I shall first give some background on the circumstances in which Belgium has to exercise the Presidency. Thereafter I shall cover the main issues our Presidency will have to deal with.
Belgium has considerable experience in EU matters. It is a long-standing member of the organisation and it has acted 11 times as President of the Council of Ministers. This year, 2010, is a time of transition. The European Council has a permanent President. A High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, who at the same time is Vice President of the Commission and Permanent President of the Council of Foreign Affairs, has been appointed. All nine other Council formations and the corresponding preparatory working groups remain under the system of the rotating Presidency. With these institutional innovations, the rotating Presidency has to operate very carefully, creating the right conditions from the beginning, adapting working methods and setting the correct precedents.
The Belgian Presidency will have to work with a new European Commission, appointed in February 2010, and with a new European Parliament. With more than one third of its membership renewed and with more power, the Parliament is quite naturally testing the limits of its newly acquired competences. Up to 95% of the legislative work in the EU is now conducted under the normal legislative procedure, previously known as the co-decision. This means that the Council and Parliament are on a par when discussing and adopting new European legislation. In these circumstances, striking the right balance between the institutions is not always easy. Much more than before, exercising the Council Presidency now requires careful negotiation with the European Parliament.
The economic environment remains extremely difficult. Although some observers think the worst of the financial and economic crisis is over, the pressure for adequate crisis-response measures and the workload for designing and carrying out substantive structural reforms of our societies is immense.
Belgium has been faced with early elections. Government coalition talks have not even started. However, this has not hampered the logistical and programming preparations of our Presidency. The outgoing care-taking Government will assume all the obligations of the Presidency. Moreover, European policy has always been a consensus area for successive Belgian Governments. There will be no policy change, whichever coalition eventually assumes power.
We are now operating under the trio-Presidency. The 18 month programme was elaborated by Spain, Belgium and Hungary after months of intense preparatory talks. It is now the basis for our national programme for the next six months, using the Spanish term's legacy.
Given the complexity of the Belgian institutional framework, our national programme had to be negotiated with regional and community governments. Some of these, by the way, will preside over Council formations. These negotiations were also accompanied by a rather intense dialogue with civil society. Last but not least, our programme was submitted to detailed hearings in the national parliament.
The agenda for the Belgian Presidency comprises 40 pages, covers all ten Council formations in great detail and with more than 200 items or themes for discussion or decision was structured into five clusters. They comprise the fight against the economic and financial crisis, climate and environment, the justice and home affairs agenda, the reinforcement of the social dimension of the EU and the external dimension. The further implementation of the Lisbon treaty covers these five clusters.
The first, and probably most important, theme of our Presidency is the current socio-economic situation in Europe. Efforts to fight the economic crisis have to be pursued. Economic and financial transformation should lead us towards economic recovery, sustainable growth and more jobs. Jobless growth is not an option.
We have to continue our structural reforms in the implementation of the new financial supervision architecture, strengthening the stability of the eurozone, restoring budgetary discipline, paying particular attention to education and research as driving forces for innovation, and ensuring an appropriate follow-up to the Monti report regarding the Single Market.
We have to start with the implementation of the EU 2020 strategy for jobs and growth which should bring us closer to the target of a competitive and green knowledge economy by the year 2020. Belgium wants this strategy to produce better and concrete results. That is why we pleaded these past several months for a limited number of goals, an improved methodology compared to the Lisbon strategy and a stronger social dimension.
However, sometimes long-term strategies alone do not suffice when one is faced with an urgent situation as seen in the case of Greece. The EU took several unprecedented steps towards more European economic governance which would have been impossible to imagine six months ago. Does this mean we are completely out of the danger zone? I am afraid not. Rumours of possible contamination to other eurozone countries will continue to create uncertainty in the financial markets. To restore confidence, further concerted and co-ordinated action towards more permanent crisis-prevention mechanisms is necessary.
The EU and the eurozone should not only be strengthened to withstand dangers from within, but also to ensure a strong and prominent European role in the global governance structures such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the G20. Reinforcing the EU's position in such organisations and international fora is also one of the objectives of the Belgian Presidency.
Our second priority is climate and environmental policy and the aim of a low-carbon economy. Europe is, and should remain, the driving force that encourages the international community to strive for ambitious and concrete results at the climate summit in Cancún later this year. The EU certainly has to remain an example for other countries and regions, but Belgium believes we should also act pragmatically. This means we should not always focus on our own European priorities, as we did too often in the past, but that instead we should try to forge alliances with our most important non-European partners. With its tradition of consensus building, Belgium will hopefully be able to contribute to these efforts. The preparation and co-ordination of the European positions in the run-up to and at the conference in Cancún will also be a tremendous challenge for our Presidency.
There is more in our EU Presidency programme than climate policies. We shall pay particular attention to the greening of our societies in different walks of life. If we really want to achieve the goal of a green economy in the EU itself, we have to link our climate ambitions to other areas such as European transport, energy and fiscal policies. Biodiversity and, more specifically, the preparation for the Tenth Conference of Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in Nagova, Japan, in October will be another important challenge for the Presidency.
Our third priority is in the area of security, justice, asylum and home affairs. We will start the implementation of the Stockholm programme, the framework for EU police and customs co-operation, co-operation in criminal and civil law and asylum, migration and visa policy for 2010 to 2014.
The Stockholm programme was adopted in December 2009, but now comes the beginning of its implementation. Belgium hopes to bring forward issues like the common asylum procedure, the mutual recognition of judicial decisions, the fight against organized crime, illegal immigration and human trafficking.
In the application of the patrimonial law in the case of cross-border divorce and separation in the EU, we shall for the first time revert to the procedures of enhanced co-operation. This is a domain in which European citizens have concrete concerns and are entitled to expect concrete action from Europe.
The fourth priority of our Presidency is to achieve progress on various social issues. This is European year of the fight against poverty. Several conferences and discussions within the Council will be held to evaluate current policies and enhance the instruments for eradicating poverty. In its Council work Belgium wants to pay particular attention to the further development of a stronger social dimension in the EU 2020 strategy. We will also carry out the work programme in respect of the renewed social agenda presented by the Commission in 2008 and in other sectors such as pensions, public health and equality policy. Belgium believes discussing such issues at European level can have added value. We are all faced with the same challenges: ageing of the population and the fight against poverty. These are issues mostly dealt with at member state level and as not all member states share our ambitions, we will try to find a balance between our ambitions and the political reality in the European Union.
Our fifth and last cluster is the external dimension. The European Union has to remain the most important regional organisation in the world and one of the main actors for peace and security. To achieve this, we must speak with a single voice. The Lisbon treaty makes this possible with the creation of the position of High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. Catherine Ashton presides over the Foreign Affairs Council and represents the European Union abroad. That is a daunting task, especially if one considers that the instrument to enable her to assume this task, the European External Action Service, is not yet available. Negotiations with the European Parliament on the establishment of this European diplomatic service have just ended. In the meantime, the Belgian Government has offered Lady Ashton the support of the Belgian diplomatic service both in Brussels to preside over the working groups, as well as abroad in countries without an EU delegation or where the EU delegation does not yet have a head of delegation. In all of these cases Belgian diplomats will act on her behalf and under her guidance. As soon as the European External Action Service is up and running, we will step aside. Priority setting in Common Foreign and Security Policy, CFSP, matters lies in the hands of Lady Ashton only.
In the Foreign Affairs Council, however, one important area still lies within the responsibility of the rotating Presidency, that is, international trade policy. The main objective of the European Union is and should remain the conclusion of the Doha Round, but since very few still believe we will soon reach an agreement in the World Trade Organization, WTO, negotiations, we should also focus on bilateral negotiations with countries such as, for instance, Canada and India and regional entities such as the Andean Community or the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States, APC, countries, many of which are interested in trade agreements with the European Union. However, we should make sure our own interests are safeguarded. Preparing the negotiating positions of the European Union remains the responsibility of the rotating Presidency.
The Belgian Foreign Minister will preside over the General Affairs Council which deals with, among other things, EU enlargement. This is a sensitive issue in many European Union member states, including Belgium. During our Presidency we will play the role of an honest broker. This means we will maintain the European perspective for the candidate countries with the ultimate goal of EU membership once the conditions have been met. Each individual candidate country will only be able to make progress on the basis of its own merits.
The Chairman gave me ten minutes in which to present the Belgian EU Presidency programme and I realise I have slightly overstayed my welcome. Had he given me one minute, I would have told him that, as an honest broker, Belgium would do its utmost to steer the European Union through this difficult and challenging time of transition, loyal to the letter and the spirit of the Lisbon treaty and in constructive co-operation with the institutions, in order to better prepare the Union and its member states for the tasks and challenges that lay ahead of us.