Abstract
The article reflects on Croatia’s EU Council Presidency in the first half of 2020. The programme for Croatia’s Presidency had four pillars: a Europe that is developing, a Europe that connects, a Europe that protects and an influential Europe. The article focuses on the various challenges faced by the Croatian Presidency during its six-month term. The period of Croatia’s Presidency will forever be remembered as the time when the COVID-19 pandemic began. Other demanding issues also had to be dealt with: the UK leaving the EU; the challenges of European (non-)solidarity; the continuation of the enlargement process, with the green light being given to Northern Macedonia and Albania; the migrant crisis at the border of Turkey and Greece; the preparations for the EU’s 2021–7 budget; and the COVID-19 recovery plan.
Highlights
In the first half of 2020, Croatia held the Presidency of the Council of the EU for the first time
A modified version of the Recovery Plan for Europe and the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) was agreed at an extraordinary meeting of the European Council held on 17–21 July: ‘Combining the multiannual financial framework (€1074.3 billion) and an extraordinary recovery effort known as the Generation EU (€750 billion), the package will help the EU to rebuild after the COVID-19 pandemic and will support investment in green and digital transitions’ (European Council 2020a)
The global crisis caused by COVID-19 forced the issues of health and resolving the crisis to become the absolute priorities of Croatia’s Presidency
Summary
In the first half of 2020, Croatia held the Presidency of the Council of the EU for the first time. As early as 28 January, due to the occurrence of isolated cases of coronavirus in some EU member states, the Croatian Presidency decided to activate the EU integrated crisis response arrangements in the form of an information exchange (Croatia, Government of the Republic of Croatia 2020) This crisis coordination mechanism, which collated the information coming from the various international actors, was a very useful tool for monitoring the further development of the situation and for evaluating COVID-19–related activities. EU solidarity came to the fore in a number of aspects, from the organised return of European citizens, the transportation of protective masks and respirators, and the sharing of medical staff, to the admission of patients for treatment in intensive care units and, assistance for the economies of the EU member states (Bandov 2020). At the end of the journey, within Europe itself, a series of flights were organised to allow citizens of individual countries to return to their homes (European Commission 2020c)
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