The Presidency of the Council rotates among the Member States every six months in accordance with a sequence determined by the Council.
The Presidency of the Council has great significance for the way in which the work carried out by the Council is organised. The country which holds the Presidency has the task of organising and chairing all the Council’s meetings, and each country has its own priorities for the matters and areas it wishes to promote during the course of its Presidency.
Should negotiations reach an impasse, or should other problems arise, it is also the task of the country holding the Presidency to attempt to devise a solution. It is therefore important that the country holding the Presidency does not use its period of office to ‘feather its own nest’. The Presidency should be conducted in a neutral and impartial manner, and the country holding the Presidency must often set its own interests aside in favour of achieving unity among the Member States.
Holding the Presidency also involves the country in question representing the EU externally on matters relating to the EU’s foreign and security policy. Among other things, this means that it is the country holding the Presidency which speaks on the EU’s behalf in international contexts, e.g. at meetings and conferences hosted by international organisations such as the UN and WTO. In certain cases the country holding the Presidency also negotiates agreements on the EU’s behalf.
Some of the Treaty provisions set out specific tasks for the country holding the Presidency, but there is no precise definition of what holding the Presidency means. Actual practice has been of great importance in defining the role of the Presidency, and the Council’s Rules of Procedure help to establish the specific tasks of the country holding the Presidency.
Which country holds the Presidency is of great political importance, as it is the Presidency which is the driving force in EU cooperation and which sets the agenda and decides which subjects are to be given priority. For example, the absolute top priority of the Danish Presidency in the second six months of 2002 was to conclude the enlargement negotiations with up to ten new Member States.Sidst opdateret: 22-07-2008 - ANSJ