The European Council 1-2 March 2012 trailer (= synthesis report)

The only document submitted to the European Council 1-2 March 2012, according to the relevant EUCO web page, is the annotated draft agenda (English version, dated 23 January 2012). The latest EUCO background note is for the meeting 30 January 2012.

For the public, the preparatory work by the General Affairs Council (GAC) remains hidden. Hidden or scattered is how the rest of the input from the Council configurations and others can be described as well, despite many resolutions and letters specifically addressed to EUCO.


EUCO synthesis

Few have either the time or the inclination to go out on a wild-goose chase on the broken paper trail. However, many would profit from some sort of pre-view beyond the recycled agenda items.

What should you choose, if you have time for one document only?

The following paper from the Danish presidency of the Council of the European Union fits the bill, because it brings together a number of inputs in summary fashion:

Implementation of the European Semester - Synthesis report; Brussels, 22 February 2012, Council document 6662/12 (21 pages)

In addition to the Annual Growth Survey (AGS) from the Commission, which kicked off the European Semester 2012, and the recent resolutions by the European Parliament, various Council configurations have made contributions: Economic and Financial Affairs (ECOFIN); Employment, social policy, health and consumer affairs (EPSCO); Competitiveness; Transport, Telecommunications and Energy (TTE); Environment; as well as Education, youth, culture and sport.

Even if links to the sources are not provided, the references are mostly specific enough to enable fairly easy search for those who want to dig deeper.



Ralf Grahn
speaker on EU affairs, especially digital policy and law

P.S. For better or for worse, between the global issues and the national level, the European Union institutions and the eurozone coteries shape our future. At the same time we see an emerging European online public sphere. Grahnlaw, Grahnblawg (in Swedish) and Eurooppaoikeus (in Finnish) are among the more than 900 euroblogs aggregated by multilingual Bloggingportal.eu. Is your blog already listed among them? Are you following the debates which matter for your future?