Thread by @DaveKeating

#Macron will in a speech today present ambitious plans for the French 🇪🇺 presidency starting 1 Jan that go far beyond the remit of what a presidency is supposed to do, which is only agenda-setting.

Europhiles may like it when its Macron, but they didn't when it was Janša(🧵1/10)

Though they're often referred to as the "rotating EU presidency" these 6-month stints are actually just the presidency of the Council of the EU, the upper house of the EU legislature in which ministers take votes on legislative proposals. (🧵2/10)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidenc…

In French the word 'president' is often used when in English we might say 'chairperson' (hence the confusion over the role of the President of the European Parliament, who is more like a Speaker of the House in the UK). 🧵 (3/10)

The job of the presidency is to set the agenda for ministers' meetings in those 6 months, and choose which legislation *already proposed by Commission* should be prioritised.

So for instance, the energy minister from presidency country chairs meetings of the 27 energy ministers.

Many in Brussels have long felt that the rotating presidency is an outdated relic that only causes confusion for citizens and the rest of the world.

There was a proposal to scrap it entirely when the EU constitution (which became the Lisbon Treaty) was being developed. (🧵5/10)

In the end, they scrapped it only for the European Council, the configuration of prime ministers and presidents.

European Council got a full-time person president in 2009, replacing the country president. But for Council of Ministers, the rotating country presidency remained.

So technically the PM or president of the country that holds the rotating presidency shouldn't have any leadership role in the European Council (which sets general EU direction) any more.

Yet they are usually invited onto podium with Commission & Council presidents after summits

But during the Slovenian presidency, the antics of Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Janša became so intolerable that this practice was altered.

EU leadership (rightly) pointed out that he has no formal role in the presidency and he was ignored. (🧵8/10)

But can you imagine them ignoring Macron? Impossible.

This is how broken the whole rotating presidency system is. People are happy for Macron to pretend to be 'president of the EU' for 6 months, but we're told to ignore PMs of smaller countries when they have the presidency.

It also creates the false impression, both among citizens and third country diplomats, that France is 'in charge of' the EU next year.

That is absolutely not the case. But Macron's speech today might give that impression.

Something to bear in mind. (🧵10/10)