The Presidency in numbers

Source: Deens voorzitterschap Europese Unie 1e helft 2012 i, published on Friday, June 29 2012.

For six months, Denmark has held the Presidency of the Council of the European Union. This has meant a lot of hard work not only for Danish ministers, but also for employees at ministries, government agencies, interest groups, civil society, conference centres, hotels, media, video producers, etc. In the central presidency units for coordination, communication and logistics over 40 employees have worked full time with the presidency, while a staff of 156 have kept the Danish EU Representation in Brussels running in high gear.

Denmark has chaired approx. 1,480 meetings in Brussels and Luxembourg, including 46 council meetings and 71 meetings at ambassador level. Furthermore, the Danish ministers visited the European Parliament a total of 85 times.

The calendar for meetings in Denmark has been booked with over 160 meetings, which have been taken place in the cities of Copenhagen, Horsens, and Aarhus, among other places. Several facts about the meetings can be highlighted:

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    10,268 delegates have participated
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    They have stayed a total of 14,904 nights at hotels
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    For the meetings in Forum Horsens in April, May and June, alone, 6,000 pieces of cake, 9,600 pieces of fruit, 90,000 cups of coffee, 4,010 litres of tap water, 2.2 tons of meat and 1 ton of bread was served
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    100 cars were available for transportation
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    The eight informal ministerial meetings and the visits by the Commission and the European Parliament to Denmark were covered by 750 journalists
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    35,222 presidency neckties and scarves have been produced to use for gifts to guests and other stakeholders in Denmark and around Europe
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    Moreover a total of 87,000 notepads and 77,000 pens with the Presidency logo have been produced - all in a sustainable manner
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    At the bigger meetings 175 km cable, 300 microphones, 450 mobiles, 200 portable computers, 130 flat screen projectors and 1.750 interpreter receivers was used

Information on the EU, the Presidency and Denmark have been made available for meeting participants, journalists, officials and the general public in four languages on the Presidency website, eu2012.dk, which have had over 700,000 visits. On eu2012.dk visitors could, among other things, find:

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    More than 240 press releases
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    Approx. 40 insight articles
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    31 background articles for the 10 Council formations
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    Over 600 photos
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    Approximately 310 videos which have been seen by almost 100,000 users
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    In addition, more than 4,400 Twitter users followed the central Presidency account while nearly 1,650 have followed the tweets from the EU representation in Brussels. All together, the Presidency has tweeted more than 1,300 times.

The Presidency has also given European citizens the chance to get closer to and learn more about the EU and has in cooperation with partners hosted a series of debates and informational events in Denmark and the rest of the EU. Furthermore hundreds of presentations about the Presidency's work have been held for schools, journalists and interest groups, while 100,000 postcards and 700 posters have been distributed or mailed to citizens, organizations, libraries, town halls and other public organizations in Denmark and abroad.

The Presidency has also invited young people across Europe to send pictures of how the EU affects their everyday life for the photo competition "EU Snapshots of Your Life". Many took up this challenge and more than 3,000 photos were submitted from all 27 EU countries, of which the best were awarded tablets. Furthermore, over 20,000 people attended the 432 cultural events with special focus on Danish cinema organised by the Presidency all over Europe, resulting in 2,569 stories in European media.

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