Doing the Same With Different Results: Variations in EU Presidencies of Austria, Finland, Slovakia and Czechia

The Intricacy of the Presidency in the EU Institutional Framework

As the EU expands its scope and welcomes more members, the daily decision-making activities within the Council and other EU entities have grown significantly (Vanhoonacker et al., 2011). The negotiation process within the EU represents a sophisticated battlefield where leadership tactics, government priorities, organisational agendas and standard methods for achieving consensus converge (Cross and Vaznonyté, 2020). Within this institutional framework, the presidency of the EU Council plays a pivotal role. It not only possesses representational and procedural powers but also holds considerable sway in guiding the EU's agenda and steering discussions on legislative and non-legislative proposals.

The issue of the role of the EU presidency is certainly not an under-researched subject (e.g., Eisele et al., 2023; Fernández Pasarín, 2011; Hernández, 2023; Tallberg, 2006; van Gruisen and Crombez, 2021). In the narrowest sense, the main role of the presidency is logistical/organisational (Jensen and Nedergaard, 2017; Panke and Gurol, 2018; Vanhoonacker et al., 2011). The country also plays the role of an honest broker. It allows the presiding country to closely co-operate with other member states and with major EU institutions (van Gruisen and Crombez, 2021). In principle, this also does not exclude the inalienable right of the country to influence and direct the political agenda (political guidance). It can suppress some issues and address others as a matter of priority, thus indirectly influencing the promotion of its interests (Cross and Vaznonyté, 2020; Kaniok, 2014). Last but certainly not least, the country also serves as a promoter of the country itself as well as the promoter of the EU towards its citizens (Eisele et al., 2023; Schout and Vanhoonacker, 2006).

Some authors (e.g., Puetter, 2014) question the role and potential of the rotating presidency, as the Lisbon Treaty abolished the rotating presidency of the Foreign Affairs Council and the European Council and introduced a long-term elected presidency instead (Beach, 2012). Nevertheless, we imply that the Council presidency has kept much of its potential and influence. Whilst the roles that enabled member states to represent the EU externally and to promote their political priorities (i.e., to set the agenda) have been significantly suppressed, there are others (often more hidden) whose potential has significantly increased. Another element is the dynamics and leadership provided by the presidency. For instance, the General Secretariat of the Council (GSC) relies on the rotation, as it ensures constant progress of the agenda and it also shows the determination of the presiding country to move the agenda further (van Gruisen and Crombez, 2021).

Yet, the nature of this institution is delicate, and its functioning raises a number of questions. First, it is the variety of roles of the presidency that complicates the monitoring of processes, participants, stakeholders, negotiation tactics, results and their effects. Second, there are several factors that influence the performance of selected presidencies. These include, amongst others, political factors, the diplomatic skills of the staff or (un)foreseen crises testing the crisis management abilities of the presiding country. Furthermore, there is a lack of uniform reporting practices for presidencies, given that the presidency is not an institution with mandated accountability standards but is a role held temporarily.

Hence, one of the key aspects that significantly fuel the debate about the role of the presidency is how to assess the performance of the presiding countries. Several studies take a comparative approach for analysing presidency behaviour (Cross and Vaznonyté, 2020), including trio presidencies (Jensen and Nedergaard, 2014; van Gruisen et al., 2019), the communication dimension (Eisele et al., 2023; Nedergaard and Jensen, 2017), influence and leadership (e.g., Tallberg, 2006) and success (Smeets and Vennix, 2014). Other studies deal with assessments of single presidencies, such as van Hecke and Bursens (2011) or contributions to the JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies Annual Reviews and journals (e.g., Bilčík, 2017). Finally, scholars also investigate various factors that influence the performance of selected presidencies (e.g., Kovář and Weiss, 2023; Tuominen, 2022). Brincker and Netzer (2009) mainly focus on unforeseen crises, concluding that the effective management of a crisis has a decisive influence on the success of the respective EU Council presidency. However, these studies usually focus only on certain aspects of the presidency without providing its complex picture. Hence, a more thorough methodological framework for an examination of future EU presidencies remains an under-researched area within EU studies, apart from Nedergaard and Jensen (2017), Smeets and Vennix (2014) and recently Toneva-Metodieva (2020) or Vidačak and Milosic (2020). These studies, however, focus on outcomes, that is, the output side containing quantitative and qualitative indicators (such as the number of files closed and events) and do not consider the contextual side (internal and external factors that influence the presidency). Nonetheless, given the intricate nature of the presidency, it is the context that often matters in assessing the presidency. Hence, the internal and external factors deserve to be explored and confronted with the output side, which has thus far received the most attention when examining the impact these factors have on the presidency performance of a country.

The Output Side: The Output Indicators

Given the gap in the methodological approaches demonstrated above, this article aims to present a more concrete matrix of various indicators and factors that enhance understanding of the nature of presidency performance. It considers the ability to conduct the given tasks and fulfil the presidency's roles as one of the significant elements of the study. In this sense, the methodological design is based on five criteria, corresponding to five roles, that is, (1) administrative manager/organiser, (2) consensus seeker/honest broker, (3) external and internal representative, (4) an agent of national interests and (5) EU promoter, with a set of related quantifiable indicators, as introduced by Vidačak and Milosic (2020) and Toneva-Metodieva (2020).

In this matrix, the output side assesses presidency roles with a set of selected indicators presenting the achievements of the presiding country (see Table 1). (1) The presiding country's effectiveness in managing the Council work is evaluated by quantitative indicators like the number of legislative files closed (typically between 30 and 50) and the number of meetings held, including informal EU Council meetings, which are viewed as tools for self-promotion and informal diplomacy. (2) The role of a consensus seeker focuses on the presidency's ability to remain neutral and impartial to facilitate consensus. Performance is measured by the number of Council conclusions adopted and the level of consensus in Council voting. The ability to respond effectively to crises, although difficult to track, is also a critical indicator. (3) The presidency represents the Council in inter-institutional negotiations, a responsibility that has grown with shifting competencies amongst EU institutions. The number of trialogues during the presidency is a key indicator of the country's role in institutional co-operation. Furthermore, (4) the presidency promotes EU affairs within its country, enhancing engagement with citizens and providing opportunities for public discourse and political capitalisation by national political representatives. Indicators include the number of informal meetings, workshops and conferences and the intensity (high, medium, low) of media campaigns focused on EU issues (assessed in the interviews). Finally, (5) the role involves acting as an agent for national interests, evaluated by how well the presidency achieves key national priorities outlined in its programme and evaluated in the presidency's final reports.

Input Side: The Contextual Factors

Assessing performance only through the analysis of output indicators is insufficient, yet the second part of the matrix, the input side, has been so far neglected in the research. Contextual factors play a crucial role in presidency performance and substantially impact the output side. Amongst these, we consider domestic, intra-EU and international factors (see Table 2). They are further confronted with the output indicators in Table 3, which demonstrates the degree of impact that contextual factors have on the output side and on the ability to fulfil the five presidency roles.

First, domestic political factors assembled in Table 2 result from the domestic political situation of the respective country holding the EU presidency and may be more (e.g., national elections) or sometimes less predictable (e.g., domestic tensions and caretaker government). Table 3 reveals that these factors can markedly influence the presiding country's capacity to act both as a manager and organiser and as a promoter of the EU. Simultaneously, a medium impact is observed on the presiding country's roles as a consensus seeker and as an agent of national interests. Conversely, domestic factors have minimal interference in the presiding country's role in internal/external representation, as these processes are tightly linked to the EU's institutional dynamics. In this sense, (1) high tension and pressure between political parties signifies an increased level of instability of the political leadership managing the presidency. In the end, it could lead to the fall of the government, as it happened in Czechia in March 2009, where domestic events damaged the reputation of the Czech presidency. (2) Also, government effectiveness matters, and thus, the ability to push for the priorities of the presiding country is contingent on the domestic organisation and effectiveness of the state (Cross and Vaznonyté, 2020, p. 657). Moreover, (3) as another factor, we can also consider the attitude of the population, political parties and national leaders towards the EU. The attitudes may vary on the scale between Eurosceptic, neutral and Europhile. 2 They determine not only the willingness of political leaders to fulfil the tasks of the presidency but also the public support of the political elites in doing so. This also builds on the domestication of EU politics and underscores the potential of the presidency to serve as a window of opportunity for public debate (Eisele et al., 2023). The attitude of political representatives in the government (be it Eurosceptic, neutral or Europhile) matters also in the preparation phase as they are responsible to set the overall goals and ambitions of the presidency. To measure the level of ambitions of the political elites, we use amongst others two quantitative indicators, (4) the suggested budget of the presidency and its eventual changes over time and (5) the number of staff that a country employs in order to deal with presidency tasks. Based on the interviews with diplomats who were directly involved in the presidencies of the selected countries and subsequent analysis, we assume that a presidency budget smaller than €60 million is considered low, whereas an amount between €60 and €80 million is medium and a budget surpassing €80 million is high (e.g., Interviews 6 and 7). Similarly, the interviews with officials helped us determine the different levels of personnel representation employed during the presidency at the EU Permanent Representation and in other offices (low: less than 200, medium: 200–300, high: more than 300) (e.g., Interviews 6, 7 and 12). In the case of staff management, skills and the level of experience also matter. The countries with a repeated experience in presidency have a bigger pool of experienced officials and diplomats. In both cases, the indicators show how much resources the political elites are willing to sacrifice in order to exercise the roles of the rotating presidency. The number of staff may also indicate whether the managing institution is the Permanent Representation in Brussels or the office of the government located in the capital. However, the traditional dichotomy between a capital or Brussels-based presidency seems to be currently losing significance (Jensen and Nedergaard, 2017). The arrangement is often of a hybrid nature, as the connection with Brussels is tight (Interview 6).

Second, we deploy intra-EU/institutional factors as a part of the analysis, as the distribution of powers amongst political institutions (including the presidency) is an important determinant of policy outcomes (van Gruisen and Crombez, 2021). As Table 3 indicates, these factors affect the way the presiding country is able to cope with the administrative burden within the framework of the presidency, the flow of everyday EU business and the scope and reach of the respective work programme. Furthermore, these factors have a substantial effect on the presiding country's role as an agent of national interests and as a seeker of consensus. Notably, however, they exert a crucial influence on the country's capacity to act as an internal/external representative. There are significant intra-EU influences that could interfere in this sense, such as

(1) The end of the European Parliament's (EP) legislative cycle (elections in June every 5 years). The period preceding the EP elections often leads to closer and more intensive co-operation between the EP and the presiding country. However, the activity is rather slow just after the EP elections.

(2) The legislative cycle may also influence co-operation with the European Commission (EC), which is key to fulfilling the task of the rotating presidency. On many occasions, the Commission times its proposals and formulates a proposal on an issue when the presidency is close to itself on that issue (van Gruisen and Crombez, 2021). Co-operation thus may be intensive and smooth but may also get problematic (e.g., if there is a several-month-long vacuum before the new Commission is appointed).

(3) Amongst the intra-EU factors, we also add the position of the country in the trio (the first presiding country in the trio often has the most difficult position) and (4) the overall co-operation in the trio presidency. Jensen and Nedergaard (2014) argue that there are considerable variations between trio formations concerning whether they follow the same objectives and how much they co-ordinate to achieve these. Furthermore, the structure of the trio matters too. A large country may pose a danger of disbalance when it comes to the trio programme (Interviews 7 and 8). The research suggests that co-operation in a trio is indeed important, as it also affects the voting behaviour in the Council of the EU (van Gruisen et al., 2019).

Finally, Table 3 depicts how (5) internal (i.e., coming from within the EU) or (6) international (i.e., coming from outside the EU) crises critically affect the role of a consensus seeker but can also significantly impact all other roles of the country's presidency. The extent of this interference varies with the type of crisis, for example, an internal crisis such as COVID-19 or immigration could pose a greater risk to the presidency as it leads to disruptive tendencies within society. Research on presidencies often discusses crises without explicitly using the term. Instead, they refer to external shocks in the sense of unpredictable events of internal or external nature (Udovič and Svetličič, 2018; Vidačak and Milosic, 2020). Nevertheless, the role of crisis management has also been stressed by Udovič and Svetličič (2018, p. 7), concluding that external factors have a greater influence on EU Council presidencies than ‘objective factors’, such as country size and duration of membership/presidency experience.

A common trend involves categorising crises as either foreseen or unforeseen (Jensen and Nedergaard, 2014). The process of categorising a crisis hinges on whether it was addressed in the presidency's agenda. If it was pre-planned, it is deemed foreseen, but if it was not part of the agenda or was not identified as a crisis before the presidency, it is labelled unforeseen. The main problem with external factors is that they always interfere with regular procedures (Jensen and Nedergaard, 2017; Tallberg, 2006). In such cases, only setting the agenda is not enough; sometimes, states need to rearrange the agenda, prioritising certain agenda items, whilst others are postponed or even struck off the agenda. Based on their impact on the presidency's programme, crises range from those with low, medium to high intensity (e.g., the Eurozone crisis, the war in Ukraine or the migration crisis as highly intensive crises).

What matters is the reaction of states to external and internal shocks, especially as members are currently confronted with the new dynamics of the European polycrisis (Meissner and Schoeller, 2019), which affects multiple policy domains and fractures the cohesion of the Union's member states across new and changing cleavages (Zeitlin et al., 2019, p. 963). When a shock occurs during the presidency of a smaller country, the presidency usually relies on EU institutions (particularly the GSC) and on a bigger member within the presidency trio, and also the focus on building coherence amongst the members becomes primordial (Udovič and Svetličič, 2018, p. 9).

Research Design

To analyse each presiding country in a complex manner, the factors on the input side are cross-checked with indicators on the output side. In order to understand the position of the presiding country, we assess the context and interpret the data obtained from the research on four EU presidencies (Finnish, Austrian, Slovak and Czech).

Indeed, each of the four selected countries varies in terms of their administrative cultures and economic profiles and also shows a different story behind its EU presidency. The country profiles in Table 4 capture main differences when it comes to the experience, context and the approach towards the activities of the presidency.

To understand presidency preparations and the presidency itself, we first studied the political context and analysed strategic documents related to presidencies as well as numerous materials from EU institutions. Amongst the documents we examined were presidency programmes, final reports, reports for the EP, official presidency websites, Council conclusions (including statistics) or data from Eurobarometer. The comparative analysis is further supported by data collected from semi-structured interviews with 11 senior diplomats and officers involved in the selected EU presidencies and one GSC representative. The interviews were conducted between September 2020 and January 2023 as online calls or in-person meetings. Our sample included respondents from Permanent Representations, MFAs and government offices from the selected countries and from the GSC (see the list of interviews).

Our research design encompasses qualitative analysis (Patton, 2002). The analysis examined texts intensively to classify the information from documents and interviews into an efficient number of categories that represent similar meanings. These emergent categories were used to organise and group codes into meaningful clusters (Patton, 2002). The quantitative data from the output and input sides, including the numbers of ministerial meetings, expert-level meetings, workshops, seminars, conferences, working group meetings in Brussels or Luxembourg, trialogues, files closed and adopted Council conclusions as well as the number of staff and the budgets were collected from the official documents. The qualitative data linked with the preparation of the presidencies, the format of media campaigns, their co-ordination mechanisms, administrative and logistic tasks and relations with other member states and the main EU institutions or the main challenges the countries faced during the implementation of the presidencies were collected from the semi-structured interviews.

All data were assembled in Table 5. As more detailed categorisation of the data continued, they were sorted based on the assigned presidency roles (Tables 1 and 5) or as domestic, intra-EU or international factors (Tables 2 and 5). In the case of contextual factors, an open coding, that is, inductive coding, method was used, particularly with an aim to obtain a more complete, unbiased look at the contextual factors throughout the data from the interviews. After a categorisation scheme of output indicators and input factors was created, the collected data were discussed. Excerpts of data were compared amongst the selected countries and sorted, and relationships were identified between both sides associated with the three levels of impact indicated in Table 3.

The impact level of concrete factors (e.g., the effects of political representation, crises or communication with EU institutions) was investigated using insights from respondents who highlighted their influence on presidency performance, demonstrating them in concrete examples. These findings are presented in Sections IV and V of the article.

Whilst qualitative analysis provides valuable insights into four presidencies, it is crucial to acknowledge its limitations. Subjectivity in interpretation and the risk of misinterpreting data can affect accuracy. Some aspects of the framework require deeper insight, which are difficult to obtain solely from interviews or documents. To address this, existing research findings complement the data (e.g., Eisele et al., 2023; Hernández, 2023; Jensen and Nedergaard, 2014; Kovář and Weiss, 2023; van Gruisen et al., 2019; van Gruisen and Crombez, 2021; Vlček and Pařízek, 2022).

Managing and Organising Council Work

Captured activities are particularly affected by domestic factors and mirror the level of experience and ambition of each presiding country, reflected by the budget, by the number of staff or by the attitudes of its political representatives. Slovakia, for instance, held the EU presidency for the first time since the country joined the EU, an opportunity that propelled the country into a prominent role, elevating its profile within the EU. The political direction of the preparations was influenced by the ambitious but rather Eurosceptic social-democratic government, which set the limit for the presidency's budget at €70 million (Interview 1). Yet, the final bill was around €50.7 million, mainly due to the decision to maintain a Brussels-based model. The same decision was made by the Finnish government, with a goal to have a frugal budget (Interview 5, Uutiset, 2020). Austria, on the other hand, chose a hybrid version between Brussels- and capital-based approaches (Interview 1). The Austrian Chancellor announced that the presidency, ‘eine Spar-Präsidentschaft’, was of a frugal nature, with an originally planned budget of €43 million. However, the expenditure reached €92 million (Budgetdienst, 2018). The same situation repeated in the Czech case, where the first estimations done by a Eurosceptic government were low (approximately €50 million). Nevertheless, the preparation and implementation of the presidency continued under the guidance of the newly formed (and slightly more Europhile) government in 2021, and the final official budget rose to €76.7 million (Czech Government, 2023).

Apart from the budget and attitudes of political representation, it is the number and quality of staff that influence the organisational aspects of the presidency and its outcomes. Despite the fact that countries of medium or smaller size have been selected, each of them has a different organisational structure, capacity and diplomatic services when it comes to EU affairs. This has a significant impact on their activities and coverage of single policy areas. From Table 5, we observe that whilst Austria added only 47 officers to the staff in the Permanent Representation, Finland, Slovakia and Czechia brought almost double. It shows the role of the Permanent Representation and its involvement in presidency activities. Whilst Austria managed many activities from Vienna, for all three other countries, it was the key institution for presidency management (Interviews 1, 6, 8, 9 and 10). Also, due to the fact that Slovakia held the presidency for the first time, the increased capacity may have been a way to compensate for the lack of experience and networks within EU institutions, as newcomers often have lower personnel representation in the European institutions who may assist them (Interview 3). An experienced country that holds the presidency for the second or third time tends to benefit from previously established networks at the European level, as in the case of Austria: ‘we had also contacts in the institutions – two secondments directly from the GSC, and used people from the EC and vice versa – these contacts really helped’ (Interview 1).

Overall, the data show a crucial linkage between the management of the presidency and domestic factors. Whilst, at first, all the countries aimed to conduct rather frugal presidencies, the final reports showed significant discrepancies. In these four cases, we observe two different approaches to the presidency: ambitious (especially Austria) versus frugal (Finland), given their choice of the hybrid or Brussels-based presidency set-ups. Simultaneously, organisational tasks became more complex during periods of internal or international crisis, when Slovakia, Czechia and Austria opted to convene extraordinary – and therefore costly – summits to address the crisis.

The Role of the Honest Broker and Agenda Setter

The empirical data show that also the role of the honest broker may be seriously impacted by the approach of a country towards major issues. The fact that Austria, Slovakia and Czechia decided to organise special European summits in their capitals demonstrated a willingness and attempt to provide their own leadership rather than acting ‘only’ as an honest broker (Interviews 4 and 6). Contrastingly, Finland's approach towards the organisation of the European Council Summit was very reserved from the beginning due to traditional pragmatism, cost-effectiveness and sustainability reasons (Iso-Marku and Jokela, 2019). This does not necessarily show that Finland did not handle the situation appropriately. It rather suggests that context plays a certain role, together with the capacities and overall readiness of the country to provide leadership beyond the assigned role. Finland also conducted a number of meetings online and opted for centralised and digitalised services (Interview 5). This approach was, however, criticised by an Austrian officer; according to her, ‘the digitalisation could have negative effects on technical files and legislative proposals – these files require much more work, the consultations and preparation of the texts are much harder’ (Interview 4).

The analysis also uncovers that even if the country attempts to act as a leader handling an EU crisis, its image may still be severely harmed by failing to act as an impartial mediator in contentious and significant EU agendas (i.e., migration). In this regard, domestic factors appear crucial, particularly the attitudes of political representatives (Interview 10). The strong stances of Slovakia and Austria on migration issues enabled them to shape policies in a different direction (issues such as flexible solidarity, the reform of Frontex and the Dublin Regulation or the acceptance of a quota system were delayed or even postponed). More importantly, some of the Austrian political representatives had a very strong opinion – keeping migrants outside the EU's borders where possible (Schmidt and Breinschmid, 2018), promoting the motto ‘a Europe that protects’, which clearly responded to the migration and security crisis, with limited attempt to seek a consensus on this agenda at the EU level (Interview 3). At the same time, some concerns have been raised about the rhetoric of the Slovak prime minister, who spoke about no acceptance of Islam in Slovakia (Euractiv, 2016). Furthermore, the Austrian government also publicly expressed its rejection of Art. 7 (which shapes the enforcement of the rule of law), and the Austrian vice-chancellor described the idea of using Art. 7 against Hungary as ‘absurd’ (Hernández, 2023, p. 10). Hence, even such manoeuvring of the presiding country hinders the Council's activities in scrutinising backsliding governments (Hernández, 2023, p. 1). In contrast, according to Priebus (2023), the Czech presidency scored a political success by concluding the procedure against Hungary in a manner that presented Czechia as committed to European values (Interview 6). Also, due to soaring energy prices, Czechia had to co-ordinate a number of the files on a fast track, as ‘there was a need to react immediately’ (Interview 12). The Czech presidency achieved significant results, such as support for sanction packages or the approval of financial support for Ukraine (Czech Government, 2023). However, the presidency stalled other points of the agenda that were considered politically inconvenient and was not ambitious enough, for instance, in the climate agenda (Jirušek, 2023).

All these examples thus point to the fact that internal/international crises as well as domestic factors matter greatly in the way the presiding country positions itself as a consensus seeker or agenda setter. The examples also illustrate how pursuing national preferences over European interests may negatively affect the image of the presiding country (Interviews 3, 6, 9 and 10). Amongst others, it confirms the diminishing role of the agent of national interests in contrast to the roles of mediation and internal representation (see Cross and Vaznonyté, 2020).

The Role of Internal Representation

Whilst the roles of mediation and internal representation are increasingly important, it is rather problematic to assess this by the number of closed files or trialogues (as proposed by Udovič and Svetličič, 2018). Although the total amount of these activities may point to Austria, several, particularly intra-EU, factors directly influence performance and affect the ability of a country to act as an internal representative. As some of the interviewed mentioned (Interviews 2 and 4), results and closed files very much depend on the context and circumstances. As the figures in Table 5 suggest, the level of co-operation with other EU institutions, including the GSC, matters. But the relations were not always ideal: ‘the complications in communication with GSC were mostly connected with daily business issues – mostly with organisation of meetings – everything was given at short notice, or without prior consultations … that was really hard how to combine everything’ (Interview 4).

Moreover, an important factor is the legislative phase of the institutional term. The Austrian presidency, for instance, took place before the end of the legislative term of the EP, ‘when there was a push to finish as much of the agenda as possible’ (Interview 1). Indeed, holding the presidency before the EU elections provides the country with an opportunity to collect the fruits of the legislation procedure. But even an Austrian respondent (4) indicated certain issues: ‘The difficulties were rather with the EEAS – the part where Mogherini was in charge, they already had their program fixed, they let us know that this is what Ms. Mogherini wanted, but Austria also had certain elements which they wanted or did not want highlight, the negotiations were complicated, it was difficult to reach agreement’. Contrastingly, the Finnish presidency had limited opportunities: ‘the presidency is very much about the EP cycle … in the Finnish case, it was just after the elections in the EP. The EP could not enter the trialogue with the presidency for a long time. From the institutional point there was a lot more uncertainty’ (Interview 5). The beginning of the new institutional cycle very much affected the whole focus and legislation that Finland was responsible for. Finland was the first country that integrated the EU's 2019–2024 priorities into its presidency (Tuominen, 2022), but the EU institutions were not ready to launch trialogues. Indeed, the Finnish case shows that the country had its hands tied when the political cycle had not started, and the whole presidency had to therefore serve in a slightly different way. Its strength, however, laid in effective domestic governance structures, which set up a basis for progressing decisions in some of its priorities. These included the endorsement of the EU plan on climate neutrality, amendments negotiated pertaining to the existing Withdrawal Agreement with the United Kingdom and a negotiation box for the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) 2021–2027 (Finnish Government, 2019).

Moreover, another hardship with measuring outcomes alludes to the level of co-operation of trio partners. A Slovakian diplomat also argued that ‘we worked hard to reach an agreement in trilogues, but it was Malta who benefitted, as it received numerous files that were ready to be closed’ (Interview 3). Additionally, the Czech interviewee (12) confirmed that after an ambitious French presidency, many files were left open to be concluded by Czech diplomats. This again shows the weaknesses of the performance evaluation of this presidency role and the high impact of the intra-EU factors on it. The process leading to the closure of a file or trialogue or to reaching a consensus does not correspond much with the 6-month presidency period. Often, it is counted amongst the successes of the following presidency, or it depends on the performance of the previously presiding country and the overall intra-institutional dynamic.

The Role of the EU Promoter

Finally, even assessing the role of an EU promoter based purely on indicators may be questioned. According to Eisele et al. (2023, p. 2), an EU presidency has a stronger connection to its citizens, and it could help make EU politics more visible. Here, again, it is domestic factors that may seriously affect the role. This was confirmed by a high-ranking GSC official, who stressed that ‘the country's image was often in the hands of politicians, and the presidency was an opportunity to promote the EU on a domestic stage’ (Interview 10). This may be complicated in countries where citizens tend to be rather Eurosceptic, such as Czechia, which also struggles with long-term weak interest in EU affairs within the Czech population (Eurobarometer, 2023, Interview 12). Whilst the presidency may be regarded as a great window of opportunity to improve weak awareness in Czechia, it depends on the ability of the presiding country and its government to use it appropriately. According to Respondent 9, ‘the presidency media campaign was not targeted enough, and was unfortunately unable to sufficiently communicate its results’. Hence, the opportunity was rather missed, even if the new coalition in the Czech government after the elections in 2021 became rather Europhile.

Additionally, sometimes, it is a mixture of domestic and internal crises that interfere together. The government led by Sebastian Kurz, who after election in 2017 became chancellor of a coalition between his Austrian People's Party and the Freedom Party of Austria, also affected the Austrian presidency (Interview 4). Due to the migration crisis and the heterogeneous coalition of a pro-European conservative party and a Eurosceptic party, the narrative of the Austrian government changed and became rather confusing for Austrian citizens as well as for the EU (Interview 4). The Austrian case, as Eisele et al. (2023, p. 15) confirmed, shows that more salient coverage during a presidency if the government is divided or ambiguous does not necessarily promise a more informed debate about EU politics. On the contrary, it may even be counterproductive or just point to influences on national politics or party conflicts.

In contrast to these cases, the national dimension was not a concern during the Finnish presidency, mainly due to the fact that the overall attitude of the Finnish population and of its government towards the EU has been positive in the long term (European Commission, 2019). Whilst the media campaign was not ambitious, the communication by the Finnish government during the presidency was assessed as clear, comprehensible and straightforward (Interview 7).