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German EU Presidency must be rescheduled

2020-04-07T19:30:30.351Z


Climate, digitization, Brexit, China: These should actually be the main topics of the German EU Council Presidency in the second half of the year. Now everything is changing.


Climate, digitization, Brexit, China: These should actually be the main topics of the German EU Council Presidency in the second half of the year. Now everything is changing.

Berlin (dpa) - The Corona crisis throws up the previous planning for the upcoming German EU Council Presidency according to the assessment of the German EU ambassador in Brussels, Michael Clauss.

"The first experiences with the new reality show that our presidency will no longer be able to take place in the planned manner," says a confidential report by the top diplomat to the Chancellery and the Federal Ministries, which is available to the German Press Agency and about which the "mirror" reported first.

This concerns the preparation of the content, the working method as well as the planning of events. "From now on, the focus will be on the ability of the European institutions to act, crisis management, exit and reconstruction - possibly maintaining the EU integration itself," writes Clauss. "The success of our presidency will be measured against this."

Germany will take over the Presidency of the Council from Croatia for half a year on July 1st. A major EU-China summit in Leipzig is planned as the central event in September. In addition, the content had been adjusted to focus on issues such as climate protection, digitalization and the effects of Brexit.

Clauss estimates that the agenda will now be completely different. "At the same time, this means that topics that were still a high priority yesterday will inevitably be overlaid or completely take a back seat," he writes.

Clauss also points to significant logistical problems caused by the corona crisis. The EU's ability to act "will remain severely limited until further notice". The ambassador mentions the restrictions in travel and the requirement to keep a physical distance, which is expected to remain well into the German Presidency.

However, there are obviously significant problems with the switch to video diplomacy. Clauss complains that the Council is currently unable to host several video conferences at the same time, and only without a protected line. "And video conferencing, even if it can be carried out, will not be able to replace physical meetings on an equal basis (no formal quorum, no marginalized talks, no confidentiality of negotiations, no interpreting, difficulties with text work)."

EU heads of state and government meet four times a year for regular summits. There are also special summits and numerous ministerial meetings.

Clauss warns that there is also evidence that the EU legislative process is slowing considerably. "The considerable capacity bottlenecks associated with this are a bottleneck that should not be underestimated. From this point of view, they will make a radical prioritization and reduction of the topics that we can deal with inevitable, at least for the beginning of our presidency," wrote the ambassador. "We'll have to do everything else by sight."

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2020-04-07

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