Containing an EU-wide fall-out over north African migrants

Driving forward enlargement

Among the most visible successes of Hungary's turn in the rotating presidency of the EU's Council of Ministers was the completion of Croatia's membership talks. That was made possible, above all, by Croatia's own drive for reform, but Hungary made sure that this would be matched by prompt action on the EU's side. Accession talks were wrapped up in the dying hours of Hungary's presidency last Thursday (30 June), just days after Iceland had begun its membership negotiations. Talks with Turkey, by contrast, remain in effect suspended, with no new policy area opened since June 2010.

Hungary took over the rotating presidency of the Council of Ministers just before the Union's southern neighbourhood erupted in a wave of
unrest and uprisings. This forced EU policymakers to reconsider their relations with a string of countries that had been receiving significant financial assistance from the Union, but very little political attention. Most of that work was undertaken by Štefan Füle, the European commissioner for neighbourhood policy, and Catherine Ashton, the EU's foreign policy chief, rather than by the rotating presidency.

The rotating presidency's limited role in foreign affairs is a product of the EU's Lisbon treaty, but Hungary's turn in the presidency was the first after the Lisbon provisions had been put into practice with the launch of the European External Action Service (EEAS). Hungary, as a result, stepped back from almost all foreign relations tasks. It happened to have an embassy in Tripoli, the Libyan capital, where the EU has no delegation, and consequently represented the EU in government-controlled Libya after the outbreak of civil war there. Hungarian officials suggested that the embassy might now close.