„We can work on and off stage”

What challenges does the Presidency pose for Hungary’s Permanent Representation in Brussels?

We are not a classic embassy. The Permanent Representation is one of the Hungarian „legs” of common EU governance, involved in the daily management of our common affairs along with EU institutions and the 26 Member States. The presidency will substantially change our life. Of the 27 nations, Hungary will be responsible on behalf of the Council for operating the complex mechanism that we call the European Union. A presiding Member State needs more than routine to prepare for Council meetings and to represent national positions within the pan-European system of harmonising interests. The Presidency is also responsible for the overall management, preparation, running and follow-up of matters. This is an entirely new aspect of work for our staff.

What special challenges are professional diplomats facing?

In addition to doing their regular jobs, they will be responsible for preparing, running and following-up the meetings of staff they report to. Their work load will be heavier since the Ministers and Secretaries of State to preside meetings of various bodies of the Council will not only visit Brussels for meetings as has been the case so far.They will have to arrive much earlier and be present at several rounds of preparatory discussions to walk through the scenario of meetings in cooperation with the General Secretariat of the Council, the Commission, and the staff of the Permanent Representation will contribute to this process involving multiple actors.

Fortunately, our diplomats can rely on a highly skilled staff of 3 thousand people employed by the General Secretariat of the Council, as they are always assigned to the acting presidency. This process of coordination offers insight into the process of preparing, making and eventually enforcing decisions.

How can a Member State without a track record in presidency prepare for such a role?

A Member State that has not had a turn yet truly lacks the necessary experience. That is why you have to take the Presidency once to ensure institutional integration gets fully developed. Each Member State participates in the decision-making mechanism and the degree to which a Member State can get involved in the decisions on specific matters depends on its capacity; but a country must also take the Presidency to get such a horizontal, properly structured and organised perspective of what is going on and off stage, to work both on and off stage. That is what makes this role unique. It is like conducting; a conductor not only participates at a concert but also controls it.

This should not, however, be accorded absolute significance: we are now in charge of a very important segment of EU institutions, but we also have the Commission, the Parliament and permanent representatives such as the Permanent European Council President and the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.

Many think that the Presidency is an unnecessary burden, it makes it more difficult to ensure continuity and it would be much better for the EU to get rid of this institution. What do you think?

This has been the subject of serious debate. I myself have witnessed one during the expert level discussions of the EU Constitutional Treaty. At that time doubts were raised concerning the sense of rotation, as opposed to the continuity of Council operations given higher priority. The Lisbon Treaty incorporated the elements of continuity in the system, but rotation was retained a part of the Council mechanism and rightly so. The essence of rotation is that it captures versatility and togetherness at the institutional level. However rational it might seem, the leadership of the Union may not be the prerogative of a narrow elite, as that would contradict the essence: Member States need to take on an „ownership view”, they need to integrate it into their attitudes and the presidency is a vehicle for promoting that. It is important for each Member State to learn the intricacies of presidency operations; they need empathy to be able to cooperate with subsequent presidencies for the benefit of mutually acceptable compromises.

It is very important to acquire this knowledge. I dare say it is a cultural asset that will bring a return after our mandate ends. The presidency helps us develop and fortify the mentality that someone needs for keeping the EU united for the benefit of public. If every member state accepted the premise that they should only press to assert their own position, the EU environment would become impossible to manage. Every member needs to represent its own national interest while ensuring that it is compatible with the harmonisation of interests across Europe; that is because what the axiom says is true: no Member State can benefit of something that harms the Union as a whole. Indeed, rotation is tiresome, time consuming and costly, but a completely Brussels-based system of decision making would be riskier.

When preparing for it’s first-ever presidency, a Member State tries to learn from the best practices of other countries, and I am sure Hungary did so too. Is there any innovation that Hungary will try to implement for the first time in organising the presidency?

Each presidency has a novel aspect of some kind. The EU is confronted with new situations every six months, and there are no set recipes or elaborate models to manage them. For instance, the Hungarian Presidency will have to conduct the first European semester, which is a completely unprecedented exercise in the history of European integration. Obviously, one has to be imaginative, but fantasy cannot transgress the borders set with great austerity and precision in the treaty; and in the rules of procedure. Within those constraints our wish is to be free to fly in many directions, and we will use this opportunity during the preparatory period and the weeks that follow.

What I have in mind is not wanton brainstorming; instead, I think we will have to run the EU for its own good. Because what is good for the Union will also be good for us. I am confident that we will be able to use un-tried solutions in a few novel areas while observing the constraints I mentioned. We will not do so because Hungary has the Presidency now, but because this job of new quality dimensions needs to be solved during our term of presidency.