European Council as culmination of the Czech Presidency

On 18 and 19 June the European Council presided by Czech Prime Minister Jan Fischer will be held.

On the agenda of the meeting will be extremely important issues, such as the negotiation and adoption of the wording of the guarantees for Ireland, financial and economic issues, including European financial supervision and employment, negotiations on the future President of the European Commission, development in preparations of the Copenhagen conference on the fight against climate change and EU international policy relations, particularly with respect to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

In light of the extremely complex programme of the European Council, the Prime Minister, the Foreign Minister and the Minister for European Affairs will go on a tour of European countries, the “tour des capitales”, where they will discuss the preparations of the European Council with their counterparts. On Monday 15 June the Czech Republic will also preside over the ministerial meeting of the General Affairs and External Relations Council in Luxembourg, which will carry out preliminary discussions of the topics of the European Council.

Selection from the schedule of the Prime Minister

On Monday 8 June the Prime Minister visited Brussels where he met with NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer.
On Tuesday 9 June the Prime Minister met with President of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso during an official breakfast, and in the afternoon he visited Germany where he met with Chancellor Angela Merkel.
On Wednesday 10 June in Sweden Jan Fischer met his counterpart Fredrik Reinfeldt.
On Friday 12 June the Prime Minister visited France. Nicolas Sarkozy will meet with him in Paris.
On Monday 15 June Prime Minister Jan Fischer met with Gordon Brown in London.

The preparations of the European Council in June and a successful conclusion of the Czech Presidency have been among the main priorities of Prime Minister Fischer since he assumed his office. “I assure you that my main concern is to conclude the Czech Presidency duly and without turbulence, and to continue the effective and successful leadership of Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek smoothly,” stated PM Fischer in his speech delivered at the Conference of Community and European Affairs Committees of Parliaments of the European Union (COSAC).