Juncker’s Future of Europe and SOTEU agenda

If we approach the 13 September 2017 State of the European Union (SOTEU) debate as seen by the European Parliament, we find the press release Let’s make the most of the momentum to shape an ambitious future, with a summary of the plenary debate, but enough links to keep us busy listening and reading for a long time.

In addition to reading the brief notes about the speeches, I used the links to videos to relisten to the interventions by the president of the European Parliament Antonio Tajani and the trilingual SOTEU address of Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker in five parts (and to read the full speech in text form, SPEECH/17/3165, now available in four unilingual versions: English, French, German and Estonian) plus Juncker’s later concluding remarks.

Juncker’s summary of the European Commission’s agenda for a more united, stronger and more democratic union - a better future of Europe - as well as the priorities for the Commission Work Programme (CWP) 2018, is found in the speech text:   

My hope is that on 30 March 2019, Europeans will wake up to a Union where we all stand by our values. Where all Member States firmly respect the rule of law. Where being a full member of the euro area, the Banking Union and the Schengen area has become the norm for all EU Member States. Where we have shored up the foundations of our Economic and Monetary Union so that we can defend our single currency in good times and bad, without having to call on external help. Where our single market will be fairer towards workers from the East and from the West. Where we managed to agree on a strong pillar of social standards. Where profits will be taxed where they were made. Where terrorists have no loopholes to exploit. Where we have agreed on a proper European Defence Union. Where a single President leads the work of the Commission and the European Council, having been elected after a democratic Europe-wide election campaign.

If our citizens wake up to this Union on 30 March 2019, then they should be able vote in the European Parliament elections a few weeks later with the firm conviction that our Union is a place that works for them.

The responses by the leaders of the political groups to the SOTEU address, as well as the press releases of the groups, can be accessed through the press release from the European Parliament.

***

We have just scratched the surface. President Juncker’s agenda is going to keep the EU institutions busy until the next elections to the European Parliament, in 2019.

Ralf Grahn

European Council: competing agendas

The heads of state or government meet in the European Council today in a weird atmosphere. The two largest ”shareholders”, Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy (Merkozy) have ganged up to sort out their internal differences and to impose their solution on the rest of the participants, leading to much discussion.

Then we have the formal (provisional) agenda, written by the president Herman Van Rompuy, the man who was mandated by all the leaders to produce a report on stronger economic union. This he did, although the public had to rely on leaks to get access.

With the Merkel & Sarkozy letter on the one hand, and the Van Rompuy report on the other, the meeting looks set to start with two competing agendas (in a wider sense).

Would credible, accountable and democratic government look like this?

If this is how it starts, how will it end?



Ralf Grahn

Note on European Council’s agenda and background note (17 June 2010)

Yesterday, the last day before the 17 June 2010 European Council, we were happy to announce the publication of the provisional agenda drafted by president Herman Van Rompuy (document EUCO 12/10), a background note from the Council’s press office and Van Rompuy’s invitation letter to the EU heads of state or government.


The road to prosperity or destitution for 500 million Europeans is expressed in a few brief words on one agenda item:

3. A new European strategy for jobs and growth
- Finalising and implementing the Europe 2020 Strategy
- Enhancing economic governance
- Regulating financial markets

Council’s background note



The background note from the Council’s press office briefly describes the issues at hand:

A new European strategy for jobs and growth

The European Council is due to finalise Europe 2020, the EU's new strategy for jobs and smart, sustainable and inclusive growth and start concentrating on implementation.

The strategy will help Europe recover from the crisis and come out stronger, both internally and at the international level, by boosting competitiveness, productivity, growth potential, social cohesion and economic convergence. The new strategy responds to the challenge of reorienting policies away from crisis management towards the introduction of medium- to longer-term reforms that promote growth and ensure the sustainability of public finances.

The European Council is expected to confirm five EU headline targets which will constitute shared objectives guiding the action of Member States and the Union as regards
- the promotion of employment ;
- the improvement of the conditions for innovation, research and development;
- meeting of the EU’s climate change and energy objectives;
- the improvement of education levels; and
- the promotion of social inclusion, in particular through the reduction of poverty.

The European Council is expected to agree on the quantification of the education and social inclusion/poverty indicators and it will endorse the integrated guidelines for the economic and employment policies.

Member States will have to act to implement these policies at their level, as well as to identify the main bottlenecks to growth and indicate how they intend to tackle them in their National Reform Programmes.

The President of the Task Force on economic governance, Herman Van Rompuy, will present a progress report to the European Council. On this basis, the European Council will discuss its orientations on how to further enhance the coordination of Member States’ economic policies, in particular as regards budgetary and broader macroeconomic surveillance.

Finally the European Council is expected to set orientations for further work on strengthening the regulation and supervision of financial markets.

Comment


The publication of the clearly written official background note from the European Council is a positive development.

However, no concrete proposals, detailed reasons or links to relevant documents are on offer.

This means that the European Council’s standards of governance and transparency still reflect its origins as an intimate fireside chat, not the role of the most important official institution of a union of half a billion people.

It seems necessary for media and active individuals to try to fill at least parts of the official communication near-vacuum, by producing their own background notes and in depth articles.

Ahead of the European Council, many of the Grahnlaw blog entries (headlines on the right) in June have looked at issues pertaining to the EU’s new economic strategy, but now there is only time to fill a few of the remaining gaps left by the official advance communication.




Ralf Grahn

European Council 17 June 2010: Van Rompuy’s chance to reform governance

The latest blog entry European Council 17 June 2010: Impetus needed on governance asked the president of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, to improve the standards of information and governance in the interest of citizens, transparency, good governance and democratic participation.


Is this just hopeless idealism in the best of all possible worlds?

Few people seem to mind, anyway.

Actually, few people seem to give a damn about what the heads of state or government are up to at the European Council.

(Not that they have been encouraged, I would say.)



The facts


Let us take a look at the facts, two days ahead of the 17 June 2010 European Council meeting. What advance information is available? You can then judge for yourself.




An annotated draft agenda, dated 7 May 2010, has been published (Council document 9533/10). A few headline issues are briefly mentioned.




There are no background notes since the 25 to 26 March 2010 Spring meeting.



No documents have (as it seems) been submitted to the June European Council, except the annotated draft agenda mentioned above.




Yesterday, the General Affairs Council (GAC) met in Luxembourg to prepare the European Council (document 11021/10). This is all the GAC had to say about the upcoming summit:

PREPARATION OF THE JUNE EUROPEAN COUNCIL

The Council examined draft conclusions for the European Council meeting to be held on 17 June, prepared by the President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, in cooperation with the Spanish presidency and the Commission.

Issues to be addressed by the European Council, as set out in an annotated draft agenda issued in May (doc. 9282/10), include:

– Jobs and growth: adoption of the Europe 2020 strategy;

– G-20: preparation of the Toronto summit;

– Development policy: UN millennium development goals;

– Climate change.

President Van Rompuy is also expected to present an interim report on the work of the task force on economic governance that he chairs, at the request of the European Council, and which has held its first two meetings.

The draft conclusions will be reviewed in the light of the Council's discussion.

Comments

We notice that an annotated draft agenda with a different document number than above (and it is dated 4 May), but otherwise we are none the wiser.

The draft conclusions were and remain undisclosed.

No proposals have been published with reasons and underlying documents.

Without issues out in the open and clearly identified, how is informed advance public debate supposed to take place?



Van Rompuy’s chance to reform

According to Article 3 of the Rules of Procedure of the European Council, the president Herman Van Rompuy has the power to lead on the annotated draft agenda and the provisional agenda, as well as the issues (preparation and continuity).

This means that, with good will, Van Rompuy could establish more open, transparent and inviting practices by improving on past behaviour.

Even if the heads of state or government stopped short of rising to the standards of clear proposals and reasons as in other public bodies, agendas and background notes could be developed to name each issue individually, explain the context for each, as well as refer and link to the relevant proposals and reports in much greater detail than before.

Citizens, transparency, good governance and democratic participation would win.

Where are the drawbacks, if any?




Ralf Grahn

EU General Affairs Council 14 June 2010 background note

The previous blog entry, EU General Affairs Council 14 June 2010, showed us that the bare bones agenda for a Council meeting, in this case the General Affairs Council (GAC), is far from a rich basis for informed public debate about real issues.

For instance, the words “European Council, Brussels, 17 June 2010” refer to the whole summit: draft conclusions, possible statements and perhaps scores of underlying reports and documents. Europe’s actions to create jobs and growth and to put its public finances in order are only some of the “trifles” the June 17 summit is supposed to lead on, aided by enlightened citizens.

Background notes may be more helpful, although their quality varies. Let us take a look.



The GAC background note presents issues in general terms and without references or links to relevant documents. For people who follow EU affairs, such as the journalists probably intended to be the primary recipients, it can serve as a check-list to tick off various items, but it is pretty worthless as a source of information.

The Council’s standards of governance and its will to communicate are far from impressive in a union in which “decisions are taken as openly as possible and as closely as possible to the citizen”.



About 16:00 local time, the Council is going to hold a public debate on the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI), for those who are interested in this “innovation” with limited scope.



Other public information


During the Swedish Council presidency, the materials ahead of the meetings were sometimes informative, useful and easy to navigate from generalities to more detailed information. My impression is that the quality has lapsed with Spain at the Council helm, although there have been a few positive exceptions.



Now the Swedish government’s web page on the GAC meeting is as bland as the paper from the Council.



Traditionally, the government of Sweden offers an annotated agenda ahead of each Council meeting (Kommenterad dagordning), naturally in Swedish. Even if cautious and general in tone, the four page note by the Swedish representation in Brussels names a few issues actually being discussed.




The Finnish government published a fairly general press release about the GAC meeting, in Finnish, Swedish and English.


***


Second order elections, third order public information, fourth order debate and fifth order participation seem to be the stuff the “democratic life of the Union” is made of.




Ralf Grahn

EU General Affairs Council 14 June 2010

The General Affairs Council (GAC) shall ensure consistency in the work of different Council configurations. It shall prepare and ensure the follow-up to meetings of the European Council, in liaison with the President of the European Council and the Commission (Article 16(6) TEU).



Coordination, preparation and follow-up



Article 2 of the Rules of Procedure of the Council adds some detail to how the GAC is intended to coordinate policies and to prepare the European Council meetings, with a final GAC meeting within five days of a coming summit, as a rule preventing later discussion by other Council formations on items on the European Council’s agenda.

Even if the GAC tasks seem to cover all policy areas, it continues to meet in parallel with the Foreign Affairs Council (FAC). Thus, the coordinating role of the GAC is probably negligible with regard to the EU’s external action. (Cf. Article 2(5) of the Rules of Procedure.)

The GAC also follows up the guidelines, conclusions and decisions by the European Council.



GAC agenda 14 June 2010



The General Affairs Council will meet Monday, 14 June 2010 in Luxembourg, where the Council meetings take place three months annually.



The items on the agenda are:

Non-legislative activities

- European Council, Brussels, 17 June 2010

- EEAS [European External Action Service]

- Strategic Report of 2010 by the Commission on the Implementation of the Cohesion Policy Programmes (Presentation by the Commission; Council conclusions)

- Outermost Regions (Presentation by the Commission of the 2010 Forum for Outermost Europe, Brussels, 27/28 May 2010; Council conclusions)



Legislative deliberations

- European Citizens' Initiative (General Approach)

The European Council meets Thursday, 17 June 2010.




Ralf Grahn

Eurozone next steps: ECOFIN agenda 18 May 2010

The market turmoil affecting the eurozone and the European Union as a whole continues as the Ministers of Finance prepare for the next meeting of the Economic and Financial Affairs (ECOFIN) Council on Tuesday, 18 May 2010. In customary manner, the Euro Group meets the evening before.



The Council has published a background note (dated 12 May 2010), which includes the following issues:

• Draft Directive on hedge funds and other alternative investment funds: Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on Alternative Investment Fund Managers [AIFM]and amending directives 2003/41/EC and 2009/65/EC (referenced document 7377/10, although the link takes us to document 6795/3/10, described as a compromise).

• Presentation of the Commission’s preliminary draft for the general budget the European Union for 2011.

• Preparation of the integrated guidelines providing economic and employment policy recommendations to the EU member states, especially economic reforms, within the framework of the EU 2020 strategy for jobs and growth taking shape. [The EU Reflection Group has delivered the report: Project Europe 2030. Mario Monti has presented A new strategy for the single market. The World Economic Forum has published The Lisbon Review 2010 – Towards a More Competitive Europe? These new inputs have been presented on this blog.]

• The Council will hold an exchange of views on the follow-up to be given to its extraordinary meeting on 9 May 2010, and the Spanish and Portuguese delegations will present additional budgetary consolidation measures for 2010 and 2011. [The decisions taken to date have not calmed the financial markets or stock prices.]

• Commissioner Olli Rehn will present a communication from the Commission on enhanced economic policy coordination in the euro area. The proposals will be discussed by the task force chaired by the President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy. [The reception of the proposals and the member states’ positions will test the Council’s resolve and credibility.]

• The Council is expected to adopt conclusions on the role of budgetary frameworks in strengthening budgetary consolidation and supporting implementation of crisis policy exit strategies (document 9399/10 details ten points of desirable practices).

• Conclusions on the strengthening of EU arrangements to ensure financial stability and for crisis management in the financial sector.

• Commissioner Michel Barnier will present the Commission's work programme as regards regulation of financial services in the EU.

• The Council will take stock of preparations for the meeting of G-20 finance ministers and central bank governors that is due to take place in Busan (South Korea) on 4-5 June 2010.

• The Council is expected to adopt, without discussion, conclusions assessing progress on exit strategies for the unwinding of support schemes for the financial sector (document 9398/10).

• The Council is due to adopt, without discussion, conclusions taking stock of developments internationally as regards measures to combat climate change, in particular as regards so-called faststart measures in developing countries (document 9089/10).


A general comment: This eight page background note is one of the better ones I have seen. It recalls the basic issues of the agenda items, and most of the points contain links to (at least some) relevant documents for further study.

On the other hand, a lot is needed to convince financial markets and EU citizens.




Ralf Grahn

European Council agenda 10-11 December 2009

The previous blog post European Council 10 to 11 December 2009 looked at how the principles of openness and representative democracy are applied to the summits under the Lisbon Treaty and the new Rules of Procedure.



Ahead of the meeting, the web page European Council of the Swedish presidency published a press release Summit invitations sent out (7 December 2009).


One member per state



Prime minister Fredrik Reinfeldt’s invitation letter informs us that he will still chair the meeting, although the Lisbon Treaty entered into force on 1 December 2009.

“In line with the provisions of the new Treaty on the composition of the European Council, the meeting will take place in the format of Heads of State or Government only”, Reinfeldt told the member state governments.

But all foreign ministers are not necessarily happy to be relegated to “if needed” status, as foreseen by Article 15(2) and (3) TEU.

In Finland (and perhaps other countries) were the division of powers between the head of government and the head of state is unclear, the Lisbon Treaty has highlighted domestic constitutional shortcomings.


Pre-meeting info



The Swedish Presidency’s last summit (9 December 2009) contains the schedule from Thursday afternoon until the concluding press conference on Friday.



Prime minister Fredrik Reinfeldt speaks about Climate change on a webcast (9 December 2009).



The provisional agenda, dated yesterday and published today, is an absolute bare-bones list with six substantive issues in 17 words:

1. Adoption of the provisional agenda

2. Institutional issues
3. Economic, financial and employment situation
4. Stockholm Programme
5. Copenhagen Conference on climate change
6. Enlargement
7. External Relations

8. Any Other Business

Brevity is the soul of wit?


The president of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, has informed us that he joins the dinner of the participants Thursday evening, and why he does not preside the body he became president for.

Otherwise I found nothing on the Council’s web pages conducive to the enlightenment of EU citizens with regard to the European Council meeting.

Naturally, earlier versions of some basic documents have been published, but nothing has been done to facilitate the gathering of updated information.

After dealing with openness and representative democracy, we can now add the issue of communication to the list of structural and practical faults under the Lisbon Treaty and the new Rules of Procedure.

This leads to another question: Is there better public information available out there, than what we have seen this far?



Ralf Grahn



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