Estonia ended its Presidency of the Council of the European Union on 31 December and handed the role over to Bulgaria for the next 6 months.
During its Presidency, Estonia worked with 377 different initiatives in total, organised 275 different events in Tallinn, chaired more than 1 200 working groups in Brussels and held 31 Council meetings. The major event of the Estonian Presidency was the Tallinn Digital Summit held in September, where EU leaders gathered to discuss how to ensure Europe’s competitiveness in today’s era of rapid and game-changing technological progress.
“Today, the EU is more united and better prepared to tackle both digital and climate change. There was significant progress made on digital aspects, for example, on agreements on the free movement of data, the development of the 5G network, and the single digital gateway to develop eGovernment on the EU level. I believe the EU is more united after the increased defence cooperation and adopting the cybersecurity strategy. I am also very happy that within the past 6 months the EU has agreed on all of the aspects of how to tackle climate change based on Paris climate agreement targets,” Jüri Ratas, the Prime Minister of Estonia concluded.
“The Presidency brought 27 000 visitors to Estonia and I am delighted we managed to offer them exciting and cutting-edge discussion topics. The delegates enjoyed modern Estonian Cuisine and our out of the box venue of the Tallinn Creative Hub (Kultuurikatel). We hope to have brought Estonia closer to all member states and the EU closer to Estonians,” Piret Lilleväli, head of the organising team of the Estonian Presidency added.
Although the Estonian Presidency of the Council of the EU is coming to an end, the cultural programme will continue during the centenary programme of the Republic of Estonia.
The official webpage for the Estonian Presidency, eu2017.ee, has changed, 29 December, giving way for the Bulgarian Presidency. The Estonian Presidency’s webpage will remain active and will be focused on the results of now ending Presidency.
Source : https://www.eu2017.ee/news/press-releases/estonia-handing-presidency-over-bulgaria-happy-heart
