Uformelt møde i Det Europæiske Råd den 23. februar 2018 - Bilag 1: Hyrdebrev og bilag vedr. diskussionsoplæg på de kommende flerårige finansielle rammer og institutionelle forud for det uformelle topmøde EU27 23/2-18

Europaudvalget 2017-18
Uformelt møde i Det Europæiske Råd 23/2-18 Bilag 1
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European Council

The President

Brussels, 21 February 2018

Dear colleagues,

As part of our Leaders' Agenda we will have an informal discussion at 27 on the new composition

of the European Parliament after Brexit and other institutional issues, and a separate one on the

post-2020 multiannual EU budget. Following my consultations, I would like to set the scene for our

discussions.

First we have to look at the composition of the future European Parliament following Brexit. It

seems only natural that fewer Member States should mean fewer seats. The Parliament itself has

proposed a solution, taking into account demographic changes over the past years and the

principle of degressive proportionality, which would result in 705 parliamentarians instead of the

current 751. The remaining seats would be kept as a reserve for future EU enlargements. It seems

that this proposal can be broadly supported and, if we all agree, legal procedures will follow,

bringing about a smaller European Parliament as of the 2019 European elections.

The second issue concerns the nomination of the President of the European Commission. The

European political parties intend to nominate lead candidates (known as

Spitzenkandidaten/

-kandidatinnen)

as their front-runners for this post. They applied this process for the first time in

2014. The European Parliament demands that the candidate for European Commission President

put forward by the European Council be picked exclusively from among those lead candidates.

This proposal, whose aim is to establish a kind of automatism, will be one of the subjects of our

discussion.

Another new idea in relation to the European elections is to create transnational lists. This project

is not without merit and is certainly worth discussing in view of the 2024 elections.

A number of other institutional issues, which have also been mentioned in the context of the

preparations, but do not need to be addressed now, include: the number of European

Commissioners, the possibility of a merger of the Presidents of the Commission and

the European Council, red cards for national parliaments and qualified majority voting.

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Uformelt møde i Det Europæiske Råd den 23. februar 2018 - Bilag 1: Hyrdebrev og bilag vedr. diskussionsoplæg på de kommende flerårige finansielle rammer og institutionelle forud for det uformelle topmøde EU27 23/2-18

Our second overall theme concerns the post-2020 Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF).

In October last year, we agreed to conduct a debate about our priorities, so that the European

Commission can receive political guidance from the European Council, before coming up with its

proposals. In recent debates we have set out new priorities, such as stemming illegal migration,

improving European security and defence as well as investing more in the Erasmus programme.

Additionally, we will have to face the issue of a gap in the EU budget due to Brexit. This shows the

seriousness of the challenges ahead. Beyond that, there is also the question of timing. There are

many reasons to speed up our work on the next MFF, as compared with the previous negotiations.

And this should be our aim, but as many of you pointed out during consultations, we also need to

be realistic.

To frame the discussions, I have prepared the two enclosed notes. They outline the most pressing

questions, where guidance is expected from you.

Apart from the two main discussions, other issues will be raised briefly. Following talks with

Prime Minister Gentiloni, I will recall the importance of helping to finance the actions in Libya.

President Anastasiades will update us about the developments around Cyprus, and President

Macron on the citizens' consultations. Finally, I will inform you of how I intend to prepare the draft

Brexit guidelines for our future relations with the UK ahead of our EU27 European Council in

March.

Our meeting will start at 12.00 with European Parliament President Tajani. After that, a working

lunch will be dedicated to the next institutional cycle, before we turn to the post-2020 Multiannual

Financial Framework. I expect our meeting to finish before 18.30.

Yours sincerely,

D. TUSK

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