Zadania polskiej prezydencji w Radzie Unii Europejskiej

Abstract

On July 1st 2011, Poland will take over a six-month Presidency of the EU Council. The Presidency is held periodically by each member of the European Union. It is a time of hard work and extraordinary responsibility for the direction, style and intensity in which things are moving forward in the EU. It is also a matter of enormous prestige and a big chance of multidimensional promotion for Poland in a cultural, economic as well as a political sense. In practice it means that Poland will be hosting or chairing most of European events that are envisaged to be organised in the second half of 2011, including meetings of the EU Council and its subsidiary bodies, ministerial conferences and expert meetings. It will be a real test o f efficiency and effectiveness for the Polish public administration. During the second half o f the year 2011 will be an exceptional year for Poland in European affairs. It will be a huge challenge, an important responsibility and a privileged period. The Treaty of Lisbon strongly reduced the importance of the Presidency, significantly by officially separating the European Council (EU heads of state or government) from the Council of the European Union, thus terminating the capacity of the head of state or government of the member state holding the Presidency to be President of the European Council. Simultaneously it split the foreign affairs Council configuration from the General Affairs configuration and made the High Representative the chairman rather than the foreign minister of the Presidency state. In the current EU constitutional framework, the EU Council retains the task to actively engage in negotiating legislation among member states and among the EU Council and the European Parliament, although the most difficult dossiers are subsumed by the President of the European Council. Polish Presidency should defend the values which are dear to Europeans: a common civilization. European countries are envied for their political stability, for their welfare and social-security systems, for the quality of European life. These are accomplishments to be proud of.