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This paper contributes to a new understanding of the role and influence of the EU institutions in dealing with major EU reforms. Many have argued that, due to successive crises, Eurozone, Refugee and Brexit, EU decision making has become more intergovernmental. The role of the main intergovernmental body, the European Council, has been enhanced. Moreover, at various moments during these crises, the political leaders chose to by-pass the Community framework, and opt for intergovernmental solutions. However, in the literature, intergovernmentalism also refers to a dominance of the member states vis-à-vis the institutions in shaping these agreements. This paper looks at the process-level implications of this increased intergovernmentalism. We analyse and compare the role and influence of the institutions in five major reform negotiations: EFSF/ESM, Fiscal Compact, banking union, EU-Turkey deal and British renegotiation. An exploration of these empirical micro-foundations reveals more institution-driven processes and outcomes than the label intergovernmentalist suggests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the role and influence of the EU institutions in major reform negotiations. We argue that one of the paradoxes of European Council dominated decision-making has been the enhanced dependence on EU institutions to translate broad priorities into actual reforms. We substantiate this claim by means of an in-depth process-tracing analysis of the Fiscal Compact. The conventional wisdom is that the Fiscal Compact was a German dictate. Instead, we show that it resulted from a division of labour: political leadership by member states in the control room, and instrumental leadership by the institutions in the machine room. Such instrumental leadership is unjustly depicted as mere facilitation, with little impact on process and outcome. We juxtapose the Fiscal Compact to two similar cases of Germany-led EU reforms (the Euro-Plus-Pact and Contractual Arrangements) to reveal the leadership activities by the institutions and the fingerprints these left in the final outcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies of political contestation of EU decision making usually focus on the division lines in the European Parliament and, to a lesser extent, the Council of Ministers. This article seeks to broaden the analysis of the contestation of EU politics by conceptualising EU contestation across the EU's 'multilevel parliamentary field'. It distinguishes three ideal-typical structures of contestation – national, inter-institutional, and transnational contestation – and hypothesises that the more institutionalised the mode of EU decision making, the more likely it is that contestation takes place along transnational lines. The article then draws on the empirical literature on multilevel parliamentarism to assess the plausibility of this hypothesis for four modes of EU decision making: EU legislation, executive decisions, policy coordination and institutional design. Finding the hypothesis broadly confirmed, the article concludes that, if the supranational implications of EU decision making are to be appreciated, also less institutionalised decision-making modes require some form of transnational contestation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Can diplomacy work without physical presence? International relations scholars consider the European Union (EU) the most institutionalised case of international co-operation amongst sovereign states, with the highest density of repeated diplomatic exchange. In a year, the Council of Ministers hosts on average 143 ministerial and 200 ambassadorial meetings, along with hundreds of working group meetings. These intense diplomatic interactions came to an abrupt halt in mid-March 2020, when the spread of COVID-19 forced the Council to approve — in a manner unprecedented in European integration history — the temporary derogation from its rules of procedures to allow votes in written form, preceded by informal videoconferences between ministers or ambassadors. This argumentative essay reflects on how we can use these extraordinary months of intra-European diplomacy to assess the viability of virtual diplomacy in the EU context and what lessons it provides as we seek more sustainable means of international engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the impact that the rise of a new, European Council-dominated Union has had for role of EU institutions in the most important issues of the past decade. Building on rational institutionalist theories of leadership, we first develop a New Institutionalist Leadership model that helps us understand the political leadership tasks performed by the European Council and the instrumental leadership tasks that are informally delegated to EU institutions, who then deliver them in the 'the machine room' where broad political guidelines are translated into actual binding reforms. The article then traces the empirical evolution of New Institutionalist Leadership in two parallel processes: dealing with concrete reforms such as the Fiscal Compact, and in managing the longer-term reform agenda in what became termed the Leaders' Agenda. Our findings point to the need for EU scholars to pay closer attention to what is going on beneath the headline-dominating activities of the European Council. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2004, the European Union proposed a project entitled the European Neighborhood Policy as a new strategic option. The project had been adopted by the European Council one year earlier in a proposal to the concerned states. The European Neighborhood Policy proposes the development of the scope of cooperation between the European Union and the southwestern Mediterranean countries through several political, economic, social, and cultural fields. Yet, the sphere of security is set at the top of its priorities. It is based on the principles of human rights, democracy, and the rule of law, as well as on establishing security and stability between the countries on the two shores of the Mediterranean neighboring Europe. This would be based on a common framework and a larger volume of mutual cooperation that is embodied in a genuine partnership that would confront common challenges. The study explores and provides an answer to the following question: To what extent can the European Neighborhood Policy be considered a representation of regionalism and the embodiment of a genuine European desire through which it would be able to build a "security group" in the Mediterranean basin? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This introductory article sets out the European Union context of the special issue. Its main purpose is to present an overview of the changing role of the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union. After a brief introduction, the first section discusses the theoretical approach applied in the study of rotating EU Council Presidencies ? primarily, historical, rational and sociological institutionalism. All these aspects are inherent in the relatively informal structure within the Council of Ministers. Subsequently, an abbreviated account of the evolution of the rotating presidency is provided. This is followed by a section analysing the main functions of the presidency and how the Iberian presidencies have used these functions. The template employed is relatively simple; later articles in the special issue may use it to the degree it is relevant to their focus. It has been argued that until the Lisbon Treaty came into force in 2009, the rotating presidency could be used to enhance a country?s global image, mainly through the external representation role assigned to the institution. The Portuguese presidency of 2007 was probably the last such presidency. As a consequence of the reforms undertaken throughout the new millennium intended to help the EU adjust to enlargement, the presidency has lost visibility. The Spanish presidency of 2010 can been identified as the first in which perceptions of the old and new rotating presidency roles conflicted with each other, leading to failure in many areas. The article finishes by describing the principal aims of the special issue and summarizing the individual contributions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This contribution examines the co-ordination mechanisms which central governments have established to develop positions and cast votes in negotiations in the European Union (EU). Conceptually, the contribution discusses how different traits of EU co-ordination mechanisms can be defined and measured. Empirically, it utilizes a novel data set to map the defined traits of the co-ordination mechanisms in EU-28. Analytically, the contribution demonstrates that some of the variation in the traits of the EU co-ordination mechanisms is connected to public Euroscepticism. Therefore the analysis supports studies that have argued that a sceptical attitude towards European integration is associated with more centralized co-ordination mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]