As you probably know, the presidency of the Council rotates among the EU members states [1] every 6 months. However the member states are working together in so called »trio« over the period of 18 months in order to be able to set longer term goals. Based on that then each state sets its more detailed 6-month programme. This system was introduced back in 2009 by Lisbon treaty.
Now we are in the Romania, Finland and Croatia period and the 18 months programme may be found here [2]. As mentioned before the Romanian presidency set a provisional agenda for the EU Council meetings [3]. Feel free to take a look and find out what they are up to.
The revised order of the presidencies of the Council runs until 2030 (the previous decision covered only until June 2020) and is set out below:
List of presidencies of the European Council until 2030
| Romania | January-June | 2019 |
| Finland | July-December | 2019 |
| Croatia | January-June | 2020 |
| Germany | July-December | 2020 |
| Portugal | January-June | 2021 |
| Slovenia | July-December | 2021 |
| France | January-June | 2022 |
| Czech Republic | July-December | 2022 |
| Sweden | January-June | 2023 |
| Spain | July-December | 2023 |
| Belgium | January-June | 2024 |
| Hungary | July-December | 2024 |
| Poland | January-June | 2025 |
| Denmark | July-December | 2025 |
| Cyprus | January-June | 2026 |
| Ireland | July-December | 2026 |
| Lithuania | January-June | 2027 |
| Greece | July-December | 2027 |
| Italy | January-June | 2028 |
| Latvia | July-December | 2028 |
| Luxembourg | January-June | 2029 |
| Netherlands | July-December | 2029 |
| Slovakia | January-June | 2030 |
| Malta | July-December | 2030 |
However, why is the presidency so important in relation to staff of the EU institutions?
Well the presidency represent the Council and its relation to the institutions. Particularly important the relation with European Commission and European Parliament. The presidency role is to try to reach the agreement through trialogues on legislatives files, negotiations meetings and Committee meetings. Which means, the presidency is in charge on the aspect of EU institutions staff working conditions set in staff regulations. And this is the area which can be particularly tricky in the coming years.