Hello. Today we had a great day, a good kick-off start for the year, for the first General Affairs Council meeting today, we were introduced the Croatian program for the Presidency and personally I'm very happy that they will continue the work on Rule of Law that was done during our Finnish Presidency. We also had a very intensive discussion on the conference of the future of Europe, I must say that the scope is still quite white but I can conclude that the majority of the member states seems to support the idea of engaging the citizens. The introduction questions are all important but we should put emphasis on the citizens perspective, such as the Rule of Law, climate change and the democracy. The sad moment during the Council meeting was the farewell speech of the Minister representing United Kingdom. This was the last General Affairs Council meeting, last time that the UK minister was attending an EU Council meeting. The speech was very beautiful, but it was a goodbye speech, a sad moment but I count on UK to stay as a strong part of Europe and a committed partner to the European Union. We also had a long discussion on the MFF. I very much welcome the president of the European Council invitation on 20th of February to have an extraordinary summit on the MFF. Today we only discussed the process and I would like to say that it looks like everybody now understands that we are entering the very final stages of the MFF processes. Everybody understands that it is gonna be a compromise and we are willing to make the decision, everybody needs to come across to give something in order to get something having consulted all the member states during our presidency last autumn, I think that we can be at the very final stage very soon, and I'm optimistic and I can say that at least our Prime Minister is very dedicated to stay in the summit as long as it takes in order to have the agreement in February. That's what our citizens expect so now it's time to deliberate.
Well, I hope that everybody are flexible because we need to compromise. Everybody have of course national interests but if we are willing to have a European budget it means that we are going to have an European budget. Not a Finnish one, not a Danish one, but an European one, so it means that everybody needs to give something in order to get something.
I wouldn't recommend that to anybody. I hope that all the leaders come to a summit in a good spirit of compromise and ready to agree together.
Thank you very much.
Doorstep by Tytti Tuppurainen, Minister for European Affairs of Finland, following the General Affairs Council, taking place on 28 January 2020, in Brussels.
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General Affairs Council - January 2020
EU Ministers of Foreign and European Affairs meet on 28 January 2020, in Brussels. The meeting is chaired by Andreja Metelko-Zgombić, Croatian State Secretary for European Affairs. The meeting starts with a presentation of the priorities of the Croatian presidency for the first half of 2020. This item is taken in public session. The Council also holds an exchange of views on the proposed Conference on the Future of Europe.
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