On the 1^st of July, Estonia was the one who took the EU presidential mandate over the European Council. Even though the presidency as itself has become a less important of the EU`s every-day policy and decision making process, this text will intend to shed a light to an economic package of the Estonian presiding over the 500 million inhabitants.

By the end of March, this Baltic member state has announced its very restrictive economic plan for the next six months term. The plan consists of four comprehensive focal points out of which one is devoted to economic affairs.

The Estonian idea is that an open and innovative European economy means developing a business environment that supports knowledge-based growth and competitiveness.

To this end, the Estonian presiding will be focused on:

• protecting and promoting the EU’s four freedoms – free movement of goods, persons, services and capital
• making sure that providing services and starting a business in the EU is as easy as possible, and advancing trade negotiations
• creating new funding opportunities for companies and ensuring a stable banking sector
• establishing a stable and well-functioning electricity market and empowering consumers
• ensuring fair competition by preventing tax evasion

The total budget available for the Estonian presidency of the council of the EU is €75 million. This amount covers all activities related to preparing for and implementing the presidency. The biggest part of the cost – €41.4 million – is personnel expenses, as the staff involved in the organisation and implementation of the presidency consists of 1,300 people. Another big part of the budget is the 200 events, conferences and visits in Estonia to introduce the country to a diverse audience – €23.3 million.

Further politico-economic challenges for the EU in 2018

As this package is allocated for the period until the very beginning of 2018, it is of utmost importance to put an emphasis on what will be the biggest challenges for the Union accordingly.

First of all the EU`s stock markets were experienced a big level of instability due to the huge number of national elections in the most crucial member states, in both national and local level. Also, there is still a big problem with refugees which indeed culminated last year, but still goes high on the EU budgetary agenda. There for sure will be many problems on the Brexit issues, since even the ECB can not easily declare what is the total cost of the exiting process for the European side.

The forecast for the autumn economic semester still remains unknown as there are many disbalanced moves within the financially interconnected Eurozone space. What further impedes the EU progress towards the markets in North America is the fact that TTIP will not have its exchange as efficient in near future.

It is significant to mention what will Estonia get from presiding over the Union. The presidency will provide an opportunity to hold up to 200 events, conferences and visits in Estonia to introduce our country to a very influential and diverse audience. The most important events to be held in Estonia are unofficial high-level ministerial meetings, but there will also be additional high-level meetings with a large number of participants, organised in the framework of parliamentary cooperation. One of the highlights will be a digital summit which is expected to take place in September and draw both the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and the German chancellor, Angela Merkel. All in all, Estonia expects to host up to 30,000 additional visitors and approximately 1,000 foreign journalists during this period.

The Estonian leaders will for sure have more ceremonial role within the EU presiding process as of 1^st of July, but it still is always interesting to analyze the point of view expressed within the official presentation documents of presiding. The Estonian dilemma will be to determine how will the EU`s economic outlook will look like in the next 6 month period. It (the dilemma) will be split on whether they should create more assertive EU export economy or will the EU focus on the internal consistence of united fiscal and monetary system with more stable institutions.