The EU plans to shift its schedule of Council presidencies forward by six months following the decision Wednesday by the U.K. government to relinquish its term in the role in 2017, a Council official told European news website www.politico.eu

The Council’s Permanent Representatives Committee agreed Wednesday to a proposal by Slovakia to switch the order for which countries will hold the rotating presidency, which mainly involves setting the EU agenda and chairing ministerial meetings over the course of six months.

“This means that Estonia will hold the presidency in the second half of 2017, followed by Bulgaria in the first half of 2018,” the Council official said.

The UK had been in line to hold the presidency from July to December of next year. Malta is planned to hold the job in the first half of 2017, and Estonia would have taken over in early 2018.

Earlier this week, the Belgian and Hungarian governments said they were prepared to replace the U.K. in holding the EU’s Council presidency in the second half of 2017, after British Prime Minister Theresa May said her government would relinquish the task as it prepares to leave the union.

“Belgium is ready to take over this presidency if we are asked,” Didier Vanderhasselt, a spokesman for Belgium’s foreign affairs minister, told Agence France-Presse.