Policy-making involves clashes of interests. Reconciling these is often enabled via package deals, where issues are traded-off between actors, each getting his preferred issue by compromising on something else. While the formation and kinds of issue linkages are usually studied with respect to international organisations, they are not less relevant for other levels of power where diverse interests have to be conciliated (regional, national, local, etc.). The European Council, a key institution for agenda-setting in the European Union (EU), represents a rich example for research on issue linkages. It is the highest political body of a Union defined as sui generis and commonly seen as something between a nation state and an international organisation. While the European Council formally avoids legislating, matters noted in its conclusions can hardly be ignored by other EU institutions. Over the last 36 years, the European Council has not only navigated attention to different issues but also put forward a number of policy initiatives, triggering spill overs in the European integration process. Therefore, it could be expected that linking of issues has occurred in a number of cases, allowing EU leaders to reach consensus. Certain links might also have proven persistent over long periods. This paper aims at empirically investigating issue linkages on the European Council agenda throughout the existence of the institution (1975 – 2011). It analyses the kinds of issues which have been linked, the particular bonds they have been involved in, the lifespan of these linkages, and the patterns of their existence. By doing this, the paper also tests different hypotheses on the nature of issue linkages derived from the European integration and international relations literature.
