Special European Council Meeting

The Special European Council Meeting is an extra summit of the European Council, the EU institution of the 27 heads of state or government. It joins those leaders with the European Council President and the Commission President. The High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy takes part in its work.

It rests on Article 15 of the Treaty on European Union and uses no acronym. It is not a statistic, law or survey, and it must not be confused with the Council of the EU, the ministerial co-legislator.

There is no fixed schedule, as special meetings occur only when exceptional circumstances require urgent decisions by leaders. The President convenes each meeting in Brussels in addition to the usual four per year, usually over 2 days on Thursday and Friday. Talks run longer when consensus takes more time, and each meeting is announced in advance.

Each meeting opens with an exchange with the President of the European Parliament, and guests may join parts. Each meeting publishes adopted Conclusions in the EUCO series plus Main results, remarks and briefs, with secretariat support, and Conclusions are never revised.

Decisions move through topic blocks, not numeric components with weights.

• Next Generation EU (NGEU): temporary recovery effort funded by Commission borrowing on capital markets.
• Recovery and Resilience Facility: loan and grant funding inside the recovery effort.
• ReactEU, Horizon Europe and InvestEU: further recovery programmes inside the same effort.
• Rural Development, Just Transition Fund and RescEU: remaining recovery programmes inside the same effort.
• Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF): the EU long term budget in commitments.
• MFF headings: it covers single market, cohesion, natural resources, migration, security, neighbourhood and administration.

The 17 to 21 July 2020 special meeting ran 5 days to agree post COVID recovery and the framework budget. Leaders agreed a EUR 1824.3 billion package combining MFF commitments of EUR 1074.3 billion and NGEU of EUR 750 billion. NGEU allowed EUR 360 billion in loans and EUR 390 billion in expenditure in 2018 prices. The result shows the pattern: urgent summits run until consensus and end in budgetary decisions, not data.

1. No formula: there is no calculation, weighting formula or seasonal adjustment. The meeting produces decisions, not a computed number.
2. Illustrative total: MFF commitments of EUR 1074.3 billion plus NGEU of EUR 750 billion equal EUR 1824.3 billion. This shows package composition, not a publisher formula.
3. Illustrative split: NGEU holds EUR 360 billion for loans and EUR 390 billion for expenditure in 2018 prices. The Recovery and Resilience Facility, the NGEU programme, holds EUR 672.5 billion, split into EUR 360 billion in loans and EUR 312.5 billion in grants.
4. Repayment cap: annual principal repayments are capped at 7.5% of the EUR 390 billion expenditure maximum.