The Council of the European Union: Models of EU Decision-Making Meet Empirical Evidence

Abstract

The panel seeks to contribute to the framing of the discussion on EU Council decision-making. The EU Council has attracted a substantial amount of attention by political scientists for quite a long time now. The Council represents the apex of the EU’s political process, where national interests of member countries meet in a specific institutional setting, allowing for the accommodation of potential conflict in a predominantly consensual manner. Why and how this happens has been addressed already in a bulk of literature theorising how this institution works, what the key factors are that inform the behaviour of governmental actors, what the role of the decision-making rule is, how the presidency matters, or the legislative procedure in the European Parliament. But there is still little consensus on what constitutes the core mechanism operating this supreme body of EU politics and how its study should be approached. Eastern enlargement accompanied by the process of institutional reform of the EU has stirred this field of study, and brought significant impetus for new research. The panel is open to papers that aim to test theoretical models of decision-making on the basis of empirical data on various levels of decision-making (ministerial sessions, COREPER or, working groups).

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