The Austrian Presidency: Pragmatic Management

Abstract

When Austria took over the Council Presidency on 1 January 2006, the European Union (EU) found itself at a crossroads following the French and Dutch rejection of the Constitutional Treaty in 2005. The ratification crisis was, however, only one of those unexpected events which jeopardized the new three-year programme for the six presidencies from 2004 to 2006, invented to ensure greater coherence and consistency in the leadership of the EU. While such a programme limits the scope of activity and priorities of a given presidency, it is no substitute for active leadership in critical cases. Hence, a presidency has to be evaluated, first, with regard to the management of the routine matters handed over by previous presidencies; second, with regard to its own priorities; and, third, by its responses to crises. How a presidency manages to deal with these dimensions is influenced by the nature of internal EU challenges, international developments and the domestic politics of the country holding the presidency. The EU faced a series of considerable internal challenges during the Austrian presidency. Shortly after the negative French and Dutch referendums on the Constitutional Treaty, the European Council decided to start a period of reflection that, after several months, had not produced impressive results. Moreover, though governments considered the conclusion of the financial perspective for 2007–13 a success, in January 2006 the European Parliament (EP) overwhelmingly rejected the compromise worked out among the EU JCMS 2007 Volume 45 Annual Review pp. 7–16