Is it time to ditch the EU's rotating presidency?

Viktor Orban has been travelling the world pretending Hungary's time chairing Council of Ministers meetings means he speaks for the EU. The confusion could be ended by ending this tradition.

Since Hungary took over the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU (Council of Ministers) on 1 July, the country’s prime minister has been travelling around the world for a series of high-profile “peace missions”. He has met with President Putin in Moscow, President Zeneskyy in Kyiv, President Erdogan in Ankara, President Xi in Beijing and, last week, former President Trump in Mar-a-Lago - just days before his attempted assasination. The visits have infuriated other EU countries, and the people who actually do represent the EU - European Council President Charles Michel and High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell - have reminded that the rotating presidency has no remit over foreign policy. The Council’s legal service has ruled that these trips (and, more specifically, the representation of them including using the presidency’s logo) violated the EU treaties. But this is only an advisory opinion, and it’s up to other EU governments to act.

Now, after delivering a tongue-lashing to Hungary’s representative at a Coreper meeting last week, plans are being made to boycott the informal Council meetings organised by the presidency in Hungary - in particular Orban’s foreign affairs summit August 28-29. Borrell will even reportedly summon foreign ministers to Brussels for a rival formal foreign affairs summit at the exact same time as Orban’s summit. Already, 19 of the 27 ministers who were supposed to attend Hungary’s first informal council in Budapest earlier this month declined to attend, and no commissioner attended either.

To understand why everyone is so mad, it’s important to take a step back and explain what this six-month rotating presidency is, because there are a lot of misperceptions about it. While it is frequently referred to as “the EU presidency” it in fact only involves one EU institution - the upper chamber of the EU’s legislature commonly referred to as the “Council of Ministers”. It has no role in the European Council of 27 national leaders, which has a person serving as president for five-year terms (currently Michel). Nor does it have a role in the European Commission, which proposes EU legislation. And of course, it has no role in the European Parliament, the directly-elected lower house of the EU’s legislature. The government holding the rotating presidency simply designs the agendas for the Council meetings of 27 ministers in their various formats (environment ministers, finance ministers, etc) - with one big exception. The highly-sensitive meetings of the 27 EU foreign ministers are chaired by the High Representative for Foreign Affairs, a person who also serves a five year term (currently Borrell).

This presidency could be said to be something like the Speaker of the House in the United States. The ability to call votes (or not) and to chair meetings is significant, but in no way is the speaker “running the United States”. So why does the EU have this peculiar rotating presidency for one of its institutions, and why are so many people under the impression that the rotating presidency is “running the European Union”?

The reasons lie in the origins of this tradition. When the first iteration of the Council was created within the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951, it’s only role was to supervise the European Commission and thus the work involved was minimal. It was decided that the job of chairing the Council would rotate every six months among the ECSC’s six members. This continued even as it grew to be the European Community and, in 1992, the European Union. Throughout all these decades the Council was one body, both for configurations of ministers and of prime ministers.

However the lack of coordination between each successive six-month presidency was hindering the development of long-term priorities for the EU. And so as part of the constitutional convention of the early 2000s, it was decided to split the institution into the Council of the EU (for ministers) and the European Council (the summits of 27 prime ministers and presidents). A new five-year-term position of European Council President was created, and the first president Herman van Rompuy was appointed in 2009. But they decided to maintain the rotating presidency held by governments for the Council of Ministers (Except the Foreign Affairs Council, which is chaired by the high representative).

This is an important distinction, because while the European Council has some executive powers, the Council of Ministers does not. The latter is a purely legislative body. Although the executive branch of the EU is the European Commission, the European Council of 27 national leaders issues instructions to the Commission and sets out the high-level vision for the union, so it can be said to also possess executive powers although it cannot propose legislation.

It therefor makes no sense to say that “Hungary is running the EU for the next six months”, just like it didn’t make any sense when Macron’s government was claiming this for France back in 2022. The rotating presidency has no executive power. It can only set priorities which it would like to highlight during meetings of the Council of Ministers. In no way does it set the strategic vision for the union, and it is not involved in any way in the EU’s foreign policy decisions.

The problem is the EU institutions add to the confusion themselves by having the prime minister or president present their vision for the presidency to the European Parliament at the beginning of each new rotation, and they speak alongside the Commission and Council presidents at the end of European Council summits.

Yes, even though the prime minister has no formal role in the presidency’s activities, they are still directing the big vision of their cabinet of ministers who are chairing meetings and setting agendas. But why are they speaking at two institutions - the European Parliament and European Council - that they have nothing to do with?

There are two possible solutions to address this confusion and avoid the situation where someone like Orban (or Macron, for that matter) decides to use the widespread confusion about what the presidency is to their advantage. One would require treaty change, and the other wouldn’t.

The easiest fix would be to change the title to “Chairmanship of the Council of Ministers” rather than presidency. Just like with the “president” of the European Council and the “president” of the European Parliament, we are borrowing terminology from French that has a different meaning in English. In French a president is, in addition to being an executive position, also someone who simply “presides” over a meeting. So for the French, when they hear the term “president of the European Parliament”, they don’t automatically assume that person has executive authority. But in English, someone who simply chairs a meeting is never referred to as a president. They are a Chairman, and in the case of a parliament, they are a Speaker. The expectations for the presidency should also be downgraded. It looks like the European Parliament is not going to invite Orban to make a speech this time, and Orban will not be invited to stand next to Presidents von der Leyen and Costa after European Council summits. This should continue even after Hungary’s rotation, to make clear that they are at the helm of a different institution, the Council of Ministers.

The more complicated option would be to finish the job from what was done with the Lisbon Treaty in 2009. New five-year positions were created to chair the European Council and Foreign Affairs Council. Why not go all the way and have governments designate five-year chairs for the other Council configurations as well? That would certainly result in more stability and predictability in lawmaking. Each Council configuration would have someone chairing it for the whole term, also finally giving the Council the same term reference as the other two institutions.

I know the rotating presidency has a lot of defenders in this town. I keep hearing that it brings the EU closer to the citizens by bringing the informal meetings around the union. And during their six months at the helm it’s true that national media majorly increases their EU coverage. It also allows member states to display their priorities, even non-legislative ones, every 12 years. But surely there’s got to be a better way to do that than what we’ve got now.