The president of the European Council is the person presiding over and driving forward the work of the
European Council on the world stage. This
institution comprises the college of heads of state or government of EU member states as well as the
president of the European Commission
The president of the European Commission is the head of the European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union (EU). The President of the Commission leads a Cabinet of Commissioners, referred to as the College, collectively account ...
, and provides political direction to the
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are located primarily in Europe, Europe. The union has a total area of ...
(EU).
From 1975 to 2009, the head of the European Council was an unofficial position (often referred to as the
President-in-Office) held by the
head of state
A head of state (or chief of state) is the public persona who officially embodies a state Foakes, pp. 110–11 " he head of statebeing an embodiment of the State itself or representatitve of its international persona." in its unity and ...
or
government
A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state.
In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government i ...
of the
member state holding the semiannually rotating
presidency of the Council of the European Union at any given time. However, since the 2007
Treaty of Lisbon, article 15 of
Treaty on European Union states that the
European Council appoints a full-time president for a two-and-a-half-year term, with the possibility of renewal once. Appointments, as well as the removal of incumbents, require a
double majority support in the European Council.
On 19 November 2009, the European Council agreed that its first president under the Lisbon Treaty would be
Herman Van Rompuy (
European People's Party). Van Rompuy took office when the
Lisbon Treaty came into force on 1 December 2009 with a term stretching until 31 May 2012. His term was later extended with a second period ending on 30 November 2014.
The second holder of the office was former Polish prime minister
Donald Tusk. He was originally elected to serve a term from 1 December 2014 to 31 May 2017, and was subsequently re-elected on 9 March 2017 to a second term running from 1 June 2017 until 30 November 2019.
On 2 July 2019 the European Council elected Belgian prime minister
Charles Michel as the successor to Donald Tusk as President of the European Council for the period from 1 December 2019 to 31 May 2022. He was re-elected in March 2022 for a second term for period from 1 June 2022 to 30 November 2024.
History
The first meeting of all
European Communities heads of state or government was held in 1961 as an informal summit, but only became formalised in 1974, when it was dubbed "European Council" by the then French president
Valéry Giscard d'Estaing. With the establishment of the
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are located primarily in Europe, Europe. The union has a total area of ...
in 1993, the presidency of the European Council was based on the
Presidency of the Council of the European Union, being hosted by the
member state holding the council presidency, rotating every six months. As the European Council is composed of national leaders, it was chaired by the head of state or government of the presidency state.
Permanent post
The
European Constitution, drafted by the
European Convention Several bodies or treaties are known as European Convention.
Bodies of the European Union
* European Convention (1999–2000) which drafted the:
** ''Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union'' (2000 / 2009)
* Convention on the Future of ...
, outlined the "president of the European Council" as a longer term and full-time chairmanship.
The Constitution was rejected by voters in two Member States during ratification but the changes envisaged to the European Council presidency were retained in the Treaty of Lisbon, which came into force on 1 December 2009.
The first president was expected to define the role for future office holders, as there was no clear idea of how the post would evolve.
One body of thought was that the president would stick to the administrative role as outlined by the treaty, a standard bearer who would simply chair meetings and ensure the smooth running of the body and its policies. This would attract semi-retired leaders seeking a fitting climax to their career and would leave most work to the Commission rather than wield power within the institutions.
However another opinion envisaged a more pro-active president within the Union and speaking for it abroad. The office would hence be quickly fashioned, according to promoters, into a ''de facto'' "president of Europe" and, unlike the first model, would be seen on the world stage as speaking for the EU. Persons connected to this position would be more charismatic leaders.
The appointment of Herman Van Rompuy indicated a desire to see the former style of president.
The
Treaty of Lisbon does not define a nomination process for the president of the Council and initially several official and unofficial candidates were proposed. At the final European Council meeting on the treaty in Lisbon, on 19 November 2007, French president
Nicolas Sarkozy
Nicolas Paul Stéphane Sarközy de Nagy-Bocsa (; ; born 28 January 1955) is a French politician who served as President of France from 2007 to 2012.
Born in Paris, he is of Hungarian, Greek Jewish, and French origin. Mayor of Neuilly-sur-Se ...
set off public speculation on candidates by naming
Tony Blair
Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He previously served as Leader of t ...
,
Felipe González
Felipe González Márquez (; born 5 March 1942) is a Spanish lawyer, professor, and politician, who was the Secretary-General of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) from 1974 to 1997, and the 3rd Prime Minister of Spain since th ...
and
Jean-Claude Juncker, and praising the three as worthy candidates
with Blair in particular being a long time front runner for the post. However, he faced large scale opposition for being from a large state outside the
eurozone
The euro area, commonly called eurozone (EZ), is a currency union of 19 member states of the European Union (EU) that have adopted the euro (€) as their primary currency and sole legal tender, and have thus fully implemented EMU pol ...
and the
Schengen Area
The Schengen Area ( , ) is an area comprising 27 European countries that have officially abolished all passport and all other types of border control at their mutual borders. Being an element within the wider area of freedom, security and ...
as well as being a leader who entered the
Iraq War
{{Infobox military conflict
, conflict = Iraq War {{Nobold, {{lang, ar, حرب العراق (Arabic) {{Nobold, {{lang, ku, شەڕی عێراق (Kurdish languages, Kurdish)
, partof = the Iraq conflict (2003–present), I ...
which had split Europe. Minor opposition to other leaders such as Juncker also led to their rejection.
First full-time president
On 19 November 2009,
Herman Van Rompuy, at that time
Prime Minister of Belgium, was appointed the first full-time president of the European Council. The formal decision on the appointment was made after the
Treaty of Lisbon came into force on 1 December 2009. The British prime minister,
Gordon Brown
James Gordon Brown (born 20 February 1951) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party from 2007 to 2010. He previously served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in Tony ...
, said that he had unanimous backing from the 27 EU leaders at the summit in Brussels on the evening of 19 November 2009. Brown praised Van Rompuy as "a consensus builder" who had "brought a period of political stability to his country after months of uncertainty". At a press conference after his appointment, Van Rompuy commented: "Every country should emerge victorious from negotiations. A negotiation that ends with a defeated party is never a good negotiation. I will consider everyone's interests and sensitivities. Even if our unity remains our strength, our diversity remains our wealth", he said, stressing the individuality of EU member states.
Van Rompuy's first council meeting was an informal gathering in the Solvay Library in
Leopold Park, rather than the more usual formal gathering in the
Justus Lipsius building
The Justus Lipsius building, located in Brussels, Belgium, was the headquarters of the Council of the European Union from 1995, and the ''de facto'' home of the European Council from 2002 (''de jure'' as of 2004), until their relocation to the ad ...
nearby. The meeting was called to reflect on long term structural economic problems facing Europe, but was overtaken by the
Greek economic crisis.
Duties and powers
Pre-2009
The role of ''President-in-Office'' of the assembled European Council was performed by the
head of state
A head of state (or chief of state) is the public persona who officially embodies a state Foakes, pp. 110–11 " he head of statebeing an embodiment of the State itself or representatitve of its international persona." in its unity and ...
or government of the member state currently holding the
presidency of the Council of the European Union. This presidency rotated every six months, meaning there was a new president of the European Council twice a year.
The role as President-in-Office was merely a ''
primus inter pares'' role among other European heads of state or government. However, the president-in-office represented the European Council externally and reported to the
European Parliament
The European Parliament (EP) is one of the Legislature, legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven Institutions of the European Union, institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and in ...
after its meetings as well as at the beginning and at the end of the presidency.
Post-2009
The president's role is largely political, preparing the work of the European Council, organising and chairing its meetings, seeking to find consensus among its members and reporting to the European Parliament after each meeting; the president will also ''"at his level and in that capacity, ensure the external representation of the Union on issues concerning its common foreign and security policy, without prejudice to the powers of the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security"''.
Some overlap between the roles of the president of the European Council, the President of the Commission, and the High Representative—notably in foreign policy—leaves uncertainty about how much influence the President of the European Council will acquire. There is further concern over whether the president will have sufficient personnel and resources to fulfil the duties of the post effectively and that, in lacking a ministry, the president might become a "play ball" between EU leaders.
With the reorganisation of leading EU posts under the
Lisbon Treaty, there was some criticism of each post's vague responsibilities. Ukrainian ambassador to the EU Andriy Veselovsky praised the framework and clarified it in his own terms: The
president of the European Commission
The president of the European Commission is the head of the European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union (EU). The President of the Commission leads a Cabinet of Commissioners, referred to as the College, collectively account ...
speaks as the EU's "government" while the new president of the European Council is a "strategist". The
High Representative specialises in "bilateral relations" while the
European Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighbourhood Policy deals in technical matters such as the free trade agreement with Ukraine. The
president of the European Parliament meanwhile articulates the EU's values.
[Rettman, Andrew, (15 March 2010]
Ukraine gives positive appraisal of new-model EU
EU Observer
The European Council president also extended his influence into financial policy, the most important area left to the rotating Council presidency, with the rotating presidency seeing a greater decrease in power than previously planned. Many of the changes introduced with the Lisbon Treaty need concretion through practical implementation by the current actors. The Spanish presidency unsuccessfully tried to challenge the European Council president's prominent post during the first rotating presidency of 2010, while the second half of the year saw a Belgian rotating presidency marked by a weakened
caretaker government
A caretaker government is a temporary ''ad hoc'' government that performs some governmental duties and functions in a country until a regular government is elected or formed. Depending on specific practice, it usually consists of either randomly se ...
which did not challenge Herman van Rompuy, himself a Belgian politician. The Belgian rotating presidency announced it was taking a "backrow seat" with regards to both the European Council president and the high representative, thus fuelling hopes as well as concerns for a more communitarian character in both the council and foreign policy.
Privileges of office
Formal negotiations on the salary and privileges of the permanent presidency began in April 2008 as part of the draft of the 2009
EU budget. The outcome was that the president should enjoy the same conditions as the president of the Commission, with a basic salary of 138% of the highest
civil service
The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil servants hired on professional merit rather than appointed or elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leaders ...
grade: that would be €24,874.62 per month (not including family and other allowances).
[Basic salary of grade 16, third step is €18,025.09. 138% of €18,025.09 = €24,874,62 ]
[
]
The president receives a chauffeured car and around 20 dedicated staff members. He also has a housing allowance, rather than an
official residence
An official residence is the House, residence of a head of state, head of government, governor, Clergy, religious leader, leaders of international organizations, or other senior figure. It may be the same place where they conduct their work-relate ...
which was considered "too symbolic". Likewise, the idea of a private jet was also rejected for being symbolic and, as one diplomat pointed out, a discrepancy in privileges between the European Council and Commission presidents may only fuel rivalry between the two.
The possibility of there being greater perks for the European Council president than Commission president prompted Parliament to threaten a rejection of the 2009 budget. It saw a large salary and extras as a symbolic signal that the post is intended to become more powerful, increasing
intergovernmentalism
In international relations, intergovernmentalism treats states (and national governments in particular) as the primary actors in the integration process. Intergovernmentalist approaches claim to be able to explain both periods of radical change ...
at the Parliament's expense. With some in the Council suggesting a staff of up to 60, one MEP has argued in 2008 that the
Committee on Constitutional Affairs ought to drop the
gentlemen's agreement that Parliament and Council will not interfere in each other's budget.
President's office
Although the European Council is, under the terms of the Lisbon treaty, a separate institution of the EU, it does not have its own administration. The administrative support for both the European Council and its President is provided by the
General Secretariat of the Council of the European Union. The president does have, however, his own private office (''cabinet'') of close advisers. Van Rompuy chose as his first chief of staff (''chef de cabinet'') Baron Frans van Daele, formerly Belgian ambassador to, variously, the US, the UN, the EU and NATO and chief of staff of several Belgian foreign ministers. Upon his retirement in the autumn of 2012,
Didier Seeuws, former Deputy Perm Rep of Belgium to the EU and former spokesman for Belgian PM Verhofstadt, replaced him. Also in his team were the former UK Labour MEP
Richard Corbett and Van Rompuy's long standing press officer Dirk De Backer.
Democratic mandate
The lack of accountability to
MEPs
A Member of the European Parliament (MEP) is a person who has been elected to serve as a popular representative in the European Parliament.
When the European Parliament (then known as the Common Assembly of the ECSC) first met in 1952, it ...
or national
parliamentarians has also cast doubt as to whether national leaders will in practice stand behind the president on major issues.
Under the rotational system, the presidents simply had the
mandate
Mandate most often refers to:
* League of Nations mandates, quasi-colonial territories established under Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, 28 June 1919
* Mandate (politics), the power granted by an electorate
Mandate may also r ...
of their member states, while the new permanent president is chosen by the members of the European Council.
There have been calls by some, such as former German interior minister and current head of the Bundestag
Wolfgang Schäuble,
for
direct election
Direct election is a system of choosing political officeholders in which the voters directly cast ballots for the persons or political party that they desire to see elected. The method by which the winner or winners of a direct election are cho ...
s to take place to give the President a mandate, this would strengthen the post within the European Council allowing for stronger leadership in addition to addressing the question of democratic legitimacy in the EU. However, this might cause conflict with
Parliament's democratic mandate or a potential mandate for the Commission (see section below). To give a mandate to the European Council's president would signify a development of the
Union's governance towards a
presidential system
A presidential system, or single executive system, is a form of government in which a head of government, typically with the title of president, leads an executive branch that is separate from the legislative branch in systems that use separatio ...
, rather than a
parliamentary system
A parliamentary system, or parliamentarian democracy, is a system of democratic governance of a state (or subordinate entity) where the executive derives its democratic legitimacy from its ability to command the support ("confidence") of th ...
.
Relationship with Commission
There had been disagreement and concern over competition between the former president of the European Council Van Rompuy and the former Commission president Barroso, due to the vague language of the treaty. Some clarifications saw Van Rompuy as the "strategist" and Barroso as a
head of government
The head of government is the highest or the second-highest official in the executive branch of a sovereign state, a federated state, or a self-governing colony, autonomous region, or other government who often presides over a cabinet, a ...
. In terms of economic policy, Van Rompuy saw the European Council as dealing with overall strategy and the Commission as dealing with the implementation. Despite weekly breakfasts together, there was a certain extent of rivalry between the two yet-defined posts.
[ Duff, Andrew (23 February 2010]
Who is Herman Van Rompuy?
/ref>
Although the president of the European Council may not hold a national office, such as a prime minister of a member state, there is no such restraint on European offices. For example, the president may be an MEP, or more significantly the Commission president
The president of the European Commission is the head of the European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union (EU). The President of the Commission leads a Cabinet of Commissioners, referred to as the College, collectively accou ...
(who already sits in the European Council). This would allow the European Council to concurrently appoint one person to the roles and powers of both president of the European Council and president of the European Commission, thus creating a single presidential position for the union as a whole.
Since the creation of the European Council presidency, former president Van Rompuy and former Commission President Barroso had begun to compete with each other as Van Rompuy had benefited from the general shift in power from the Commission to the European Council yet with Barroso still holding the real powers. At international summits they continued previous practice of both going at the same time. The complicated situation had renewed some calls to merge the posts, possibly at the end of Barroso's term in 2014. However some member states had expected to oppose the creation of such a high-profile post.
If the posts are not to be combined, some believe that the dual-presidential system could lead to "cohabitation" and infighting between the two offices. While it is comparable to the French model, where there is a president
President most commonly refers to:
*President (corporate title)
* President (education), a leader of a college or university
* President (government title)
President may also refer to:
Automobiles
* Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ...
(the European Council president) and prime minister
A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is ...
(the Commission president), the Council president does not hold formal powers such as the ability to directly appoint and sack the Commission president, or the ability to dissolve Parliament. The European Council president has prestige, but lacks power. The Commission president has power, but lacks the prestige of the European Council president. Some believe this problem would be increased further if the Council president were to be strengthened by a democratic mandate
Mandate most often refers to:
* League of Nations mandates, quasi-colonial territories established under Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, 28 June 1919
* Mandate (politics), the power granted by an electorate
Mandate may also r ...
, as mentioned above.
List of presidents of the European Council
Rotating presidency
Permanent presidents
Timeline
See also
*List of presidents of EU institutions
This is a list of presidents of the institutions of the European Union (EU). Each of the institutions is headed by a president or a presidency, with some being more prominent than others. Both the President of the European Council and the Pres ...
** President of the European Parliament
**President of the European Commission
The president of the European Commission is the head of the European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union (EU). The President of the Commission leads a Cabinet of Commissioners, referred to as the College, collectively account ...
** Presidency of the Council of the European Union
* President of the European Union
References
External links
Official Website
A 'George Washington' for Europe
– BBC News
BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broadc ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:President Of The European Council
2009 establishments in the European Union
Political offices of the European Union