Presidency of the Council of the
European Union
Presidency of the EU Council
Current Presidency logo
Incumbent
Czech Republic
Term length
Six months
Inaugural holder
Belgium
Formation
1958
Website
www.eu2009.cz
Presidency of
the Council
of
the
European Union is the responsibility for the
functioning of the Council of the European
Union which is rotated between European
Union member states every six months.
There is no single president but rather the
task is undertaken by an entire national gov-
ernment, hence that state influences the dir-
ection of European Union policy during its
term. Although it rotates every six months,
since 2007 the current presidency has
worked with the last and next one on a com-
mon political programme.
Functioning
The Presidency, which is sometimes inform-
ally called the EU Presidency, has as its
primary responsibility to organise and chair
all meetings of the Council. However, work-
ing out compromises capable of resolving dif-
ficulties is in practice also a primary respons-
ibility. The post as President of the Council of
the European Union is for each separate
meeting held by the responsible government
minister of the member state holding the
Presidency.
Trio presidencies
The presidency in some regards is now being
executed in a shared manner in order to cope
with the rather short six month term of the
presidency.
Three
successive presidents
forming a "triple-shared presidency" work
together over a 1.5 year period to accomplish
a common agenda by the current president
simply continuing the work of the previous
"lead-president" after the end of his/her term.
It should be noted that the legal structure
has not officially been modified; rather, it is a
de-facto method of operation. However, the
Final Act of the IGC in the Treaty of Lisbon
would formalise this procedure. This process
also allows new member states to hold the
presidency sooner, and at the same time the
triplets are arranged so that, in each of them,
there are both new and old member states,
with the assumption that the