Van Rompuy seeks new working methods

President of the European Council shows a readiness to improvise.

Taking the lead at his first summit as president of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy showed a readiness to improvise working methods.

He co-ordinated preparatory meetings between the handful of government leaders who were most important to the discussions on Greece, to ensure that when the European Council met as 27 nations the outcome was not in doubt.

The severity of the Greek crisis had prompted Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the Eurogroup, the finance ministers of the eurozone, to resort to novel working methods on the eve of the Council meeting.

Juncker organised the group’s first video-conference on Wednesday afternoon (10 February) to prepare a statement on Greece to be endorsed by the European Council. But the governments were split on whether an explicit pledge of financial support should be made, with France among those stressing the need to reassure markets, while Germany warned of moral hazard if Greece were seen to be let off the hook.

Juncker then passed the baton to Van Rompuy, who organised two separate meetings with key players on the morning of the summit to finalise the text.

On the morning of the summit, Van Rompuy held a breakfast involving: José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the prime minister of Spain, which currently holds the rotating presidency of the Council of Ministers; Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the European Central Bank; and José Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission.

Profiting from a delay to the start of the summit caused by snow, he then organised a meeting at 10.30 attended by Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, Nicolas Sarkozy, France’s president, and George Papandreou, Greece’s prime minister, with Trichet and Barroso arriving at the end to give their approval to the text.

Van Rompuy was then able to present this text to other leaders as a fait accompli, before emerging from the Bibiothèque Solvay to read it to the waiting television cameras.

Fact File

Leaders weigh up Haiti aid options

Although the eurozone’s difficulties dominated the summit, the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti also featured. The EU’s leaders said that they were open to a request from the United Nations to send soldiers to Haiti.

The UN is asking for extra troops from donor nations to help with the construction of temporary camps for the hundreds of thousands of Haitians left homeless after the January earthquake. Aid officials say that the rainy season, expected to start later this month, poses a new threat to those left homeless, many of whom do not have even a tent as shelter.
José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, Spain’s prime minister, said that the EU’s 27 national leaders were “quite receptive” to the UN’s appeal.

Catherine Ashton, the EU’s foreign policy chief is currently assessing what assets member states could provide to Haiti.

If deployed, the European soldiers would be sent under their national flags to assist ongoing relief efforts, rather than as part of an EU military mission. A small EU team in Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti, would help co-ordinate their efforts.

Several EU member states have already sent police to Haiti to help protect aid deliveries.

The extra aid comes on top of a further €90 million that the European Commission said it would send in emergency humanitarian aid funds to Haiti. If approved by EU governments and the European Parliament, the total EU aid to Haiti would top €609m.

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