By Sofie Carsten Nielsen and Søren Winther Lundby (NE)
Tuesday, November 27, 2007 | Debate entry

A lot has been said and written about the fact that the EU's Reform Treaty will entail the election of a President for the European Council, in January 2009. It is understandable that this new institutional development has drawn a lot of attention but none the less there are several reasons to add another perspective.

The fact of the matter is that the tasks and authority of the President of the European Council are still unknown. Granted, every year she has to create four agendas but here we have to remember, firstly that the European Council does not have any legislative power and secondly that a new governmental conference - where the state and government leaders have especially powerful roles - is not right around the corner.

In other words there are no obvious or formal "instruments of power" that the President can make use of. This includes the foreign policy where the new EU foreign minister will most like refuse to settle for a few representative tasks.

For the same reason, the names that have been mentioned in connection with the