Belgian style on the EU 'hot seat'

Taking over the "hot seat" from Spain, from January 1, 2024, Belgium officially assumed the presidency of the Council of the European Union (EU) for the next six months.

Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo. (Source: belgian-presidency)

The atmosphere is exciting in Brussels, but there are many challenges ahead, from the influx of refugees, socio-economic difficulties to maintaining solidarity within the bloc.

First is the huge workload, with more than 100 legislative projects due to be completed between now and April 2024, including reforming the bloc's asylum process and adjusting controversial artificial intelligence laws.

Next, Belgium must urgently develop a long-term budget program that can be approved at the special EU Summit on February 1. The most difficult thing is how to create consensus on the 50 billion Euro aid to Ukraine that is currently being blocked by Hungary.

Meanwhile, time is pressing, with European Parliament elections due in April. If the bills are not passed in time, everything will have to be pushed back to the fall, when the EU’s new governing bodies will be formed.

In addition, Belgium will hold elections in June 2024. No one knows whether Prime Minister Alexander De Croo’s government will still have enough mind to care about the EU when the possibility of re-election is still unclear.

However, Mr. De Croo is quite confident in Belgium's role as President of the EU Council. According to him, this is the 13th time Belgium has held this position, so Brussels has a lot of experience. In particular, Foreign Minister Hadja Lahbib said that "compromise in the Belgian style" is Belgium's secret. Specifically, because Belgium is a multilingual, multiethnic country with many ideas, it is more accustomed to discussing and finding compromises than creating problems.

It is not known how Belgium will overcome the challenge, but hopefully the Belgian style will leave its mark on the EU "hot seat".

Source: https://baoquocte.vn/phong-cach-bi-tren-ghe-nong-eu-256176.html