History of the European Union |
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This is a list of meetings of the European Council (informally referred to as EU summits); the meetings of the European Council, an institution of the European Union (EU) comprising heads of state or government of EU member states. They started in 1975 as tri-annual meetings. The number of meetings grew to minimum four per year between 1996 and 2007, and minimum six per year since 2008. From 2008 to 2019, an average of seven council meetings per year took place. A record number of meetings (13) were held during 2020 - although mostly as informal video conferences; as the meeting frequency and format was changed this specific year by the COVID-19 pandemic. Since 2021, an average of eight council meetings per year took place (see list below).
Since 2008, an annual average of two special Euro summits were also organized in addition – and often in parallel – to the EU summits. As the agenda of Euro summits is restricted solely to discuss issues for the eurozone and only invite political leaders of the eurozone member states, such meetings are not counted as European Councils. Neither are any of the Tripartite Social Summits, that were held bi-annually since May 2021 between the EU Council presidency, Council President, Commission President and the European social partners at top management level (BusinessEurope, European Trade Union Confederation, SGI Europe, SMEunited and CEC European Managers).
The current practice is that meetings are always called and organized to the extent found needed by the European Council president. The upcoming ordinary meetings are scheduled by the end of each semester, by the issuance of a call letter. In 2011-2020 meetings were scheduled and called for the third following semester (minimum one year in advance),[1] but this changed to minimum 6 months in advance for 2021-2023,[2] and since 2024 they are now only issued shortly before the first meeting of the specific semester in concern.[3] The ordinary mettings can take form either as "scheduled ordinary meetings" (resulting in a published document entitled "conclusions") or "informal ordinary meetings" (resulting in a published document entitled "statement"). A called scheduled/informal ordinary upcoming meeting might occasionally be moved or cancelled within a short notice, with such change then being notified by the Council president through the issue of a revised calendar plan for the ordinary meetings within the semester in concern. If extra meetings are called outside the procedure of notification by an issued call letter for the upcoming semester in concern (meaning after the semester has started), they are referred to as being "extraordinary meetings". The phrase "special meeting" is synonymously used for an "extraordinary meeting".
Extraordinary meetings can - just like the ordinary meetings - be held either in a formal or informal format. The list does not specify whether or not an extraordinary meeting was formal or informal, but this can be indirectly observed when checking the title of the published document summarizing the outcome of the meeting, as "conclusions" can only be published if the extraordinary meeting had a formal format.