Council presidency, whether or not there is to be a separate Legislative Council and the number of Council formations.

Unfortunately, proposals advanced by national delegations in response to an IGC questionnaire on the Council presidency are not encouraging. Rather than finding ways to make the Council work smoothly, the early stages of negotiation seem to be a quest for complication.

Most delegations agreed that legislation should be enacted by each separate Council, not one Legislative Council as proposed by the Convention.

This is the first casualty of intergovernmental negotiations, undermining one of the main achievements of the Convention in terms of simplification, transparency and efficiency. The inaccurate arguments advanced to justify this conservative choice - such as fear of monopolization of the legislative powers by newly appointed "European ministers' - show either a misunderstanding of the Convention proposal or an introspective, defensive attitude.

Internal dynamics of national governments, where traditional balances between different portfolios have to be preserved, have prevailed over the European interest, and have prevented progress towards a mature bicameral system.

Moreover, the failure to distinguish between legislative and executive functions in the Council postpones clarification of the separation of powers between Union institutions.

Had such distinction been established, the Commission could have progressively acquired more responsibility for the coordination, and indeed the chairmanship, of executive Council formations, narrowing the gap between the two existing branches of the EU executive: the Commission and the Council.

Turning to the question of the presidency of Council formations, the draft constitutional treaty does not offer a clear solution. The text of Article I-23 provides that the presidency of the Council formations, except for the Foreign Affairs Council, is held by "member state representatives on the basis of equal rotation for periods of at least one year". The rules governing such rotation would be decided by the European Council.

This text reflects the somewhat blurred compromise reached at the Convention between those who wanted to scrap the current system of rotation and those - a majority of the small- and medium-sized countries - who wanted to guarantee equal access for all member states to the presidency function.

The emphasis, however, is misplaced. Much attention has been paid to guaranteeing the representation of every country in every institution, but unfortunately not to ensuring coherent and strategic policymaking.

Initial moves of delegations in the IGC seem to confirm this worrying trend, with a large majority supporting some form of "team presidency" whereby various countries would hold the presidency of different Council formations at the same time. Several formulas have been submitted to strike the right balance between the number of countries involved in the team, the number of years over which it should be in office, and division of tasks between its members.

Negotiators are discussing complicated solutions to reconcile multiple overlapping rounds of rotation (between the teams and within each team) with criteria for a balanced representation of all countries. All admit that some informal "steering group" would be needed to coordinate the different formations, adding a new level of decision-making.

Team presidencies will not bring Europe closer to its citizens. On the contrary, the solution must be as simple as possible, avoid confusion of external representation and maximize coordination between Councils.

A minority of delegations argue that the present system should be preserved. The only argument in favour of the present system, however, is that it helps bring Europe to the residents of the country holding the presidency. In an enlarged Union, this would happen once every twelve-and-a-half years. A team presidency would not bring Europe close to the residents of the team presidency, and makes the system more complicated.

Better ways must be found to achieve this objective, for which national governments should take the responsibility. Finland has attempted to establish a bridge between the current system and the need for a longer-term political agenda. Its proposed solution consists of a team in which every member state would chair for six months all Council formations, against a background of a longer-term work programme replacing individual half-year presidency programmes.

It is of paramount importance that coordination within the Council, as well as efficient cooperation between the General Affairs Council (GAC) and the Commission is assured, and that no additional layer of government is superimposed. That could easily lead to a "second Commission" operating in the Council, perhaps chaired by the president of the European Council, as suggested by the UK.

The best solution is for each Council to appoint its own president to chair its meetings for a period of perhaps one or two years, possibly renewable once in the case of the shorter term. There could be a broad requirement that, over a period of say ten years, a reasonable balance be achieved between the member states. The appointed chairman of the GAC, in close cooperation with the Commission, would guarantee that the multi-annual and annual work programmes of the Council are respected, thereby boosting consistency across different domains over time.

• Giovanni Grevi is a policy analyst at the European Policy Centre.

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