3 - The institutional development of the EU Presidency: a search for efficient cooperation

Summary

The Presidency has traveled far in half a century of European integration. When the office was first established in the 1950s, it possessed almost no political powers. Today, Presidencies perform functions of agenda management, brokerage, and representation that put them at the center of European cooperation. How can this remarkable transformation of the EU chairmanship be explained? Existing literature tends to present the historical evolution of the Presidency as an accidental and unanticipated process. Helen Wallace concludes: “The Presidency… represents a combination of reactions to events, the follower not the creator of fashion and convention.” In the same vein, Emil Kirchner argues: “The Council Presidency can be described as a body that has grown in status more by default than by design.”

This chapter argues in favor of a functionalist interpretation of the Presidency's development from an insignificant administrative office into a powerful political platform. It suggests that the primary sources behind this evolution are developments in the EU's internal decision-making and external political ambitions that have given rise to real or anticipated problems of agenda failure, negotiation failure, and representation failure. Member governments have responded to these collective-action problems by delegating new and more far-reaching responsibilities to the Presidency. The search for efficient modes of negotiation and decision-making has been the leitmotif of this process, which has taken place through continuous and incremental adjustment of the Presidency's tasks.