Spain takes over the rotating presidency on 1 January, but it will be a six-month tenure with a twist, as Madrid is the first to grapple with the complexities of the EU's new legal framework.
The Lisbon Treaty entered into force one month ago, ushering in a new layer of governance in the European Union - a permanent president of the European Council - but keeping the old system of rotating presidencies, only with a less prominent status.
Print
Comment article
It will be up to Spain's prime minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, to see how this plays out in everyday practice so that he and Herman Van Rompuy, the newly appointed EU president, are neither publicly nor internally stepping on each others' toes.