Mark Rutte, prime minister of the Netherlands | Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Brussels Sketch EU presidency still matters, sort of A lot is riding on the Dutch to deliver, considering the countries that will be in control of the Council after it.

From the outset, the Dutch presidency of the Council of the European Union should be judged not by the standards of what went before but with a wary eye on the next three presidencies, which are each in their various ways accidents waiting to happen.

After the Netherlands will come Slovakia, Malta and the United Kingdom: Rarely can the roster of Council presidencies have thrown up so unfortunate a sequence. It means that throughout the course of the next six months, politicians and civil servants alike will be obliged to calculate what might happen to some legislative proposal if negotiations are not complete by the end of the Dutch stewardship.

At the turn of the New Year, Andrew Duff, an ex-MEP, commented waspishly on Twitter about the Dutch presidency program. Few surpass Duff in their Euro-enthusiasm, so he was predictably disappointed by the Netherlands’ limited ambition and its emphasis on “pragmatism.”

“Fortunately, the rotating presidencies of the Council of Ministers no longer run the European Union,” he tweeted, with the superiority that comes from having been a member of the EU’s constitutional convention and a long-time stalwart of the Parliament’s constitutional affairs committee.

He is right, up to a point. Council presidencies are not what they were. The Lisbon treaty added to the EU’s bewildering roster of presidencies by creating the post of president of the European Council to chair the meetings of national leaders. Previously, EU summits had been chaired by the leader of whichever country held the presidency of the Council of Ministers.

Herman Van Rompuy was the first European Council president, from the end of 2009 to the end of 2014, when he was succeeded by Donald Tusk.

In addition, the Lisbon treaty strengthened the position of the high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, combining it with a vice presidency of the European Commission. The first holder was Catherine Ashton, succeeded last year by Federica Mogherini.

Importantly, the treaty gave the high representative the task of chairing meetings of EU foreign ministers. Lisbon therefore created an important exception to the rule that the chair of meetings of the Council of Ministers in their various sectoral alignments — trade, agriculture, environment, telecoms and so on — is occupied by the minister from the country holding the presidency of the Council.

There is another, less clear, exception: The meetings of eurozone finance ministers have their own permanent chairman — the president of the Eurogroup, who is currently Jeroen Dijsselbloem. The meetings of the finance ministers of all 28 EU countries (known as Ecofin) are still chaired by the country holding the Council presidency, though in practice the Ecofin’s agenda and decisions are largely determined by the Eurogroup. For the next six months, the distinction is academic, since Dijsselbloem is also the Dutch finance minister.

Diminished role

Most obviously and most deliberately, what has been taken away from the rotating Council presidency is the freedom to set the EU’s agenda. The pre-Lisbon criticism was that the EU suffered from a lack of continuity as it moved from one Council presidency to another. The theory, post-Lisbon, is that the agenda is set by the president of the European Council, in agreement with the government leaders.

The tramlines are set by the EU summits: The rotating presidency is charged with fulfilling the tasks set by those summits. The tendency towards top-down, centralized agenda-setting is reinforced by the way the Commission president now submits for the approval of the European Council and the Parliament the outline program of the Commission, and exerts tighter control over the plans of individual commissioners.

Where, however, the rotating presidency still matters is in advancing legislative proposals once initiated. It is the presidency that seeks to broker an agreement among the various countries to arrive at a common position of the Council. It is the presidency that then negotiates on behalf of the Council with the European Parliament, whose agreement is needed in most policy areas. That gives the presidency a position of some considerable importance, albeit residual.

So it still matters to the life of the EU which country holds the Council presidency.

A disastrous presidency can certainly have a disruptive effect on EU business.

Granted, there is some legislation that would be agreed no matter who was in the chair. But there are other proposals where the question of whether and how quickly an agreement is reached comes down to the skill and experience of the presidency’s ministers and civil servants. It is they who must master the technical detail of the draft legislation (and proposed amendments) and the political nuances of the various disagreements.

Politicians and civil servants notice differences between presidencies, even if diplomatic training conditions them not to criticize publicly a presidency that is below par (as for instance, with Cyprus in 2012 or Greece in 2014).

A disastrous presidency can certainly have a disruptive effect on EU business. The Czech Republic’s presidency in the first half of 2009 turned into something of a nightmare when the government coalition collapsed part-way through, and a caretaker government of technocrats was cobbled together.

What makes for a smoothly successful presidency is less clear than what makes for an unhappy presidency: not enough resources and not enough experience of EU business. If a government holding the Council presidency has to advance legislative proposals on various policy fronts, it can find itself stretched as it seeks to deploy staff simultaneously to meetings in the European Parliament and Council of Ministers.

The secretariat of the Council of Ministers will work closely with the presidency, and do some of the legwork, but the secretariat is cautious and will not make the political calls that a presidency must make: to cut a deal or not to cut a deal; to postpone, or to demand a decision.

Dutch masters

The Dutch presidency has a lot going in its favor. As a founder member of the European Union, it has plenty of experience of Council presidencies: this is its 12th time in the chair. The presidencies of 2004, 1997 and even 1991 will still be in the institutional memory.

Nor will the Dutch be stretched resources-wise: The country is relatively wealthy; the civil service is highly rated; reinforcements in The Hague and Amsterdam are conveniently close at hand.

But consider what comes after the Dutch. Slovakia will be embarking on its first ever Council presidency. The country is small by EU standards: A population of 5.4 million puts it on a par with Denmark, and slightly ahead of Finland, though it lacks the impressive reputations of their civil services, in part because its split from the Czech Republic came as late as 1993.

Slovakia's general election is due in March. That, according to the opinion polls, is expected to see the center-left government of Robert Fico returned to power, but could mean — just a few months before the presidency — a change of department for some ministers.

Slovakia’s stance on one of the burning issues of the moment, migration and the resettlement of refugees, is not so far removed from that of Hungary’s Viktor Orbán. Fico sided with Orbán and with Poland in opposing quotas for resettlement.

The EU’s happiness may therefore depend on whether the Dutch government can wrap up some of the important legislation on migration before handing on the Council chair to Slovakia. Migration is not an issue that can be shuffled off to the meetings of foreign ministers: It will fall to Slovakia to chair meetings of the justice and home affairs ministers.

Migration is a sensitive issue too for Malta, which takes over the Council presidency at the beginning of 2017.

No one would expect Malta to be as obstreperous as Fico, but Malta will be short of resources and experience. Requiring a country of fewer than half a million people to chair the EU is a big ask.

The obvious comparison is with Luxembourg, but Luxembourg is a founder member of the EU and steeped in the EU’s ways. Luxembourg’s mark on the EU has included providing three presidents of the European Commission — Gaston Thorn, Jacques Santer and Jean-Claude Juncker — more than any other country.

It is theoretically possible that the Council will be presided over by a country that is negotiating to leave.

Malta joined the EU only in 2004, since when it has provided four undistinguished commissioners: Joe Borg, John Dalli (who was forced to resign in disgrace) and his replacement Tonio Borg, plus the current incumbent Karmenu Vella. There is little to suggest that Malta can muster the expertise to advance EU legislation.

Indeed the EU may end up relying on the Dutch to provide continuing support to the two succeeding presidencies. Since Lisbon, the rotating presidencies have been grouped in threes — the trio presidencies. The theory was that this would improve continuity. It is also a thinly disguised way of providing a splint to the small and inexperienced states.

Most intriguing of all is the first presidency of the next trio: the U.K. is scheduled to take over the Council presidency in July 2017, by which time it may have voted in a referendum on whether to exit the EU.

It is theoretically possible that the Council will be presided over by a country that is negotiating to leave. What chance then of the U.K. advancing EU legislative proposals as an honest broker? The U.K. has the resources and the expertise to deliver a competent presidency, but may be prevented by circumstances from doing so.

At this distance, it is hard to predict how the sequence of presidencies may affect the EU’s development. For those who regard the rotating presidencies as outdated, this may be the moment for the secretariat of the Council to assert itself and for Tusk’s presidency to take greater charge. But those who fear that the EU is increasingly dominated by Germany may regret the withering of the rotating presidencies.

A likely consequence is that nothing and no one will pick up the slack: The EU will simply suffer a further loss of impetus. Since the start of the Juncker Commission in November 2014, the greatest obstacle faced by those outside the EU institutions lobbying in favor of some legislative proposal — on transport liberalization, perhaps, or cleaner air, or pensions regulation — has been a Dutchman, Frans Timmermans, who as first vice president of the Commission expresses his responsibility for better regulation by nipping legislative proposals in the bud.

Now, however, the best hope of legislative advancement lies with the Dutch government to which Timmermans once belonged. That's because after the Dutch will come perhaps not the deluge, but the doldrums.

Tim King writes POLITICO's Brussels Sketch.