12 January 2022

Schuman Fondation: The Challenges of the French Presidency of the Council

On 1 January, France took over the presidency of the Council of the European Union for six months. The exercise, which mainly consists of leading meetings of European ministers, is also an opportunity for the country temporarily in charge to convey its priorities and even a political vision for Europe. In this respect, the French Presidency comes at a particular time for the European Union, for France and for its President, Emmanuel Macron.

Hard hit by the pandemic, the European Union is both emerging from the crisis and adapting to the global changes accelerated by the crisis. France, for its part, is preparing for a major political event, the presidential election in April, followed by the legislative elections in June. For Emmanuel Macron, the French Presidency of the Council will bring to a close a presidential term of office that has focused strongly on European issues, almost five years after his speech at the Sorbonne.

Although France's mandate is often referred to as the 'French Presidency of the European Union' (FPEU) for the sake of convenience, it is in fact the Presidency of the Council of the Union, the institution that represents the Member States within the 'institutional triangle' formed with the Commission and the Parliament. The European Council, which brings together the Heads of State and Government, has a permanent President, the former Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel. For France, this is the thirteenth Presidency of the Council, the first having taken place in 1959.

The Presidency is responsible for planning and chairing Council meetings in 9 of its 10 ministerial configurations[1] and its preparatory bodies at expert and ambassadorial level, as well as organising various formal and informal meetings in Brussels and in the country holding the Presidency. More than 400 events are planned in France, including 19 informal meetings of European ministers. The Presidency is also responsible for representing the Council in relations with the other EU institutions, in particular the Commission, and the Parliament, with which it is co-legislator and must agree to adopt European laws.

Each six-monthly presidency is part of a 'trio' of presidencies, usually comprising one large Member State and two smaller ones, all from a different region of the Union. The three states publish a joint programme for the next 18 months to ensure continuity in the Council's work. Each state publishes its six-monthly presidency programme, in which it highlights the issues and projects it wishes to prioritise among the current dossiers. The trio of France is completed by the Czech Republic and Sweden, which will hold the Presidency of the Council in the second half of 2022 and the first half of 2023 respectively.

In their programme, the three countries have set themselves the priority of protecting citizens and freedoms, promoting a new growth and investment model for Europe, building a greener, more socially equitable Europe that protects the health of Europeans, and a global Europe that is a world player. In its presidency programme, France identifies three main objectives: a more sovereign Europe, a new European model for growth, a humane Europe.

Each trio's programme is in line with the programme of the previous one. All are developed within the framework of the strategic agenda defined by the European Council every five years (the present programme was adopted in 2019), in conjunction with the Commission's annual work programme, which is the 'operational' transcription of the programme. The Presidency of the Council is therefore a highly structured institutional exercise, serving common objectives defined in advance, with a view to short, medium and long-term action. The core of its activity is legislative, since it is mainly a matter of ensuring that proposals for directives, regulations or decisions presented by the Commission are taken forward or completed.

In the complex machinery of the European institutions, the Council Presidency is the equal of the Presidency of the Commission, the institution that has the exclusive right of legislative initiative, and the Presidency of the Parliament, the institution that shares the legislative and budgetary functions of the Union with the Council. But the political weight of the Member States and the historical legitimacy of their representatives also give the Council Presidency a strong symbolic dimension which the leaders of the countries holding it can use to broaden its scope. The institutional function is thus coupled with a programmatic function intended to leave a more or less strong political mark on the development of the Union. By declaring on 9 December that, "In essence, we have to define our shared vision for Europe in 2030," Emmanuel Macron openly claims this function for the FPEU more than other leaders.

This characteristic is supported by the fact that the country holding the presidency, in the person of its permanent representative who chairs the Permanent Representatives Committee (Coreper), plays a major role in the preparation of the meetings of the European Council, the supreme political body of the Union which defines its main orientations. It can also play a diplomatic role, as Coreper prepares the meetings of the Foreign Affairs Council, or through the Political and Security Committee which it chairs.

The FPEU must be analysed from this dual perspective, which makes it possible to distinguish the issues at stake in a presidency, between what relates to the strict institutional function and what comes from the political dimension, in order to better evaluate its action and results.

Schuman Fondation

© Fondation Robert Schuman