Foreign

Home page

Foreign

Belgian priorities during EU Presidency publicized

02 July 2010 09:20 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Lachin Sultanova - APA. From 1 July to 31 December 2010 Belgium will hold the Presidency of the Council of the European Union for the twelfth time. This will be a special Presidency for several reasons. Mainly, because Belgium will have to carry out its duties within the framework of the new Treaty of Lisbon which came into force on 1 December 2009 and which involves a whole series of innovations. The program of the 6-monthly Belgian Presidency of the European Union is imbedded in the 18 month program of the team Presidency (Spain-Belgium-Hungary). It is built around 5 theme clusters:

1. Combating the economic crisis and promoting economic and financial modernization

2. Combating global warming and concentrating on the environmental aspects in the broader sense: an important focus for the Belgian Presidency will be the 2010 United Nations Climate Change Conference in CancÃºn (Mexico) in December 2010,

3. Expansion of the EU: Belgium will help to advance the accession negotiations already in progress and will strive, as an honest broker, for EU consensus.

4. Further strengthening of the social dimension in the EU: The Belgian Presidency will draw attention to the European Year for Combating Poverty (2010) and will strive for the continued execution of the Commissionâ€™s 2008 Social Agenda.

5. Implementation of the Stockholm Programâ€™s action plan for justice and home affairs, asylum and migration, which establishes the framework for future activities with a view to strengthening judicial cooperation in civil and criminal cases, combating crime on a Union-wide scale, access to the territory, asylum and immigration, and increased external action by the Union in these sectors.

Paradoxically, at the same time, the Belgian Embassy in Baku, as in the rest of the world, will no longer be in charge of the local EU presidency in Baku, which it held for 12 months over the last 18 months (on behalf of the Czech Republic and Spain). Under the new rules of the Lisbon treaty, the external representation of the EU is now the sole responsibility of the EU delegations around the world, thus putting an end to the role of the rotating presidencies in the external representation of the Union.

To celebrate the 12the Belgian EU presidency, the Belgian Embassy in Baku has invited the famous Belgian flutist, Christian Plouvier, to perform at an official concert on the 21st of July, the National Day of Belgium. On the 22th of July, the Belgian embassy will organize a charity concert with the same artist, together with Buta Art Centre, a non-profit organization, established in 2005 in order to promote Azeri culture throughout the world. All proceedings of the charity concert will be donated to the child helpline service, run by the NGO alliance for Childrenâ€™ Rights. The child helpline service aims at responding to the emergency needs of every child in need of care and protection throughout the country.