Last week the National School of Government came to Budapest for an
extremely useful training session for a group of Embassy staff on what
to expect under the Hungarian EU Presidency. They covered for example
the EU decision making process; the challenges we will face; how the
rotating Presidency fits into the new EU architecture; “jargon busting”
(just look at almost any EU website and you’ll see why this is
important); Hungarian policy priorities; and what the UK would like to
happen during the Presidency. Although we are familiar with a lot of
this, we will face big demands on our time and resources during the
Presidency and need to be as well prepared as possible. British
Ministers and Senior Officials will expect us to be the “experts” on the
spot – not just about Hungary, but about the EU too. And the demands
can be quite unusual – we were told how one of our Embassies was asked
to find out how many mating badgers there were in setts in the country
holding the Presidency at the time. Why? Don’t ask me! Kispál és a Borz
would have been a bit alarmed…. (Obscure and not very good joke about a
Hungarian rock band.)
And then this week a few of us are off to
Brussels for a couple of days for meetings with colleagues from the UK
Representation to the European Commission, the Political and Security
Committee and our bilateral Embassy (Belgium, of course, holds the
Presidency at the moment) as well as some Hungarian counterparts. It’s a
good chance to find out what they expect from us and what life in the
Presidency country will be like once it’s Hungary’s turn. And a chance
too for me to brief my colleagues on what I think will happen under a
Hungarian Presidency. The forecast for Brussels is cold and wet, so I
don’t suppose it will be much fun! And since we are travelling by a
low-cost carrier with only carry on baggage, let’s hope we don’t get
soaked…