Does the Trio matter? The case of the Slovenian EU Council Presidency1

Abstract

Introduction The idea of establishing a Trio Presidency for the European Union Council (hereafter EU Council) aimed at replacing the national short-term oriented presidencies with a more stable and long-term oriented presidency, to assist the less experienced (new) member states in conducting their presidencies, and finally to promote Community interests. Within this context, the key questions are whether the Trio structure: (i) materializes Community interests better than in the case of a single country presidency; (ii) makes presidencies less short-term oriented; and (iii) enables better continuity of programs at EU level. Taking into consideration the above-mentioned characteristics of the Trio, our analysis, has four goals: (i) to evaluate the Trio's modus operandi characteristics; (ii) to clarify whether the Trio has been (and still is) instrumental in helping newcomers to conduct their presidencies; (iii) to determine to what extent experiences of the 'old' and large nations influence the decision-making processes of the new and small states; (iv) to provide some suggestions for improving the Trio form of presidency in the future based on the Slovenian presidency (in the first half of 2008), as perceived by its internal actors (i. e. decision-makers, politicians, diplomats and other civil servants). We concentrate on five research questions: 1. Does the Trio form of presidency represent a substantial assistance mechanism for small new member states lacking human capital, knowledge and experiences? How far does a small state--by shouldering on EU institutions--compensate its limited pool of human resources and knowledge gaps? 2. Does the role of the Trio differ at different stages of the presidency (presidency preparation, execution, evaluation)? 3. Which were the most problematic issues for Slovenia within German-Portuguese-Slovene Trio? Was Slovenia able to cope with the challenges and opportunities offered by the Trio structure? Was Slovenia able to materialise a more efficient and a better-coordinated public administration? Which were the key internal problems harming Slovenia's presidency? 4. Was Slovenia, within the Trio, an agenda-setter, policy entrepreneur or just an honest broker? Was Slovenia just following the Trio programme (downloading) or did public officials use this opportunity in order to influence the EU agenda (uploading)? 5. Do asymmetries in the Trio structure (different size of states, their membership age and experiences with presiding) substantially influence the conduct of the presidency and presidency policy-making? The article is organized as follows. The introduction precedes the theoretical part which provides a conceptual framework about the Trio presidency. In the third part, the methodology of the survey, i. e. semi-structured interviewing and focus-group, is presented. This constitutes a framework for discussing the final results presented in the fourth part of the article. Finally, the article provides a conclusion and gives some suggestions for further research. EU Council presidency, Trio and Trio member states: a theoretical overview The team presidency concept was drafted at the Seville summit in 2002. The draft was elaborated at the meeting of Permanent Representatives (COREPER II) to the EU in March 2006, and approved by the General Affairs and External Relations Council (GAERC) in June 2006. It replaced the previous one-year operational programme and three-year strategic programme for the Union by an 18-month programme of three successive Presidencies. The idea was to overcome discontinuities between consecutive presidencies and the insufficiency of the six months presidencies to pursue more complex projects (SlosarCik, 2008: 92). The background of the process of establishing a Trio presidency was the idea that different cultural and economic traditions are rooted in the EU member states. …