Herman Van Rompuy, President of the European Council, Catherine Ashton, High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy, Miguel Ángel Moratinos Cuyaubé, Minister of Foreign Affairs in Spain, Yves Leterme, Belgian Prime Minister and Gordon Bajani, Prime Minister of Hungary will work together during the ‘European Trio Presidency’ which will starts today, 1st January 2010. The long term presidency aims at ensuring more efficiency, coherence and coordination in the Council objectives.
The Presidency of the Council of the European Union is the responsibility for the functioning of the Council of the European Union which is rotated between European Union member states every six months.
The presidency in some regards is now being executed in a shared manner in order to cope with the rather short six month term of the presidency. Three successive presidents forming a “triple-shared presidency” work together over a 1.5 year period to accomplish a common agenda by the current president simply continuing the work of the previous “lead-president” after the end of his/her term.
Article 16(9) of the Treaty on European Union (as amended by the Treaty of Lisbon) provides:
“The Presidency of Council configurations, other than that of Foreign Affairs, shall be held by Member State representatives in the Council on the basis of equal rotation, in accordance with the conditions established in accordance with Article 236 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.”
Which country, together with Herman Van Rompuy and Catherine Ashton, is responsible for the Presidency when?
January to June 2010: Spain (http://eutrio.es/)
July to December 2010: Belgium (http://eutrio.be/)
January to June 2011: Hungary (http://eutrio.hu/)
Links:
Priorities of the Spanish EU Presidency 2010
http://www.eu2010.es/en/index.html
Website of the President of the European Council
Article from 6 January 2010: Spain takes over revamped EU Presidency