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At a meeting preceding the EU Summit on 29 and 30 October the three future EU Presidencies, Spain (January-June 2010), Belgium (July-December 2010) and Hungary (January-June 2011), presented their common logo to be used for the next eighteen months. The logo, consisting of the letters eu written in the national colours of the respective presidencies, represents the joined effort of the three future Presidencies to develop a longer term EU strategy in line with the requirements of the Lisbon Treaty. On behalf of the Presidency trio the Spanish Prime Minister, Mr. Zapatero, announced that they will be presenting the eighteen-month common Presidency programme in a month's time when it will have been finalised.
In his speech Mr. Zapatero recognised that the Spanish Presidency will start at a difficult time. With the full ratification of the Lisbon Treaty the EU will be going through a series of institutional reforms, the most important ones being the appointments of the permanent President of the Council and of the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and the setting up of the European External Action Service (EEAS). In this context he emphasised the need to come up with an ‘institutional balance' between the roles of the President of the Council and the rotating Presidencies. This was reiterated by the Belgian and Hungarian Prime Ministers, who stated that the future of Europe depends on the institutions and not on one person. If the current Swedish Presidency does not succeed in clarifying the uncertainties on the implementation of the Lisbon Treaty, the Spanish Presidency will have to solve them. In addition, it will have to deal with avariety of issues such as the impact of the economic and financial crisis, migration, security, climate change and sustainable energy. In a paper called ‘A vision for Europe. Spain's presidency of the Council of the European Union (January-June 2010) drafted by Fondació CIBOD and Circulo de Economia (think tanks based in Barcelona) and published in October 2009, the authors summarise the possible priorities for the Spanish Presidency. These range from reviewing the Lisbon Agenda, the European Employment Strategy and the implementation of the European Social Agenda to developing mechanisms to control and regulate immigration at the EU level. At international level the paper calls on the Spanish Presidency to help improve the EU relations with the Latin America and Caribbean Countries and to strengthen the EU's relationship with Russia and other East European countries. It also believes that Spain is well placed to prioritise support for countries in the Mediterranean area and the Balkans specifically in terms of possible accession to the EU of some of those countries. While the paper covers a wide range of issues, it proposes such a comprehensive agenda for the Spanish Presidency that it will not be able to take on all the proposed activities. It will, therefore, be interesting to see in how far the Spanish government has taken note of this document and if so, what it has managed to include in the joint eighteen-month Presidency Programme to be published in a month's time. Read more on: |
