2023-12-24 08:21:00
How important is a rotating presidency still today, with a new country at the head of the Council every six months? Especially since the European Council has a permanent president in the person of Charles Michel, and the Foreign Affairs Council is chaired by the High Representative?
Occupying the Presidency of the Council has the effect that all the political, administrative and even associative structures of a Member State are more impregnated with the European debate and its importance. When you hold the presidency, you have to mobilize more. This creates a generation of politicians and civil servants who have the obligation to really go into the detail of European issues, to take care of forging compromises between all the Member States, with the European Parliament…
The second thing that is important is the way of presenting Europe in the twenty-seven member states. There are informal meetings held in the country that holds the presidency; it is an opportunity to draw attention even more strongly to Europe. It is perhaps a little less necessary in the Belgian case, because the European institutions are in Brussels, even if we still see a certain excitement around the presidency. Press interest in Europe will be much greater during the presidency and there will be events taking place in Belgium other than in Brussels.
Belgium will focus its European presidency on three objectives: protect, strengthen, prepare for the future
You had already been Minister of Finance for two years during the 2001 presidency and you already knew how the “Ecofin” Council worked. Were there things that surprised you when you took over as president?
I had already been in office since July 99. To show the importance of the European meetings, I remember that we were sworn in in July that year, that we took the government family photo in Parliament and that we had a Council of Ministers. But instead of going to 16 rue de la Loi, I was already at the Ecofin Council, because we had made it clear that it was better to be present there. Finance ministers are a club. These are meetings every month, at least, of the Eurogroup and Ecofin, so often two days in a row, and then there are other international meetings where the same ministers meet. So, I was perhaps less surprised than for colleagues who had entered the government at the same time as me.
What is positively surprising when you take the presidency is the support you receive from the European institutions. The relationship with the Commission is much more direct, which allows us to have a better view of how the files will be prepared. There is also significant support from the Council Secretariat. It’s useful because it goes from very practical and logistical aspects, to support regarding substantive problems, legal questions… But if we want to do it seriously, we must also realize that it is a real activity. And I can understand that in certain Councils, this eats up a significant part of what should normally have been national activity.
Belgian Finance Minister Didier Reynders poses with euro notes, just before the Laeken summit, which closed the Belgian presidency, December 14, 2001. The single European currency will be put into circulation on January 1, 2002.
In 2001, Belgium held the presidency of the Council of Ministers of the EU, but also, at the time, that of the European Council, the institution which sets the political orientations of the Union, today equipped with a permanent president. What does that change compared to the presidency of 2010 and the one that is regarding to begin?
What changes is the obligation to manage exceptional events. The clearest example is September 11. On the financial side, we had to mobilize very quickly and finances were at the forefront. Wall Street was on the ground, the central bank and other players still had to support the functioning of the American system during the first days. We were immediately on site, all of this being done in very close coordination with the then Prime Minister, Guy Verhofstadt.
Otherwise, occupying the presidency allows you to manage and organize the agenda. We were still in a time when we had a lot of informal councils organized across the country which held the presidency. I was responsible for preparing the introduction of euro coins and notes. We organized an informal summit in Ghent where I had the opportunity to present the progress of preparations for the euro at a meeting. And then, it was the summit at Laeken Castle. And there, the fact of having the presidency of the European Council means that the Prime Minister can obviously launch an approach.
2024 elections: Didier Reynders would like to return to the Commission or… take over the presidency of the MR
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I remain convinced that for the upcoming presidency, we must in one way or another integrate this royal dimension, that is to say the use of places and in one way or another, the King’s participation in the six-month period. He is not going to take part in the discussions around the table but we should see him.
The Laeken summit was an important moment in European construction. Guy Verhofstadt’s ambition in 2001 was to get the Union to take a big step towards greater integration?
Guy Verhofstadt had very, very strong ambitions – we know his writings and his proposals on European construction. The personality of a Prime Minister played a big role in the presidency of the European Council. This notably enabled the adoption of the Laeken declaration and the launch of the Convention on the Future of Europe. [qui a regardingi à la rédaction du traité constitutionnel, rejeté par les Français puis les Néerlandais en 2005, puis adapté pour devenir le traité de Lisbonne, en vigueur depuis décembre 2009, NdlR]. We are reliving this a little now, because despite the permanent presidency of the European Council, I see that most heads of state and government want to give the action a national accent through their presence, even if they do not preside not the event.
How the EU works ©Didier Lorge
In 2010, the context is different. Europe is already facing a financial crisis and a sovereign debt crisis is looming. What do you remember as a memory of this presidency? Did you sense a European concern due to the fact that it is, moreover, exercised by a government in current affairs?
There was not much concern on the part of colleagues regarding how we were going to be able to take care of the presidency. For several reasons: the first is the long Belgian tradition of chairing the Council, also with administrations. The second reason is I had to play a leading role in the crisis. Belgium was one of the first countries shaken, with Fortis then with Dexia… I received my colleagues, we worked with Jean-Claude Trichet, who headed the Central Bank at the time, with Christine Lagarde for France, Jean-Claude Juncker [Premier ministre luxembourgeois et président de l’Eurogroupe, NdlR]… Finally, the third reason is that the presidency was going to open up on the implementation of a certain number of elements which resulted from the crisis, such as the financial market supervisory authorities.
What I still remembered, especially because we were entering into the application of the new treaties, is that we started trilogues [Conseil-Parlement-Commission, pour dégager un accord sur une législation, NdlR] practically on July 1, in the first days of the presidency. Normally, we first have a long debate between Member States to establish a general approach from the Council. Parliament sets its position and only then does the trilogue begin. I insisted on the fact that we had to negotiate very heavy issues straight away and not launch into long debates in each area. It was also, at the financial level, the beginning of qualified majority voting, which may have surprised States which voted once morest a text then noted that it was still adopted. These were big developments.
The European Union agrees on a vast reform of its migration policyBelgian Minister of Finance Didier Reynders, surrounded by Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs Olli Rehn (left) and Commissioner for the Internal Market, Michel Barnier, during the conference closing press conference of the Ecofin meeting of September 7, 2010, under Belgian presidency.
You were president of Ecofin at the first moments of the Greek crisis, the first episode of the sovereign debt crisis….
Ireland and Portugal follow, if I remember correctly. In November, I was invited for Belgium to go and ring the bell on Wall Street, as I do every time there is an important Belgian introduction. When I landed in New York, I had a message from Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the Eurogroup, asking me to bring together Ecofin and therefore to come and manage the sovereign debt crisis. I left JFK airport to go to lower New York to check my wife into a hotel, have a coffee and leave three hours later. If I had been a “simple” member of Ecofin, I would undoubtedly have stayed in New York rather than returning urgently, but as president, I had to be in Brussels.
I compare, somewhat as a joke, the presidency of the Council to figure skating. The presidency must do a series of things, these are the imposed figures. The free test, what the presidency itself brings by pushing its priorities, by emphasizing this event, this or that sector. And there is a third component which is the unexpected and which can go in all directions, generally rather a negative event: the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, then those of 2015 and 2016 in Paris and Brussels, the crisis banking, the sovereign debt crisis, the pandemic, a war…
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