Strategic Panorama 2009 - 2010 - IEEE

The Treaty of Lisbon and the common security and defence policy
Under the Lisbon Treaty the European Council elects by a qualified majority
its President, who serves a two and a half year term that may be extended
once. One of the functions of the President of the European Council is to
represent the Union externally, in accordance with his status and condition,
in CFSP matters, without prejudice to the powers of the HR.
It is the responsibility of the European Council, with the approval of
the President of the Commission, to appoint by a qualified majority the
High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.
The European Council may end his term of office by the same procedure
(article 18 TEU - Lisbon). If international developments so require, the
President of the European Council shall convene an extraordinary meeting
to define the strategic lines of the Union’s policy in the face of such developments
(article 26 TEU – Lisbon).
It is important to accommodate the new figure promptly among the
rest of the Union’s players. For his part, following his appointment, Van
Rompuy promised to take into account the interests and sensibilities of all
parties and to endeavour to guarantee consensus in the decisions of the
Twenty-Seven.
The Council
The Council is comprised of a representative of each Member State
at ministerial level, who may commit the government of that Member
State (article 16 TEU - Lisbon). Its functioning is regulated by its Rules of
Procedure (2) (RP, which will need to be amended now that the Lisbon
Treaty is in force). Prominent among the Council configurations up until
the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon was the General Affairs and
External Relations Council (GAERC).
The GAERC covered two main areas of activity (article 2.2 of the RP):
• Preparation for and follow-up to the European Council meetings,
including the necessary coordination of all preparatory work, overall
coordination of policies, institutional and administrative questions,
horizontal dossiers which affect several of the European Union’s
policies and any dossier entrusted to it by the European Council.
• The whole of the European Union’s external action, namely CFSP,
ESDP, foreign trade, development cooperation and humanitarian
aid.
(2) http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2006:285:0047:0071:EN:PDF
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