Council Bibliographies: Council of the EU

The Council of the EU is a powerful institution whose centrality has been challenged by the Treaty of Lisbon. More than ten years after this major institutional revision, this book examines its role within the EU political regime and its interactions with other institutions. It explores how the Council Presidency has navigated major crises over the past decade and addressed internal challenges. The various chapters discuss key timely questions: How has the relationship between the Council and the European Council evolved over time? To what extent have the recent crises reshaped the relationship between the Council and the European Parliament, as well as its interactions with the Commission? Is the Council Presidency still a powerful mediator? What are its internal challenges? What are the prospects for the rotating presidency system?

This book examines the impact of holding the presidency on small EU states. It offers a fresh perspective on its domestic implications, focusing on Europeanization effects using new institutionalist approaches. Through qualitative and quantitative methods, it assesses how the presidency influences national administrations, ministers, and public opinion. The book argues that the presidency provides a unique opportunity for small states to engage with EU affairs, particularly for first-time holders.

Ce manuel comporte l'étude du droit institutionnel de l'Union européenne tel qu'il se présente 5 ans après l'entrée en vigueur du traité de Lisbonne. L'ensemble des dispositions relatives à l'Union, à ses institutions, au processus décisionnel, à l'ordre juridique ainsi qu'au contrôle politique et juridictionnel sont traitées de manière complète.

Everybody agree; there is something particular about negotiating in Brussels. This book analyses ten years of negotiations about EU enlargement to the Western Balkans, exploring decision-making processes, the 'culture of consensus' in the Council, and member states' varying success in influencing outcomes. Using Alice in Wonderland's Caucus race metaphor, Smeets offers a fresh perspective on Brussels' decision-making dynamics. Through empirical insights into closed-door debates, it illuminates how national interests are reconciled to reach deals among member states.

This book delves into European Council and Council decision-making spanning two decades post-Lisbon Treaty. It examines key bodies such as the European Council, Eurogroup, and various Council configurations, highlighting their role in the new intergovernmentalism of EU governance. Puetter reveals an integration paradox: member states support integration outside the community method, notably in economic governance and foreign policy. Using the framework of 'deliberative intergovernmentalism', it tracks institutional evolution post-Maastricht Treaty, emphasizing non-legislative decision-making and member state involvement throughout the policy process.

The book examines and describes the Council of Ministers’ committee system and its internal decision-making process. It provides an assessment of the extent to which national bureaucrats act as law-makers in the Council. It also examines the degree to which theories on collective decision-making, delegation, and international socialization can account for variation in the involvement of bureaucrats. Investigating how often and why national officials in working parties and committees, rather than ministers, make legislative decisions in the EU. The author finds that ministers play a generally more important role in legislative decision-making than often assumed, alleviating concerns about the democratic legitimacy of Council decisions.

Thanks to new transparency rules and increased efforts by scholars, researchers are better equipped than ever before to analyze the decision-making processes of the Council of the European Union and to test old wisdoms. This book covers the most contentious areas and important debates in current research.

This is a systematic account in 22 chapters of the powers and procedures of the Council of the European Union. In the words of Javier Solana, in the foreword, it "describes in an accessible way how the Council has evolved and how it really works. It brings together a range of intellectual and academic talent, but all of its contributors are also, in one way or another, practitioners. It is therefore a work of considerable authority".

Provides an analysis of the most crucial of European Union institutions, making a contribution to the debate on power and legitimacy in the European Union.

This chapter examines the administrative challenge of preparing and holding the European Union (EU) Council presidency in six small and one larger member state between 2013 and 2017. With the expanding size and competence of the EU, the challenge of holding the rotating presidency of the EU has grown to brokering solutions and compromises between currently 27 Member States across a number of policy areas. On the other hand, with the Eastern enlargement, states as small as Malta with half a million of inhabitants and compact administration must manage the task that content- and effort-wise is about the same as for Germany or France with previous experience in the post and a much larger administrative capacity. The chapter explores how small states manage the challenge of steering EU decision-making process for six months and what strategies do they adopt to overcome the size-related disadvantages. In addition, the chapter explores whether there is a difference between small states that held the position before and those that are faced with the challenge for the first time.

Le but de ce chapitre n’est pas d’analyser les désaccords intergouvernementaux sur les politiques adoptées en réponse aux crises, mas de comprendre comment, au sein du Conseil ; les ministres ont publiquement mobilisé les crises afin de justifier leurs positions de vote, et exprimer leurs désaccords

In this chapter, we study voting behavior in the Council of the European Union (EU) for the time span of 2010 to 2021. We use Council voting data, examining the impact of different independent variables on member states’ voting behavior: net contributions to the EU budget, voting power, left–right policy positions, and finally, the distance of a member state’s ideological position from the position of the winning coalition under the qualified majority voting (QMV) rule. We investigate more than 1229 legislative decisions taken in the Council, based on over 30,000 votes. Controlling for public attitudes toward the EU and whether a member state held the Council presidency, we use a random effects binomial logit model in which we divide votes into two categories: support and objection. Moreover, we also apply an ordered logit model in which voting decisions are ordered based on the level of support for a vote. Our results show that net contributors to the EU budget are more likely to contest a vote in the Council of the EU.

The paper examines the evolution of language narratives in the founding treaties of the European Union, Council Regulation No. 1/58 determining the languages to be used by the European Union, the Council's Rules of Procedure, and other relevant documents, and compares them with European realities on the ground. Although the regulatory framework governing the work of the Council is more or less clear regarding the equality of the Member States and their official languages, the power gap and language disbalance remain an ever-present element of the EU environment

How are member states dealing with rule of law concerns in the Council? This chapter focuses on two main policy tools, which have made their way onto the agenda of the institution, albeit not without difficulty: (1) the establishment of the Rule of Law Dialogue (RLD) and its evolution; and (2) the hearings organised as part of Article 7 TEU with Poland and Hungary. The chapter illustrates the initial reluctance of the Council to deal with Article 7 TEU and its inability to “exit”, as well as the disputed transformation of the RLD from a purely intergovernmental tool towards one that also involves the Commission. The chapter shows that dissensus and contestation impede deliberation and persuasion.

This chapter discusses Germany's role in negotiating the MFF, the recovery fund and the rule of law mechanism in the second semester of 2020 from a new intergovernmentalist perspective. Two hypotheses of new intergovernmentalist analysis are central to the analysis: First, that member states in contemporary EU politics see consensus as an end in itself. Second, that member state governments seek to circumvent resistance to integration rather than confronting political differences more profoundly. Even though this mode of decision-making may solve short-term problems it reinforces a disequilibrium in European Union politics. The chapter documents the commitment of the German government to consensus politics in the European Council and the Council and explains why chancellor Merkel actively sought to accommodate challenger governments in Budapest and Warsaw. Having missed the opportunity to design a more hard-hitting rule of law mechanism, the EU continues to remain devoid of any credible sanctioning mechanisms in relation to member states which opt for challenging the EU's political and legal order.

Member states shape EU policy by working within the Council of the European Union (or 'Council' for short). The Council is thus a central player in EU decision making. There are different Council formations (made up of ministers responsible for particular policy areas), one of which is the Environment Council. Over the years, the number of Environment Council meetings has increased signifcantly, although recently it has plateaued at around four formal meetings per year. The member governments' top political leaders meet in a different forum-the European Council-which until recently had little direct engagement with environmental issues. Nowadays, the European Council plays an important role in EU climate change policy in particular. The well-known environmental leader/pioneer-laggard dimension among different member states goes a long way towards explaining the dynamics within the Environment Council and the European Council, and EU environmental policy making more generally.

The remainder of the chapter is divided into four sections. First, the Council’s “procedural code” and “system attitude” is contextualized as a consociational-like feature of the EU polity, essentially the institutional ecosystem in which differentiation dynamics unfold. Second, the chapter examines how differentiation affects the Council’s organizational dynamics and creates hybrid network configurations with more “club goods” and sub-societies of informal and normative rulebooks, such as the contrasting cases found in financial and foreign affairs. This is followed by a section to address the social dynamics found in Council differentiation, illustrating how voting and consensus practices have evolved over time, including the “social power” of Council networks.

This chapter is divided in 4 sections. Fist it gives a short overview about the historical developments until the adoption of the fist Interinstitutional agreement on Better Law-Making in 2023. Then it explores some concrete examples from the post-Lisbon Council legal practice. Third, it focuses on some practical legal innovations of the new IIA on Better Law-Making and it gives a brief summary of the state of play in terms of its implementation so far. Finally it draws some conclusions.

La question du système de vote au sein du Conseil a été, pendant des années, à l’ordre du jour des débats tant dans les institutions de l’Union que dans la doctrine. La solution adoptée de haute lutte dans le traité de Lisbonne semble aujourd’hui généralement acceptée et il est permis d’espérer qu’elle ne sera pas remise en cause dans les prochains temps ce qui n’interdit pas de revenir sur les discussions passées.
Du même auteur, dans le même livre, voir également : "L’évolution du triangle institutionnel communautaire depuis l’élection du Parlement européen au suffrage universel direct » in Jacqué, J.-P. (dir.), Regards sur l'Europe, pp. 49-70.

This chapter provides a comprehensive assessment of the evolution of EU member states' power, the EU's capability to act (efficiency), and the proportionality of the voting system in the Council of Ministers from the treaties of Rome in 1958 till the Treaty of Lisbon in 2009 and beyond. Moreover, it considers the implications of novel, more recently introduced enforcement mechanisms under the revised Stability and Growth Pact such as reverse qualified majority voting.

The European Union (EU) is arguably of central importance for the policy making of its member states. To fully grasp the working of the EU, the administrative infrastructure that links the national and supranational levels needs to be studied. One is confronted with a high degree of bureaucratic complexity, which public perceptions generally label as ineffective and too slow. The academic analyst also needs to deal with considerable evolution and transformation: the Lisbon Treaty, which entered into force in 2009, has considerably changed the EU’s institutions and with it the EU’s administrations. Moreover, reforms in response to the financial and sovereign debt crises since 2008 have rendered the EU system even more difficult to assess.

As senior preparatory agents they are vertically placed between the expert specialists found in the working groups and the ministers who meet in the Council’s sectoral policy formations. To function as process managers for technico-political discussions at the working-group level and as all-around compromise brokers for the ministers, they hold generalized (cross-sectoral) policy responsibilities, and, as a result, are the only national agents with a broad, issue-intensive overview of the Council’s work.

The purpose of this paper is to describe and explain, on the basis of personal experience as the United Kingdom’s last Deputy Permanent Representative to the European Union, the role and functions of what I would describe as being a lesser known body in a less-known institution. The body in question is known in the EU’s jargon as ‘COREPER I’, and the less-known institution is the Council of the European Union. The Council brings together ministerial representatives of the EU’s member states. It is, together with the European Parliament, a twin arm of the EU’s legislative and budgetary authority. The Council’s work is prepared by two committees made up, respectively, of the Permanent Representatives (ambassadors) of the member states, and the Deputy Permanent Representatives (also enjoying ambassadorial status). These two committees are collectively known as ‘COREPER 2’ (the permanent representatives) and ‘COREPER I’ (the deputy permanent representatives), the acronymic title, ‘COREPER’ being derived from the French title ‘Comité des représentants permanents’.

The aim of this article is to analyse how the Czech Republic fulfilled the tasks and challenges of its second presidency and how its holding of the presidency has affected the current situation of the European Union. An important element of this analysis will be the consideration of the external and internal conditions that shaped the priorities and activities undertaken by the Czech Presidency. To conduct the analysis, the authors pose the following research questions:— whether changes in the internal and external conditions of the Presidency have affected its objectives, conduct and results? —how did the Czech Presidency define the most important problems of the EU and was it able to propose and implement effective measures to solve them?—whether the Czech Presidency was able to build consensus around the achievement of its objectives and place them on the wider EU agenda;—Has the Czech Republic learnt the lessons of its first presidency, held in 2009?

Measuring the level of parliamentary involvement in European Union (EU) affairs cannot be undertaken without any reference to the parliamentary dimension, an integral part of the 6- month rotating presidency of member states in the EU. The parliamentary dimension encompasses all activities performed by the presidency parliament, playing a crucial role in shaping EU decision-making processes. Although a recently published study by Kaniok and Nováková has addressed for the first time the theoretical groundwork for studying this phenomenon, their proposed research framework has not yet been applied to a specific case. This study addresses this gap by applying the framework to the Dutch presidency of the Council of the EU in 2016, evaluating its effectiveness, and refining it to ensure broader applicability.

The aim of this study is to provide data on legislative decision-making of the Council of the European Union during the COVID-19 pandemic. The central argument is that the pandemic contributed to quicker decision-making at lower levels of the Council, to a certain extent at the expense of transparency. The overall results show that the highest share of proposals was decided by working parties, followed by permanent representatives, leaving a minority of legislative decisions up to ministers. The study focuses on the level on which these proposals were discussed and distinguishes them based on their connection with the pandemic and the procedure used for their adoption. This study further analyses how the figures vary across different policy sectors and how they were influenced by the fact that most Council meetings took place informally during the research period.

On 1 July, Hungary assumed the presidency of the Council of the EU from Belgium. This is the first time this function has been held by a country under the Article 7 procedure of the Treaty on European Union. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán seems intent on using the opportunity to strengthen his government’s position at home, pushing his own vision of EU development, and speaking to non-EU partners, ostensibly from the position of the entire Union. It is in Poland’s interest to oppose Hungary’s misuse of the presidency to discredit the EU and limit aid to Ukraine.

On 1 January, Belgium took over the six-month presidency of the Council of the European Union (the Council) from Spain. Its programme assumes the finalisation or continuation of the most important projects undertaken by the EU institutions before the end of the 9th term of the European Parliament(2019-2024), e.g., the debate on EU reform, the financial support program for Ukraine, the migration and asylum package, or the green transformation. The Presidency also wants to build consensus among member states regarding the reform of the EU financing system. The country supports the actions to further tighten integration and strengthen the competences of EU institutions.

Council Presidency is widely regarded as one of the most challenging responsibilities for EU countries, particularly for newcomers. Countries that joined the Union during the eastern enlargement in 2004 have presided over the EU at most twice, as the large number of members has made the presidency a sporadic occasion. This rarity elevates the significance for member states assuming the presidency, as they aspire to demonstrate their capability to lead the EU effectively during their six-month term. This paper examines the 2016 Slovak Council Presidency and why it changed its policy priorities. While energy policy was at first among Slovakia’s top priorities and made it into the draft Presidency programme, in the final programme – and the Presidency itself – energy issues lost their key position and became only part of the day-to-day agenda.

The rotating EU presidency's relevance for EU politics has decreased since the introduction of a permanent council president. However, news salience and framing of the own government acting as the EU presidency can amplify publicity for EU affairs. The results of this study confirm the crucial importance of the domestication of EU politics, underscoring the potential of the presidency to serve as a window of opportunity for public debate. We discuss our findings with reference to the EU's democratic deficit.

EU Council working groups still represent a topic that is neglected in EU research. If they are analysed, the effect of socialisation is particularly tested while rationally motivated factors such as a Left-Right position, green/alternative/libertarian (GAL) and traditionalism/authority/nationalism (TAN) positions or approaches towards the EU are left aside. This article analyses how such factors shape the member states’ oral communication at the working groups level. Based on a dataset gathered by non-participatory observation of interventions, the analysis suggests that none of the rationally constructed variables plays a significant role in shaping the audible communication of representatives of the EU member states. The article thus confirms the effect of socialisation on oral communication as well as the influence of structural factors such as member states’ power and the character of the document under discussion.

This study examines how the rotating Council Presidency’s stated policy goals for their term in office affect EU decision-making efficiency. We show that the salience the rotating chair of the Council attaches to a given policy area affects legislative efficiency in that policy area. We also demonstrate how this effect is conditioned on government effectiveness in the state of the Presidency in question, and is independent of Commission policy priorities. This suggests that the Presidency can drive EU policy outputs and push for its priorities when it holds the chair, but that its ability to do so is contingent on the domestic organisation and effectiveness of the state.

This article analyses debates in the Council of the European Union on two major strategies (The Small Business Act for Europe and the Europe 2020 strategy) using newspaper articles in the daily bulletins of Agence Europe. The results demonstrate that the Council as a whole is able to act as a policy entrepreneur if certain conditions are met, namely a common interest and political goal among member states, a need for economic measures due to a crisis situation, and the possibility of shifting unpopular decisions to Brussels

Traiter de l'évolution du Conseil de l'Union pendant les soixante dernières années n'est pas chose aisée. En effet, le Conseil est encore mal connu. Si, en théorie, ses réunions sont publiques au moins en ce qui concerne ses taches législatives, Les réunions des ministres ne sont que la partie émergée de l'iceberg et l'essentiel du travail se déroule de manière plus discrète sous la direction du Coreper. Certains des organes du Conseil relèvent de la Présidence tournante, d'autres sont places sous la responsabilité de la Haute Représentante pour la PESC, d'autres enfin ont une présidence permanente et élue.

La crise de la zone euro a induit une redéfinition profonde de la gouvernance économique de l’Union européenne afin de renforcer les règles du Pacte de stabilité et de croissance (PSC). L’article analyse comment ces idées, initialement conçues pour renforcer la gouvernance économique, ont également eu des effets sur la politique de cohésion et ont façonné l’adoption du règlement 1303/2013 sur les fonds structurels et d’investissements européens (fonds ESI). En examinant les rapports de force entre le Parlement, la Commission et le Conseil, l’article montre comment la conditionnalité s’est imposée comme idée dominante entre 2010 et 2013 et comment, après 2013, les mécanismes de sanction imposés pendant la crise divisent les institutions entre les partisans de l’application stricte des règles et ceux favorables à une plus grande flexibilité dans leur mise en oeuvre.

The Council of Ministers is an important part of EU decision-making. Member states are expected to be represented by ministers in negotiations, but sometimes they send someone else to represent them. This paper takes a closer look at two questions. First, the paper determines the extent to which member states are represented by others than ministers in Council meetings. Furthermore, the paper tries to explain the variance in when ministers choose to attend and not to attend meetings. The paper build on a data base of all participants in Council meetings between 2005 and 2009, totaling 9.451 observations. Through a logistic regression we test four hypothesis as to when ministers choose to participate in meetings. The paper shows that on average 76.3 % of participants in Council meetings are ministers, 8% are junior ministers, 4.4 % are politically appointed civil servants and finally, 11.3 % are permanent civil servants. We hence see that quite a substantial part of participants in meetings are not ministers. Secondly, we test four hypotheses as to why the participation of ministers vary. We find that the increasing salience of the meeting, the increasing importance of the policy area as well as a long membership of the EU all enhances the likelihood of minister participation in a given meeting. Finally, we test if the politico-administrative system affects the likelihood that a minister participates in meetings. Here, our findings are more inconclusive.

The Council is too often depicted as the battleground for intermittent clashes between national ministers. Based upon case studies of legislation produced in five ‘First Pillar’ sectors, the research presented here has explored the submerged, and much larger, part of this institutional ‘iceberg’: Council working groups. It does so by examining how members of these entities interact with civil servants in COREPER and ministers, on the one hand, and representatives of the Commission and the European Parliament, on the other. Contrary to many practitioner or formalist accounts, the principal finding is that working groups do not operate solely on a ‘technical level’. Instead, they are vital arenas through which the ambiguous nature of politics in the European Union heavily influences negotiating processes and legislative outcomes.