4 - The EU Presidency as agenda manager: shaping political priorities

Summary

The rotation of the Presidency gives every member state of the EU an opportunity to engage in agenda management, brokerage, and representation. Yet what are the political implications of this arrangement? Does the Presidency office constitute a power platform that permits the incumbent to pursue national interests through extraordinary means, or a burden that forces governments at the helm to sacrifice private concerns for the collective good? In this chapter and in Chapters 5 and 6, I turn to the question of how the powers of the Presidency office may be used to influence the direction of EU negotiations. I begin by analyzing the Presidency's function as agenda manager.

Existing literature is highly skeptical about the capacity of Presidencies to shape the EU agenda. Typically, three forms of arguments are advanced. According to the first argument, the office of the Presidency office has not been conferred any exclusive formal powers of initiative, and therefore cannot set the EU's policy agenda. In this vein, Richard Corbett stresses: “[T]aking on the Presidency does not mean acceding to an executive office but is merely the chairmanship of one of the EU institutions for a short period.” The second line of reasoning emphasizes the limitations on Presidencies' room for maneuver imposed by inherited agendas and unforeseeable events. In an early and widely cited assessment, Guy de Bassompierre asserts that “any Presidency, however worthy and able, can only influence, at best, 5–10 percent of the issues.”