Spain will hold the first rotating EU Council Presidency under Lisbon rules and will thus have to launch implementation of the new treaty and manage the transition process, which will not necessarily be an easy task. It will also try to secure swift ratification of a protocol on the additional 18 members of the European Parliament.

APPLYING LISBON

The Spanish Council presidency plans to speed up negotiations on application of certain treaty provisions, particularly the External Action Service that will assist the new EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Catherine Ashton (UK). The European Council will have to adopt a decision on this subject, with the Commission’s endorsement and in consultation with the European Parliament. The Council and Parliament have already tabled their positions, but, before starting the talks, the institutions are awaiting the high representative’s formal proposal on the structure and organisation of the future service. The Presidency’s aim is to conclude a final agreement in April.

Spain also wishes to launch the European citizens’ initiative, another innovation of the Treaty of Lisbon. Under this new measure, one million citizens may request Commission proposals in a specific policy area. The executive kicked off a public consultation on 11 November since several questions still need to be answered, such as the minimum number of member states from which the citizens must come, the minimum number of signatures per member state and the minimum age for participation in the initiative. The European Council invited the Commission to present a proposal for a regulation “as soon as possible”, with the aim of adopting it in the first half of 2010.

The Presidency will also tackle application of the ‘solidarity clause’, which obliges the Union and all member states to provide assistance to any country struck by a natural disaster or a terrorist attack and to defend the accession of the EU as an entity with legal personality to the European Convention on Human Rights.

MANAGING THE TRANSITION

Spain’s Presidency will mark the transition to the Union’s new institutional architecture. A running-in period will be inevitable. Certain questions on the division of competences still need to be addressed. For instance, the European Council will become a fully-fledged institution, with its own President. Belgian national Herman Van Rompuy will chair the summits of heads of state and government, a task that will therefore not fall to Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Zapatero. It is not yet very clear what role Zapatero will have. The same holds for Spain’s foreign policy chief, Miguel Angel Moratinos, because the External Relations Council will from now on be chaired by the High Representative.

The rotating Presidency will continue to manage the Council’s other technical configurations, however, and at this level will push forward its own priorities. The General Affairs Council, which is likely to take on more importance and will continue to prepare EU summits, will in theory be composed of the European affairs ministers and chaired by Spanish State Secretary for European Affairs Diego López Garrido. But foreign ministers, who are already disappointed at no longer being part of the European Council under the new rules, could try to keep things in their own hands.

In mid-December, Moratinos tried to clarify the situation on the distribution of roles, stating that the Spanish Presidency did not intend to “compete” with the two new leaders but to “work with them in complementarity and mutual support” with “modesty, discretion and hard work”. The European Councils in Brussels will be led by Van Rompuy, the summits organised in Madrid by Van Rompuy alongside Zapatero, and summits outside the EU by the troika of Van Rompuy, Ashton and Commission President Barroso. As for relations between Moratinos and the EU High Representative, the Spaniard will be “entirely at her disposal”.

THE MATTER OF THE 18 MEPS

Another technical but highly political issue on the Spanish agenda is the ‘mini’ revision of the Treaty of Lisbon, by means of a protocol, to fix in primary law the new distribution of seats in the European Parliament with the additional 18 members. Spain is counting on wrapping up this issue quickly because, among the 12 states that will have more seats, it gains the most (four). It tabled a draft protocol for this revision at the end of 2009, even before taking up the reins of the EU. The European Council launched the consultation with Parliament on this basis.

The protocol will have to obtain Parliament’s assent before being ratified in the 27 member states. The Spanish EU Presidency is aiming for entry into force by December 2010 but this will depend on how long ratification takes. Meanwhile, Parliament could suggest that the member states send observers who would sit without voting rights.

Since the Treaty of Lisbon was not in force before the June 2009 European elections, the European Council decided in December 2008 to enable Parliament to implement the new Lisbon composition without having to wait for the next elections in 2014. The new composition is more advantageous to certain countries that felt wronged until now. It gives the EP 751 members instead of the 736 under Nice. However, since 736 members were elected in June, including 99 Germans, and since Lisbon limits the maximum number of German MEPs to 96, it was impossible to ‘un-elect’ three of them. It was therefore decided that the new Parliament would have 754 seats (751 + three) and that the member states would implement a minor revision of the treaty to fix this figure.

THE NEW COMMISSION

Spain will begin its mandate just before the hearings of the 26 commissioners designate by EP committees, scheduled for 11-19 January. At this stage, the vote of approval is still set for 26 January in Brussels. Once the Barroso II team has been approved by the plenary, the European Council will have to formally appoint the Commission (by written procedure). The new EU executive will probably take up its duties in February, at which time legislative activity will resume.