Text 12446, 47 rader
Skriven 2008-03-12 10:38:36 av Ward Dossche (2:292/854)
     Kommentar till en text av Roy Witt
Ärende: Re: Bush Vetoes Waterboarding Bill
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RW>WD> The Presidency rotates every 6 months and the presiding chairs of
RW>WD> the meeting are not elected.
 
RW> How is that different than the presidency rotating roles?
 
The Presidency is by a country. When it was Belgium's turn it was called "the
Belgian Presidency". We were followed by Luxembourg I think, so that was called
"the Luxembourg Presidency". "Presidency" in this particular case means the
country, but not a person as one would have it in "the Bush Presidency" for
example.
 
When a country has the Presidency then the overal coordination of those 6
months lies with the prime minister of that government. He will chair what is
called 'the council of ministers' which is actually composed by the prime
ministers of all countries assisted by their minister of foreign affairs.
 
The Chairman of the European Commission sits in on those meetings and is
positioned at the right of the prime minister of the host country.
 
Then for every of the commissions of the EC, a fine list can be viewed on the
page referenced by your best friend Björn Felten at
 
http://www.ec.europa.eu/commission_barroso/index_en.htm
 
There will be 2 meetings: one at the start of the presidency and one at the
end. Each chaired by the national minister responsible for the subject assisted
by the Commissionner seated on his/her right hand and attended by all the other
ministers responsible for that subject.
 
This has grown a bit into a pharce as the rule of thumb used to be that every
country had one Commissioner. That was fine as long as there were up to 12
members, then it went wrong. There are now 25 members and they actually had to
start looking for something for these people to do.
 
For example it used to be that transport, agriculture, fisheries and
environment were for 1 commissioner. Now there are 4, that 1 administration has
been split-up in 4 thereby quadrupling that cost. Every document must be
available in every language of the EU, that is 23 sets of every paper printed.
 
As a result the EU is on the brink of becoming unmanagable. It certainly must
be the biggest administration in the world and next to the US the biggest
useless money spender.
 
 \%/@rd

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 * Origin: Many Glacier -o=O=o- Preserve - Protect - Conserve (2:292/854)