András István Türke (ed.) - From the Slovenian Presidency to the Polish Presidency (original) (raw)

What Can Be Expected From the Slovenian Presidency of the Council of the European Union

KKI 4:1, 2021

In the 4:1 series of the Institute for Foreign Affairs and Trade, four experts give a short answer to the same question concerning international politics and economics. Our aim is to launch scientific debates in and beyond Hungary and promote dialogue among experts. In this issue our topic is “What Can Be Expected From the Slovenian Presidency of the Council of the European Union?”.

The Polish EU Council Presidency in 2011: Master or Servant?, "Journal of European Integration "

The point of departure of this article is limited systematic research on the rotating EU Council Presidency after the Lisbon Treaty. In order to assess rotating presidencies the paper proposes a three-tier approach which includes a functional, a behavioural and a contingency dimension. These dimensions are supplemented by the institutional changes of the Lisbon Treaty referring to the rotating presidencies. Next, the paper applies this evaluation framework to the Polish Presidency that took place in the second half of 2011. Finally, it draws conclusions from the Polish case for both the leadership capacity of the rotating Council Presidency in the post-Lisbon European Union and the performance of Poland’s EU Council Presidency.

Agenda setting during Presidency holding – a comparative assessment of foreign policy making of Hungary and Poland towards the European Neighbourhood Policy

The question if Presidency holding offers a window of opportunity to drive the EU’s agenda towards national preferences has been subject to an extensive academic debate. Provisions introduced by the Lisbon Treaty transferred the management of the EU’s foreign affairs to the agendas of the President and the High Representative, and thus limited functions and position of the rotating Presidency. However, with two extreme scenarios produced by the Spanish and Belgian Presidencies it is still not clear how these amendments have affected the system of the rotating Presidency holding in the area of foreign policy making. This paper aims to explore what is the position of the rotating Presidency in the post-Lisbon context with reference to leadership and influence capacity of both the institution and the Member State in the chair. The research is based on the comparative analysis of the Hungarian and Polish Presidencies and is focused on two case studies within the European Neighbourhood Policy: foreign policy making towards North Africa and Eastern Europe. In methodological terms it presents preliminary findings of the PhD project focusing on the exploring usefulness in employing role theory into the study on the Presidency holding. It examines how the role conception of Presidency holding is being created at the national level prior to Presidency holding and if and how it changes while in the office. Preliminary findings show that successful projection of role conception as an active actor in European Foreign Policy making to the European level is a necessary condition for promotion of national priorities.