Van Rompuy looks for more informality

National government leaders will meet in Brussels next Thursday (11 February) for their first meeting under the chairmanship of Herman Van Rompuy, the new permanent president of the European Council.

Van Rompuy has opted for an informal meeting with the aim of encouraging brainstorming. Unusually, it will begin in the morning, at 9.30am, and is expected to finish around 4pm.

Van Rompuy has switched the meeting venue away from the Justus Lipsius headquarters of the Council of Ministers, where EU summits usually take place, to the Bibliothèque Solvay, in the nearby Parc Léopold, close to the European Parliament's Brussels building.

Van Rompuy's initial intention was to devote the discussion to plans for economic recovery and in particular the proposals for Europe 2020, the recovery and growth plan being drawn up by the European Commission to replace the Lisbon strategy.

But in addition, he has been obliged by circumstances to include discussions of the EU's approach to international negotiations on climate change, after the failure of December's Copenhagen talks, and assistance to Haiti following last month's earthquake.

Policy initiatives

Both José Manuel Barroso, the president of the Commission, and Van Rompuy will present non-papers at the summit giving their thoughts on what should go into the Europe 2020 strategy.

Barroso said on Tuesday (2 February) that he and Van Rompuy had agreed a “division of labour” under which Barroso's paper will focus on what targets and policy initiatives should be included in Europe 2020 and Van Rompuy's will focus on how compliance with the new strategy should be enforced. The Commission will present a formal proposal on Europe 2020 on 3 March.

The discussion on Europe 2020 will take place as part of a working session on “how to promote economic recovery and jobs”, when leaders may also discuss the economic situation in Greece and progress in reforming bank regulation.

The Copenhagen climate change conference was widely seen as a defeat for the EU because it failed to secure the target-specific, legally binding agreement that the EU wanted.

Van Rompuy has stressed repeatedly that he wants to discuss how the EU can increase its negotiating power in international talks.

Van Rompuy has said that the “magnitude” of the disaster in Haiti, where at least 150,000 people are believed to have died, convinced him to put it on the summit agenda.

He said the discussion would focus on how to support reconstruction efforts in the country.