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Original title: Portugal takes office because the presidency of the EU is not light
Xinhua News Agency, Brussels, January 1 (International observation) Portugal does not have the light burden of assuming the presidency of the EU
Xinhua News Agency reporter Li Jizhiwen New Year
In 2020, facing a series of difficult problems, the EU has made many achievements and left some regrets.
On January 1, 2021, Portugal assumed control of Germany and began to hold the rotating EU presidency for six months, taking on the important task of leading EU countries to address internal and external challenges.
Many problems
In 2020, the EU will face many problems, such as the new corona epidemic, the economic contraction, the intensification of the differences with the United States and the constant conflicts with Turkey.
At the beginning of the new corona epidemic, European countries adopted a series of epidemic prevention measures and once the epidemic was controlled. Since then, many countries have relaxed their epidemic prevention measures to resume production and life, along with people’s lax psychology and other factors, the epidemic has recovered.
The epidemic has seriously affected the European economy. The European Commission issued economic forecasts in early November 2020, indicating that the economies of the European Union and the Eurozone are expected to contract by 7.4% and 7.8% respectively in 2020, while the economies of Spain , Italy and France, which have been the most affected by the epidemic, will be reduced by 12.4% in 2020, 9.9%, 9.4%.
In 2020, conflicts between the EU and the United States over security, economy and trade and international governance will become increasingly important. The new corona epidemic has worsened the relationship between Europe and the United States. In the early days of the epidemic, the United States had intercepted masks shipped to Germany and France, recalled virus test kits from Italy, where the epidemic was severe at the time, and even attempted to take the research results as its own and the development of Germany’s new coronavirus vaccine …
The relationship with Turkey is also a critical point for EU diplomacy in 2020. First, due to the escalation of the war in Idlib, Syria, Turkey used the “open doors and free the refugees” to pressure the EU to to seek support; then Turkey continued to split with the EU due to disputes with Cyprus and Greece over natural gas resources in the eastern Mediterranean.
Have qualifications
Looking back on 2020, in terms of economic recovery, the EU launched an economic recovery plan with a total scale of more than 1.8 trillion euros in July, including a long-term budget of 1.074 trillion euros from 2021 to 2027 and a recovery fund of 750 billion euros. This is the largest economic stimulus package in the EU to date.
Regarding the negotiations between the United Kingdom and Europe, the United Kingdom and the EU announced on December 24, 2020 the end of negotiations on the future relationship between the two parties and reached an agreement on a number of cooperation details, including trade. This means that since the 2016 UK Brexit referendum the ‘No Deal Brexit’ haze hovering over the UK and the EU for many years has finally disappeared.
Not only that, as 2021 approaches, China and the EU will complete the negotiation of an investment agreement as scheduled, which will inject strong impetus to deepen China-EU cooperation, boost the recovery of the world economy in the period. post-epidemic and promote global development and prosperity.
In addition, regarding the new corona vaccine, the EU learned from the lack of unity during the spring outbreak, strengthened coordination on the issue of the new corona vaccine, unified funding for research and development, he unified the reserve and distributed it to all countries at the same time. On December 27, 2020, many member states of the European Union officially launched the crown’s new vaccination work, which increased the confidence of Europeans to defeat the epidemic.
New test
On December 20, 2020, Portuguese Prime Minister Costa presented three important issues during the country’s rotating EU presidency in the first half of 2021: first, addressing climate change and digital transformation as a two-way economic recovery plan. drive wheels; It is to launch a social pillar action plan based on the green revolution and the digital revolution; the third is to strengthen Europe’s strategic autonomy and focus on opening up to the world.
European public opinion believes that launching the EU economic recovery plan as soon as possible, creating more job opportunities and further enhancing the resilience and sustainability of economic growth will be Portugal’s top priority during its rotating presidency.
The expert of the European Commission in Foreign Relations, Teresa Corateira, believes that Portugal will have to assume the “delicate political task” of coordinating the implementation of the recovery plan of the member states, and must “ensure that European citizens are economic, social and politically Profit.
Some analysts noted that the EU has been concerned that companies resuming production from the epidemic will ignore environmental regulations and emphasized that the economic recovery after the epidemic should be more “green” and sustainable. However, EU countries differ in their emission reduction levels and proposals, and it remains to be seen whether Portugal can bridge the gap when it leads the EU agenda.
Once the new US government comes to power, it can provide opportunities to improve relations between Europe and the United States. However, on the one hand, there are tangles that are difficult to resolve in many respects between Europe and the United States; on the other hand, the European Union has been committed to developing its own strategic autonomy for many years. An article on the American website “Wall Street Journal” believes that the new US government may not be able to restore the United States. The relationship was “normal” in the past.
Furthermore, many other issues that the EU has delayed due to the epidemic, including the new immigration strategy and the reform of the Schengen mechanism, can be debated during the EU presidency of Portugal. Portugal is also facing many difficulties in coordinating the old difficulties of the EU in recent years, such as the reception of refugees, the management of repatriation and border control.
