European value added - EU General Affairs Council style

Where did we leave the EU's General Affairs Council (GAC)?

Potentially influential, but sandwiched in between the other Council configurations and the European Council, largely with the wrong participants based on redundant thinking in many capitals and with conclusions of anaemic pallor: EU General Affairs Council has taken note – So have we (24 November 2010).


Commission Work Programme for 2011

We return to the provisional conclusions of the GAC:

Press release, 3047th Council meeting, General Affairs, Brussels, 22 November 2010 (document 16572/10)

In addition to the English version, the GAC conclusions can be found in Dutch and French.

The entire page 9 is dedicated to the Commission's Work Programme for 2011 (CWP 2011), and the GAC is the coordinating spider in the web, as described earlier, so let us give you the text in full for your enlightenment:

COMMISSION WORK PROGRAMME FOR 2011

The Council took note of the presentation by the Commission of its work programme for 2011 (doc.
15772/10 + ADD 1).

For the sake of fairness, let me add that the document number and the ADD 1 are links in the original.

So much for European added value.


CWP 2011 documents

Published 27 October 2010, the CWP 2011 documents in question are:

Commission Work Programme 2011 VOLUME I - Commission document COM(2010) 623 final - VOLUME I (Council document 15772/10) (12 pages)

Commission Work Programme 2011 VOLUME II - Commission document COM(2010) 623 final - VOLUME II (Council document 15772/10 ADD 1) (43 pages)


What should I say?

Four weeks on from publication, eager Europeans have been offered links to these public documents as numbered by the Council.

We are none the wiser with regard to the views about the choice of priorities, possible consensus, simmering tensions etc.

European added value?

Zilch.



Ralf Grahn



P.S. You don't have to be able to read Swedish in order to understand how the thematic portal Europaportalen.se offers a rich fare of news, links and debate concerning European issues, from domestic sources as well as from ”Brussels”. Europaportalen.se is a jointly owned by the main trade unions and the confederation of industry in Sweden. How about making it possible elsewhere in the European Union?