Juxi's log

Among the institutional changes brought about by the Lisbon Treaty, some have been more present in the media and public debate than others. Three months after the Treaty entered into force, we can still read at least a couple of articles a day about the President of the European Council, the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and, of course, the External Action Service that is now being designed. But with all the attention given to these new actors, one of the old ones has been slightly forgotten. In fact,with all the confusion in the media, it took quite a while for people to learn that the rotating Presidency of the Council of Ministers will still exist and work pretty much as before, with the unofficially existing 18-months Trio now being ‘officialised’ by the Treaty.

Three waves | Roll into port together | The trio is home. (Herman Van Rompuy)

What does this mean in practice, what are the advantages of the Trio and its relations with the newly established players? It might be too early to judge, but we can already get some insight from the experience of the Spanish-Belgian- Hungarian Trio. Its work has been reflected on at the launch of a report on the contribution of 14 European think-tanks to the Spanish, Belgian and Hungarian Trio Presidency of the European Union.

While, in the pre-Lisbon setting, the past, current and forthcoming Presidencies were encouraged to work together in order to ensure coherence and continuity, the fact that now this collaboration is made official (and compulsory), gives it a boost, by creating common practices. The civil servants from the three countries meet regularly, in sectoral structures and at various levels, to discuss the priorities for the 18 months. This starts about two years before the first Presidency takes office and ends after the third has finished its mandate, not before making a thorough evaluation of the Trio’ s performance. All this may sound like  a normal bureaucratic procedure, a pure coordination task. Yet, it is more than that. It is an exercise that helps civil servants  and politicians with different (sometimes very different) administrative and political cultures to get to know and understand each other and start thinking out of the “national” box. Thus, in order to draft a common programme, the three countries try to take on board each other’s interests, apart from their own national one, leading to a set of priorities that each of them can feel the ownership of. Moreover, these priorities that have been agreed by three Member States have a bigger weight when it comes to defining each country’s own strategic lines for he 6 months period.

The protagonists of the first official trio, Spain, Belgium and Hungary, seem to have found this exercise very useful. At the symbolic level, they decided to use the same logo design, with only the colours of the national flags changing. A common website was also created (www.eutrio.eu); however, contrary to expectations, this web address is currently used just as an alias for the Spanish Presidency website (which, in its turn, does not have a lot of references to the Trio and not in the most visible of places). At the more practical level, the Trio has drafted a single programme, instead of three different programmes as it used to be the case; however, it seems that each country still follows its own set of priorities, de facto reducing the common programme to a strategic framework, while still allowing specific Member States to take credit for certain achievements that happened to take place in their 6 months term. (Update: the Spanish Presidency is already “taking stock” of the achievements of the first third of its term, coming up with a very positive assessment. No reference to the common Trio programme and the progress in terms of that, in case you were wondering).

During the preparatory stage, the Trio had some daring ideas, such as having one country chairing one working group or/and Council formation for 18 months, while the other two countries chair others, or to have interchangeable chairs from the three countries. These arrangements would have reinforced the idea of a common programme and a common identity; but they proved to be too forward-thinking for this moment, adding up to the current post-Lisbon institutional confusion. Perhaps this is still something to think about for the next Trio (Poland, Denmark and Cyprus).

It still remains to be seen what role the rotating Presidency will carve for itself in the new interinstitutional power balance. Even though most of the visibility is taken up by Herman Van Rompuy, one has to remember that it is still the rotating Presidency that chairs the 270 Council Working Groups, the COREPER meetings, as well as nine out of ten Council formations, including the General Affairs Council (GAC), whose horizontal coordination role can prove to be very important strategically. Another key issue is how the Trio Presidencies will relate to the newly established institution- the European Council- and its growing powers, especially in the economic area. While the usual working practices of the Council are of a bottom-up nature (starting at Working Group level, then going to COREPER and only then- and only the controversial, unsolved issues- going to the level of Ministers), the increased role of the European Council might see these practices change, allowing for the possibility of a top-down approach in certain areas.

Irrespective of the way the Trio will interpret and fulfill its tasks, it is important to remember, when looking at the institutional structure of post-Lisbon EU, that the rotating Presidency is still playing an important role. Practice will show, in the following months, if the idea of an official Trio has given it more strength, coherence and continuity. And all this beyond a common logo and a programmatic set of common priorities.