Columbia International Affairs Online: Policy Briefs

CIAO DATE: 01/2011

The belittled trio: Towards a new managerial identity for the rotating EU Council presidency

Kaisa Korhonen

December 2010

Finnish Institute for International Affairs

Abstract

The presidency of the Council of the European Union1 is still alive and rotating, albeit in a somewhat modified form, after the entering into force of the Treaty of Lisbon on 1 December 2009. At the same time as the prerogatives of the Council presidency were decreased in number by the new treaty, it was overshadowed by two new political figures with presidential mandates—the President of the European Council and the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.