Journal of European Integration

ISSN: 0703-6337 (Print) 1477-2280 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/geui20

Change and Stability of the EU Institutional

System: the Communitarization of the Council
Presidency
Ana Mar Fernndez
To cite this article: Ana Mar Fernndez (2008) Change and Stability of the EU Institutional
System: the Communitarization of the Council Presidency, Journal of European Integration,
30:5, 617-634, DOI: 10.1080/07036330802439590
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07036330802439590

Published online: 05 Nov 2008.

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European Integration
Vol. 30, No. 5, 617634, December 2008

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ARTICLE

Change and Stability of the EU

Institutional System:
the Communitarization of the
Council Presidency
ANA MAR FERNNDEZ
Institut dtudes Politiques de Paris, Paris, France
anamar.fernandez@sciences-po.fr
Original
Taylor
502008
30
AnaMar
00000December
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Article
Francis
Journal
10.1080/07036330802439590
GEUI_A_344127.sgm
0703-6337
and
ofFernandez
European
(print)/1477-2280
Francis2008
Integration
(online)

ABSTRACT The aim of this article is to demonstrate the usefulness of taking into
account the variable of EU institutional development when analysing the dilemma of the
Council Presidency in terms of role conception. Using a historical institutionalist
perspective, the article examines the path of the EU Council Presidency since its origins
and argues that five decades of institutional feedback have altered its nature. Originally
conceived as an intergovernmental function, today the Presidency is identified increasingly with the defence of Community interests. This process of institutional conversion
has essentially limited the scope of action of the member states.
KEY WORDS: EU Council, EU Council Presidency, historical institutionalism, EU
institutional development, path dependence, role conception

Introduction
Since the 1970s, there has been a recurring debate in the literature concerning
the dilemma of the EU Council Presidency in terms of role conception. While
part of the literature considers the holding of the Presidency to be a supranational responsibility that involves subordinating the pursuit of national
interests to that of common interest, another part of the literature maintains
that it is an intergovernmental role allowing the maximization of national
interests. In contrast to these two polarized visions that highlight respectively
the constraining or maximizing character of the Presidency, a third line of
Correspondence Address: Ana Mar Fernndez, Institut dtudes Politiques de Paris
(Centre dEtudes Europennes), 117 Boulevard Saint-Germain, 75006 Paris, France.
Email: anamar.fernandez@sciences-po.fr
ISSN 07036337 Print/ISSN 14772280 Online/08/050617-18 2008 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/07036330802439590

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Ana Mar Fernndez

interpretation has emerged. This vision nuances the previous views and
affirms that the presidential role combines both communitarian and intergovernmental dimensions.
The aim of this article is to contribute to the study of this question by
taking into account a variable that has received little scholarly attention until
now: the changing nature of the Presidency over time. The starting hypothesis lies in the claim that the institutional evolution of the Presidency should
be taken into account when analysing the competing or complementary roles
underlying its exercise. Before researching the scope of the Presidency for the
member states in terms of responsibility and/or opportunity, this article
argues that it would be useful to pay more attention to the relative position
occupied by this institution within the overall EU system and to consider the
fact that this rank has varied throughout the years.
The article is divided into two parts. The first provides a review of the
main theses put forward concerning the scope of the Presidency for member
states. The limitations of the most common approaches are discussed briefly
and the utility of an explanation based on historical institutionalism is
addressed. The second part analyses the institutional development of the
Presidency between 1951 and the signing of the Treaty of Lisbon in 2007.
Three major historical moments are identified and examined: the creation
(1951), the reproduction (196583) and the institutional conversion of the
Presidency (1986onwards). The main conclusion is that the implications of
the Presidency office have not always been the same. Between the Presidency
of the Special Council of the first European Community of 1951 and the
Presidency of the Council of the Union of 2007, fifty years have gone by in
which much more than the name has changed. The Presidency has been
transformed and this institutional development has locked in the scope of
action of the member states.
The Presidency Dilemma
The historical development of the Council Presidency has received relatively
limited attention in existing literature. Following the pioneering work by
Wallace and Edwards (1976), a marginal number of authors devoted their
efforts to the specific study of the evolution of this institution (Wallace 1985;
de Bassompierre 1988; di Bucci 1988; Kirchner 1992; Westlake 1999). To
date, the majority of the literature on the Presidency has centred its attention
on another issue: the consequences of the presidential mandate for the member
states. Indeed, the leap in the powers of the Presidency over the years has led
an increasing number of authors to question the implications of the exercise
of the Presidency for member states that for six months on a periodic and
rotational basis occupy this post. Starting from the analysis of the role of the
Presidency in terms of organization, impulsion, mediation and representation
both within and outside the Union, various authors have tried to establish the
level of responsibility and/or political opportunity that the exercise of this
function implies (e.g. Elgstrm 2003; Bengtsson, Elgstrm, and Tallberg
2004; Tallberg 2006; Warntjen 2007; Thomson 2008).

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(I) A Question of Role Conception

Three principal hypotheses have been formulated regarding the question of
whether the Presidency offers extraordinary opportunities for political influence. One part of the literature considers that the holding of the Presidency
represents a great responsibility that does not, however, bring about any
political power for the state concerned (e.g. Dewost 1984; Metcalfe 1988).
From this perspective, the Presidency is a communitarian function that
involves placing national administrations at the service of the Union and
subordinating the pursuit of national interests to that of common interest
(ONuallain 1985; Verbeke and Van den Voorde 1994). Seen in this light, the
Presidency is essentially a neutral and impartial role that prohibits political
capitalization, except for the prestige obtained as a result of a job well done.
Another body of literature argues the contrary: that the Presidency is
essentially an intergovernmental function (e.g. Ayral 1975; Tallberg 2003;
2004; Warntjen 2007). From this perspective, the holding of the Presidency
places the member states in a privileged position, which allows them to guide
the European agenda and to maximize their own interests. This second
hypothesis, which is anchored in a rationalist theoretical framework, questions the disinterested nature of the Presidency and highlights the level of
discretional power inherent to its exercise.
In contrast to these two principal approaches that highlight, respectively,
the silencer or amplifier character of the Presidency (Bengtsson, Elgstrm,
and Tallberg 2004), a third line of interpretation has emerged. This vision
nuances the previous views and sustains that the presidential role combines
both communitarian and intergovernmental components (e.g. Wallace 1986;
Kirchner 1992; Ludlow 1993; 1998; Schout 1998; Westlake 1999). According to this vision, the Presidency is a complex role in which responsibility and
opportunity are present at the same time. As the prominent figure within the
Council, and therefore as one of the main bridges between the supranational
and intergovernmental dimensions of the Union, the Presidency implies a
balancing act between the individual interests of national governments and
the general interests of the Community.
This debate regarding the dilemma of the Presidency in terms of role
conception, defined, following Beyers (2005, 902), as the behaviour
expected given the member states specific institutional position when exercising the Presidency, is particularly interesting. Nevertheless, the approach
used by scholars to contrast these suppositions is not completely satisfactory.
The usual approach to determine the competing or complementary expectations that arise from the tenure of the Presidency consists of analysing the
current competencies of this institution. Most of the existing studies centre
the subject of the Presidency from the perspective of the relative power given
to the member states and, in this way, focus on the mechanisms at the
disposal of the Presidency to influence the European agenda (e.g. Sherrington
2000; Tallberg 2006; Warntjen 2007; Thomson 2008).
This type of perspective, while useful, fails to address two previous and
interrelated questions that are fundamental if one is to gauge the nature of

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this impact. In the first instance, what is the relative position occupied by the
Council Presidency within the European institutional system? Secondly, to
what extent has this rank been stable over time? In other words, how can one
resolve the question of the implications of the Presidency for the agents of the
political system in terms of representation of interests without first establishing the scope of this institution within the overall system and considering the
fact this relative institutional position has changed throughout the years?
To sum up, the main problem of most of the analyses resides in the static
conception of the structureagency relationship. While considerable efforts
have been spent in scrutinizing the semesters and in comparing national
performances (e.g. Svensson 2000; Elgstrm 2003; Quaglia and MoxonBrowne 2006), little attention has been paid to the institutional variation of
the Presidency over time. The evolution of the Presidency is mentioned, but
institutional change as an explanatory factor of the actual scope of this function for the member states the level of responsibility and/or opportunity
that its exercise involves is not considered. Taking this into account, this
article claims there is a need to situate the study of the structureagency
relationship within a historical perspective in order to understand fully the
impact of the Presidency on the member states. More specifically, it argues
that if there is no doubt that the presidential term of office constitutes an
especially relevant moment in terms of the interaction between the European
and the national spheres, it should, however, be stated that its effects have
not always been the same. The scope of the Presidency for the member states
has varied in function of the evolving position of this institution within the
European system.
By explicitly addressing the variable of institutional change when analysing the political consequences of the Presidency office, this article seeks to
contribute to bridging the gap between the literature on the historical development of the Council Presidency and the literature that has focused on the
current consequences of this development. Until now, the work of Tallberg
constitutes the main contribution in this respect. In his book on the powers
of the chair (Tallberg 2006), he argued that the Presidency has been
transformed into a platform for the defence of national interests. The
present article qualifies this by arguing that while there is evidence that
points to a certain degree of opportunism in the exercise of the Presidency,
there does appear to be a growing trend towards the communitarization of
this function.
(II) A Historical Institutionalist Appraisal
The basic hypothesis is that the Council Presidency is not a constant variable.
Five decades of institutional feedback have altered its nature, and this process
of institutional conversion has locked in the scope of action of the member
states. In 1952, the Presidency had a low-profile, intergovernmental function
within the Community system.1 Its powers were limited and were basically
administrative in nature. The functioning of the erstwhile Special Council of
the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) was simple and had little

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621

formal organization. In this context, the Presidency had a mostly symbolic

importance for the member states. The presidential mandate neither involved
a great deal of responsibility nor major organizational efforts, although, on
the other hand, it did provide a mechanism to ensure equal representation
within the Council (di Bucci 1988; Magnette and Nicoladis 2003).
Fifty years later, things have changed. Five decades of institutional increasing return effects have considerably upgraded this institution and led to its
progressive communitarization. This office no longer represents a mere
administrative role identified with the defence of intergovernmental interests.
It has become a complex exercise increasingly associated with the defence of
Community interests. Historical institutionalism is the approach used to
confirm this hypothesis.
The usefulness of this theory lies fundamentally in the theoretical importance attributed to the time factor and, more specifically, to the historical
trajectory of institutional options (e.g. Hall and Taylor 1996; Aspinwall
and Schneider 2000; Pierson 2004). This school of neo-institutionalism
accepts the realist premise that the starting point of institutional design is
the rational choice of political actors, and proceeds to research the longterms effects of the initial decision, stressing the contingent nature of such
effects. From this approach, current political outcomes should be interpreted in the light of past institutional choices (Krasner 1984; 1988; Bulmer
1994; Thelen 2003). The actors that create the institutions are, at the same
time, conditioned by the development of the institutions themselves. The
main feature of this evolution is its continuity or path dependency. The
greater the time elapsed, the greater the difficulty involved in going back to
the original choices and implementing alternative solutions, even if they are
more efficient (David 1985; Arthur 1989). The amortization of the initial
investment, the experience acquired and the coordination with other institutions all produce inertias (Pierson 1993). In this context, changes with
regard to the original model tend to be limited and set in a pre-established
pattern of development.
However, institutions do undergo substantial changes. To explain this,
historical institutionalism uses the term of critical juncture, a concept that
is similar to the performance crisis coined by March and Olsen in 1989, and
is based on the idea of a turning point in the development of a system.
Profound changes are not frequent, while the catalyst is to be found in the
socio-political environment and takes the form of an event that is at once
exceptional and crucial, with the result that the foundations are laid for a
new path to be established (March and Olsen 1984; 1989). Such a change in
direction may involve the creation of norms and procedures that break, to a
greater or lesser degree, with the institutional legacy of the past. The institutional transformation may be complete or partial, but it will contribute to the
development of new models of representation and behaviour.
Overall, by situating the structureagency relationship in a dynamic and
diachronic perspective, historical institutionalism allows us to shed light on
the mechanisms of innovation, reproduction and institutional change as well
as to make clear the impact of this evolution on the behaviour of political

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actors (Steinmo, Thelen, and Longstreth 1992). In other words, the analytical importance attributed to the structureagency dialectic over time allows
us to sequentialize institutional development and to examine the evolution of
the structuring effect of the institutions on political action. In this sense, it
helps to show the long-term implications of institutional decisions. In the
case of the Council Presidency, this approach is interesting because it allows
us: to trace the path of this institution since its creation; to identify the key
moments that have marked its development; and to highlight both the role
played by the member states in driving this process of change and its lock-in
effect regarding the definition of future actions.
The EU Council Presidency: Analysis of a Changing Nature
The literature offers numerous examples of the selfishness that tends to
characterize the exercise of the Presidency (e.g. Elgstrm 2003; Tallberg
2004). This section argues that this tendency to seek the maximization of
individual interests is based on an essentially national conception of the
presidential mandate that was forged in the early decades of European integration, and that is now undergoing a process of change.
The Creation of the Council Presidency as an Intergovernmental Guarantee
The original institutional design of the EU Council Presidency should be
interpreted in the light of the political negotiations that presided over the
creation of the first European Community. In 1951 the main concern of
the founder states was the autonomy of the High Authority (Houben 1964;
Dinan 2004, 51). The idea contained in the Schuman Declaration was to
create a supranational institution that would be independent of national
governments. This caused misgivings among the contracting parties and, in
particular, among the Benelux States, who finally conditioned their participation in the European project on the creation of a Council of Ministers
that would institutionalize member-state participation in the Community
structure (Spierenburg and Poidevin 1993, 13; Rittberger 2001, 695). This
was the source of a hybrid political system based on the principle of institutional balance. The power of the High Authority, the forum of the representation of the general interest of the Community, was counterbalanced by
the creation of a Special Council of Ministers, a body of collective control
and the centre of member-state interests (de Visscher 1957, 23; Kersten
1988, 293).
The Presidency of the EU Council finds its origins in this context characterized by the will to organize the conditions of state participation in the
communitarian enterprise. Its beginnings were modest in terms of competencies but important from a symbolic and political point of view. Effectively,
the Presidency was designed as a double institutional guarantee. On the one
hand, it represented governmental interests within the communitarian structure, which, at that time, allowed for the powerful figure of Jean Monnet
(first president of the High Authority) to be counterbalanced.2 On the other

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Change and Stability of the EU Institutional System

623

hand, it also guaranteed the equal representation of the member states within
the Council (Dumoulin 1988; Crum 2007). The conditions regarding how
the Presidency would be attributed and exercised could be summed up in
terms of two key principles: representation and equality. Both were set out
in Art. 27 of the Treaty of the ECSC and were considered to be, until
recently, non-negotiable by the small states of the Union. This system, whose
precedent was Art. IV of the Internal Rules of Procedure of the Council of
the League of Nations of 1933 (see Goodrich and Hambro 1946, 137; Bailey
1988), involved two ideas. First, the fact that the Presidency would be
assumed by the member states and not by a collective representative.
Secondly, the idea that each member state would exercise this function periodically on a rotating basis, regardless of its demographic size or economic
and political power (di Bucci 1988, 5). During this first stage, the rotation
sequence was fixed by the alphabetical order of the member states in the
French language.3 By choosing an institutional design based on the principles
of representativeness and equality, the founding states ensured a national
profile for the Presidency, in contrast to the communitarian profile of the
Presidency of the High Authority. This was also foreseen by the Treaties of
Rome,4 and was reinforced during the shift to intergovernmentalism in the
1960s.
The Reproduction of the Council Presidency in the Shadow of Increasing
Intergovernmentalism
The 1960s and 1970s marked the functional take off of the Presidency
(Wallace 1985; di Bucci 1988; Kirchner 1992), as well as the strengthening
of its intergovernmental character. The shift in the balance of power between
the Council and the Commission, sparked by events such as the Luxembourg
Compromise in 1966, the launch of the European Political Cooperation
(EPC) in 1970 or the creation of the European Council in 1974, contributed
to both a quantitative increase in the powers of the Presidency and to reinforce its initial institutional design.
The first great drive to increase the powers of the Presidency occurred after
the election of Charles de Gaulle to the Presidency of the fifth French Republic
in January 1959. Critical of the supranational thesis of the Founding Fathers
that gave the power of political initiative to the Commission, De Gaulle called
for a central role for states in the European system (De Gaulle 1971, 1030;
Teasdale 1993; Palayret, Wallace, and Winand 2006). From the perspective
of the Council Presidency, the struggle for a European model based on mechanisms of cooperation between states instead of transfers of sovereignty to a
supranational institution, which reached a high point with the institutional
crisis of 1965 and the adoption of the Luxembourg Compromise in January
1966, had a noteworthy result. This was the end of the monopoly of the
Commission in terms of the external representation of the European Communities and its substitution by a dual system based on the idea of the right to
active and passive legation shared between the President of the Commission
and the Council President.5

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The second qualitative increase in the powers of the Presidency came about
as a result of the adoption of the Davignon and Copenhagen Reports in
October 1970 and July 1973, respectively. By opting to create and develop
the EPC mechanism on an intergovernmental basis, the member states transformed the scope of the Presidency within the European system. Apart from
extending its responsibilities in administrative areas, the Presidencys political potential was activated, since the initiative, mediation and executive
powers granted by the treaties to the Commission in the communitarian
field were granted similarly to the Presidency in intergovernmental matters
(Davignon Report 1970; Copenhagen Report 1973; de Bassompierre 1988,
604).
This institutional upgrading implied, on the one hand, an unprecedented
challenge for the national administrations periodically involved partly due
to the functional differentiation established between EC affairs and EPC
matters and the lack of agreement on the creation of a permanent secretariat
until the Single European Act (SEA) and, on the other hand, a new role of
political leadership (Allen, Rummel, and Wessels 1982, 159). Since the 1970s,
the success or failure of the presidential term began to depend on political
criteria as well as on its capacity to make proposals, negotiate and find formulae of consensus in the intergovernmental domain (Schoutheete 1980, 43).
In this sense, the creation of the European Council in December 1974
also needs to be highlighted. The institutionalization of the Conferences of
Heads of States and Governments, which had taken place without a fixed
timetable since 1961, endowed the European building with a superstructure
(Brckner 1982, 60; Bulmer and Wessels 1987; Taulgne 1993). This institutional development had an important consequence for the Presidency in
that it meant that the symmetrical presidential model of the Community
and the EPC pillars was transferred to the highest organ of the European
system.6 This new desire of the member states for a single Presidency once
more gave greater power to the institution. It granted the Presidency the
responsibility of representing the European Council outside, as well as
within, the European Communities and of preparing materially and politically all its meetings. From a symbolic point of view, the consequences of
this incrementalist path were no less relevant: the extension of the founding
principles of the Presidency representativeness and equality to the top
of the institutional architecture.
The Conversion of the Council Presidency: the Communitarization of an
Intergovernmental Function
For decades, the Presidency was conceived essentially as an intergovernmental counterweight to the supranational dynamic embodied by the European
Commission. As Wallace (2002, 328) pointed out, the design of the EC
rested on an institutional balance between two levels of governance: (1) the
Community with the Commission, advocate of collective proposals; and (2)
the national with the Council and, thus, the Presidency forum of the
member states. Since the middle of the 1980s, this clear-cut pattern in terms

Change and Stability of the EU Institutional System

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of role conception has changed. Two main factors can be identified that have
transformed, in particular, the Council Presidency into one that is concerned
increasingly with Community interests: the reactivation of the supranational
dynamic since the 1980s and the institutional reform process that has accompanied the latest and largest enlargement of the EU.

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Conditioning Factors (I): the Re-launching of the European Integration

Process After the SEA
After many years in which intergovernmentalism had dominated, the
European integration process found a new lease of life with the signing of the
SEA in 1986 and of the European Union Treaty (TEU) in 1992. The dynamics created by these first two reforms of the founding treaties had an unprecedented effect on the growth in the responsibilities of the Council Presidency
in both the intergovernmental and the supranational ambit of the EU. This
new assignment of tasks gave rise to the transformation of an institution,
traditionally considered to be a bastion of governmental interests within the
Community structure, into a driving force of the overall integration process.
Despite the fact that, in practice, variations exist between countries, in
formal terms legal, procedural and political there was a qualitative leap
forward in the communitarian duties of the Council Presidency. This turning
point is reflected in at least two missions that the member states granted at
that time to the Presidency, and in the fact that, for the first time, with the
formal introduction of semester programmes in January 1989 (in accordance
with the Stuttgart Declaration of 1983), a results-based obligation was introduced (Stuttgart Declaration 1983, 26).
First, in addition to a substantial widening of powers in intergovernmental
matters (see Westlake 1999; Tallberg 2006), the member states added a new
dimension to the Presidency by making it jointly responsible with a reactivated Commission for the implementation of the Internal Market and for
Economic and Monetary Union (Armstrong and Bulmer 1998, 77). One of
the consequences of this decision was a revised working relationship between
the Council Presidency and the Commission. The rather conflictive nature
that for years had characterized relations between both institutions, as a
result of the adoption of the Luxembourg Compromise, gave way to a new
climate of cooperation based on reinforced joint responsibility for the implementation of common policies. An example of this legally inducted synergy
was the presentation of a joint strategy by the Luxembourg, British and
Austrian presidencies in 19978 in order to develop the Commissions Single
Market Action Plan 19979 (Council of the EU 1997).
This was reinforced by the re-introduction and extension of qualified
majority voting in the Council. As a high-level official of the Council
General Secretariat pointed out, the formal generalisation of this voting
method in economic integration potentially transformed the Council Presidency into one of the principal allies of the European Commission. 7 The
advances made towards the Single Market and EMU depended on the
success of votes taken in the Council. This, in turn, was conditioned largely

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by the capacity of the President to construct a majority (Westlake 1999, 43;

Tallberg 2006, 60).
A second element that contributed to increasing the centrality of the Presidencys role in the direction of the European integration, not only from an
intergovernmental perspective but also from a supranational one, concerns
its institutionalization as a link between the two functional dynamics of the
EU. Until the SEA, the Council Presidency constituted an informal bridge
between the process towards economic integration taking place within the
three European Communities and the mechanism of Political Co-operation,
which remained outside the Treaties. On granting a single legal framework
to these two dimensions of European construction, the SEA took an important
step forward towards closing the gap between the two systems; a step that
was confirmed by the TEU of 1992, which reinforced the centrality of the
Presidency within the European system. According to the Maastricht Treaty
(Art. C of Title I on Common Dispositions), it was the mission of both the
Commission and the Council to guarantee the coherence between the activities
of the three pillars of the EU, as well as to ensure mutual inter-institutional
cooperation in order to achieve this objective. Currently, the increased degree
of cross-pillarization of European policies, for example in the area of justice
and home affairs, has turned this legal norm into a basic principle of EU policy
making.8
Overall, the change of direction in the process of European construction
since the mid-1980s has had an impact on the Council Presidency. Apart
from extending its powers, the SEA and TEU represent critical junctures in
the sense that they have been the catalyst for a qualitative shift in the development of the Presidency by giving it new and explicit responsibilities for
European integration and, consequently, for the defence of the general interests of the Union. The recent evolution of the integration process and, in
particular, that of institutional reform, which began in the mid-1990s in the
context of the fifth enlargement of the EU and of the debate on the future of
Europe, confirms this tendency.
Conditioning Factors (II): the Institutional Reform in the Face of
Enlargement and the Debate on the Future of Europe
Since the implosion of the Soviet bloc in 1991 and the end of the bipolar
order, Europe faced the greatest challenge of its recent history: the end of its
division. For more than ten years, the most important enlargement in
economic, political and symbolic terms centred the interests of the member
states, although at the same time, it was a cause for concern. In institutional
terms, there was little doubt about the need to adapt the structures
constructed around just six member states. Yet, one of the main questions
consisted of deciding how to organize and distribute powers both within and
between European institutions in a widened political arena (Olsen 2002), in
a way that was efficient from a functional point of view and politically
balanced. This debate on the rules of the European political game has lasted
for nearly a decade. During all of these years, one of the most controversial

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627

questions that has arisen has been the reform of the rotational presidential
system.
This is not a new issue. Since the dawn of European construction, there have
been various attempts to reform a model afflicted by a central problem: the
lack of continuity. As the powers of the Presidency have been extended, the
issue of rotation, first by trimester (19517) and then by semester (1958)
has been called increasingly into question.9 The main difficulty associated with
introducing substantial modifications in the actual system has always
stemmed from the firm support given by the member states, particularly the
smaller ones, to the fundamental principles of the Presidency: representation
and equality.
However, the challenge of enlargement has accelerated the necessity for
reform. In this context, since the middle of the 1990s, two parallel processes
aimed at improving the workings of the Council have been taking place. On
the one hand, since 1999, the General Secretariat of the Council has issued
several proposals that have led to five reforms of the Councils Rules of
Procedure in less than six years.10 On the other, there is the negotiation on
this same subject that occurred in the frame of the debate for the revision
of the treaties. Both processes confirm the tendency towards a greater degree
of communitarization of the Presidency.
To start with, between 1999 and 2002, the General Secretariat of the
Council published four successive reports aimed at improving the working
methods of the Council in the face of an enlarged Europe. One of the priorities identified to achieve this objective consisted of correcting the lack of
continuity inherent in the rotating presidency (Council of the EU 1999;
2001a; 2001b; 2002a). The first specific measures in this direction were
adopted during the European Council of Helsinki (December 1999) in which
two operational measures were taken on board the presence of the forthcoming Presidency in Community issues and global assistance of the General
Secretariat of the Council (00300/1/99) with the aim of consolidating the
leading position of the Presidency and of improving the coherence of its
work. However, the real breakthrough in this respect came with the
European Council of Seville in June 2002 (Council of the EU 2002b). Following the recommendations of the Secretary-General of the Council, Javier
Solana, the Heads of State and Government adopted several measures to
change the functioning of the Presidency substantially (Council of the EU
2002a). It was specified, however, that any adaptation of the current system
of rotation by semester should continue to respect the principle of equality
among all the member states (Council of the EU 2002b).
The most significant innovation concerned the issue of the programming
of Council activities. In his report, Solana had proposed to extend the
programme of the Presidency over two or three semesters (Council of the EU
2002a). The European Council went much further than this, in finally giving
its support to a proposal put forward by the Spanish Presidency that contemplated the idea of a programme extended over several years (Council of the
EU 2002c). The formula finally approved was the strategic multi-annual
programme extended to three years from December 2003, as well as the

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presentation of an annual operational programme of activities in December

of each year.11 These proposals were introduced in the Councils new Rules
of Procedure, which came into force on July 23 2002. This occurred together
with other significant procedural innovations, such as the reinforcement of
the cooperation mechanisms between successive presidencies (Arts 19 and
20), and the attribution of the chair of certain technical working groups to
the General Secretariat of the Council,12 an exception to the rotation system
that confirms the increasingly extended practice in recent years of designating stable presidencies for certain committees or working groups. 13
Overall, the European Council of Seville marked a milestone in the process
of reform of the Presidency. The measures adopted confirmed a change of
direction in the evolutionary path of the Presidency. The ideas of a multiannual programme, of partially co-presided mandates and of supranational
chairmanship (Tallberg 2006) have involved a break with the initial format
of the Presidency. In Seville, the principle of equality was maintained, but the
principles of representation and uniqueness have been modified. The changes
introduced to improve the functioning of the Council reformed the founding
principles of the Presidency.
At this moment in time, and pending the ratification of the Treaty of
Lisbon, the trends outlined above would appear to be confirmed by the
results of the IGC 2007 for the revision of the Treaties. For almost seven
years a fierce debate has raged over the future of the presidential rotation
system and, in particular, over the design and designation of the Presidency
of the Foreign Affairs Council and of the Presidency of the European Council
(Quermonne 2002; Schoutheete and Wallace 2002; Magnette and Nicoladis
2003). First, the European Convention, followed by the IGCs of 2003/2004
and IGC 2007, placed this question on the agenda.14 The results of these
three rounds of negotiation over the future of Europe confirm the change of
direction in the evolution of the Council Presidency.
The Constitutional Treaty included the principle of the election of the President of the European Council by a qualified majority for a period of two and
a half years, renewable only once. Such a measure, confirmed by the ICG
2007 results, has various consequences. On the one hand, it detaches the
Presidency of the Council from the Presidency of the European Council,
therefore putting an end to the system in place since 1974. On the other, it
implies designating as the head of the European Council a new political actor
who, in the absence of a national mandate, will appear, at least in theory, as
a supra partes figure and no longer as a primus inter pares (Blavoukos,
Bourantonis, and Pagoulatos 2007; Crum 2007).
Secondly, the constitutional Treaty institutionalized the Foreign Affairs
Minister, appointed for a five-year term, who would, inter alia, chair the
Foreign Affairs Council. This new figure, who has been called again the
High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy
in the Treaty of Lisbon, in an attempt to downplay any reminiscence of
state vocabulary in the new text, would also be the vice-president of the
European Commission. With this measure, the Constitution not only
suppressed the rotational system of semesters based on the principles of

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Change and Stability of the EU Institutional System

629

equality and representation (given that, in principle, on the date that the
modified Treaty comes into place, this function would fall to the SecretaryGeneral of the Council15), but also contributed to communitarize the
Foreign Affairs Council. This dual role of the new High Representative
would effectively involve the difficult task of juggling the intergovernmental
interests of the Council with the supranational interests of the Commission.
In addition, the Constitution considered the strengthening of the measures
agreed in Seville for the rest of the Council formations. In contrast to what
the Convention had proposed, it maintained the rotational system by
semesters but within a team presidency made up of three countries, therefore pushing the idea of a combined mandate. The constitutional Treaty
also allowed the General Secretariat of the Council to take over the Presidency of more working groups in the future and, actually, the Treaty of
Lisbon lays down that the Presidency of the Political and Security Committee would fall to a delegate of the High Representative of the EU. Lastly,
the constitutional text introduced the possibility of modifying by majority
the means of attributing the Presidency and its tenure.
With these measures the constitutional Treaty not only reorganized the
Council Presidency and, as such, had an impact on its way of working, but
also affected symbolic issues tied to the underlying values of the Presidency
that have endured since its origins. The Treaty of Lisbon seems to confirm
this shift. In the case of ratification, these dispositions would mean the end
of an age and a system; indeed, they undermine the principles of equality,
representation and uniqueness that have been inherent in the role of the Presidency since 1951. In this respect, they represent a departure in the system of
representation of the member states within the European polity.
To summarize, between the Presidency of the Special Council of the first
European Community of 1951 and the Presidency of the Council of the
Union of 2007, fifty years have gone by in which much more than the name
has changed. The Presidency has been transformed, both quantitatively and
qualitatively, whereby the exponential increase in its functions over the years
has been accompanied by a change in its institutional nature. The Presidency
has been communitarized. The presidential mandate is no longer a role of
administrative manager and spokesperson of state interests in the heart of the
Community, but rather has become a complex role of drive, coordination,
negotiation, mediation and representation both in the supranational and
intergovernmental areas of the Union.
This evolution has been contingent. During the first decades of the integration process, the role and nature of the Presidency were shaped essentially by
the dialectic of power between the Council and the European Commission.
The inter-institutional debate meant that the Presidency was conceived and
developed essentially as an intergovernmental check within the Community
system. Since the 1980s, this has been qualified. Critical junctures, such as
the SEA and the TEU, led to a more cooperative inter-institutional dynamic,
based on a reinforced partnership between the Presidency and the Commission in the fields of implementation and coordination of European policies.
Legally at least, this led to an increasing association of the Presidency with

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Ana Mar Fernndez

the defence of collective views. The functional pressure to improve the working methods of the Council in the face of the enlargement and of future
scenarios confirmed this. The reforms carried out since 1999 in the treaties
in force and those foreseen by the Treaty of Lisbon, which is still to be
ratified, reinforce this trend towards the supranationalization of the Council
Presidency.
This institutional evolution has exerted an influence on the conceptualization of the role of the Presidency, namely on the expectations about what
constitutes the appropriate behaviour of the member states in the specific
position of the Presidency office. Despite the fact that, in practice, there exist
variations across countries, the changes legal, procedural and political
that have occurred since the 1980s in the design of the institution, especially
in terms of the qualification of the guiding principles of representativeness
and equality in force since the 1950s, have contributed to the de-nationalization of this role. Today, the Council Presidency has both intergovernmental and communitarian features. The extent to which the member states have
digested such a change is still open to question.
Conclusion
Since the 1970s, the majority of the literature on the EU Council Presidency
has focused on identifying the competing and/or complementary expectations underlying the role of the Presidency. The usual approach to address
this question consists of analysing the relative power given to the member
states and, in particular, the instruments at the disposal of the Presidency to
influence the European agenda. In this article, the objective has been to
demonstrate the relevance of placing the analysis of this question in a historical perspective, since, as Lowndes (1996, 193) highlighted, institutions are
processes and not static realities. In particular, the aim has been to underline
the changing nature of the Council Presidency, the evolution of the institutional position of the Presidency within the EU system, and the consequences
of this evolution for the member states in terms of role conception and, thus,
behaviour.
Once this has been done, a conclusion has been reached that, indeed, the
institutional position of the Presidency has not always been the same. In
1951, the Presidency had an intergovernmental function with a low political
profile. The ambits were limited and were essentially administrative. In the
image of the then Special Council, the way of working was simple and its
organization reduced to the minimum. In this context, the scope of the
Presidency for the member states was above all of a symbolic nature. This
presidential mandate involved neither a great deal of responsibility nor major
organizational efforts, although, on the other hand, it did provide a mechanism to ensure equal representation within the Council.
Fifty years later, things have changed. Five decades of increasing return
effects have managed to communitarize this institution. This change in
nature has meant an exponential growth of presidential functions and has
simultaneously transformed the principles upon which this institution

Change and Stability of the EU Institutional System

631

functioned for decades. The initial symbolism that surrounded the Presidency has been eroded. What was conceived as a purely intergovernmental
function, has become identified increasingly with Community interests. In
order to determine and compare the extent to which this process of institutional change has been, and will be, assimilated by the member states
requires further analysis.

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Acknowledgement
The author is grateful to Simon Bulmer, Renaud Dehousse, Nuria Font,
Johan P. Olsen, Sophie Vanhoonacker and Helen Wallace, as well as to two
anonymous referees for their comments and suggestions on earlier versions
of this article.
Notes
1. See the minutes of the first Special Council session, Sep. 8 1952 (Conseil de la CECA 1952a).
2. See the discourses pronounced respectively by Konrad Adenauer, first President of the Special
Council, and Jean Monnet, during the first session of the Council, Sep. 8 1952 (Conseil de la CECA
1952b; 1952c).
3. According to this rule, the first meeting of the Special Council of Ministers that was held in Luxembourg
on Sep. 8 1952 was presided over by Germany (Allemagne) (see Conseil de la CECA 1952b).
4. By way of example, during the negotiations surrounding the Treaties of Rome, the Benelux countries
and, in particular, Luxembourg, strongly defended their participation in the steering organs of the
Councils of the EEC and Euratom. See Note of Luxembourg Delegation of Sep. 13 delivered to the
negotiating commission led by Paul-Henri Spaak. Doc. 271/56. Quoted in Spaak (1987, 68).
5. This change, which is contemplated in Annex II of the Luxembourg Compromise that deals specifically with the question of the relations between the Council of Ministers and the Commission, was
the direct result of the Decalogue presented on Jan. 17 1966 by the French Government (see Conseil
de la CEE 1966).
6. Eight Summits were held between Feb. 1961 and Dec. 1974 that, in terms of organization and overall
direction, did not necessarily coincide with the holding of the Council Presidency of the European
Communities (e.g. the summits of Paris (Feb. 1961) and Rome (May 1967) were held under the
Belgium Presidency).
7. Interview, Brussels, Nov. 9 2004.
8. For example, the Council Presidency and the Commission are jointly responsible for the implementation of the Hague Programme (20049), a horizontal programme that covers both Title IV of the
TEC and Title VI of the TEU (see Council and European Commission 2005).
9. See, for instance, the Tindemans Report in 1975 (Tindemans Report 1976); the Three Wise Men
Report in 1979; the London Report (1981); and the Stuttgart Declaration (1983).
10. Between 1951 and 1969, the Councils Rules of Procedure had been modified only twice: in 1957
due to the signing of the Treaties of Rome and in 1969 due the adoption of the definitive Councils
Rules of Procedure.
11. In December 2002, Greece and Italy presented the first operational programme (Council of the EU
2002d). In December 2003, Ireland, The Netherlands, Luxembourg, the UK, Austria and Finland
elaborated the first strategic multi-annual programme (20046) (Council of the EU 2003).
12. Working Groups of Electronic Communications, Legal Data Processing, Codification of
Legislation, Information, New Buildings.
13. In June 2002, the Spanish Presidency pointed out five exceptions: the Economic Policy Committee,
the ECOFIN Committee, the Code of Conduct Group (Business Taxation), the Military Committee,
and the Security Committee (Council of the EU 2002c).
14. See the position of the Benelux countries during the IGC 2003/2004 (IGC 2003).
15. See Council of the EU (2004).

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