Does the Lack of Consensus Undermine “the Culture of Consensus” in the European Council? The Case of Tusk Re-Election

Both the Council and the European Council are said to operate under “the culture to consensus”, which means that even if they formally can decide on some issues by qualified majority, in practice they rarely do so. This is particularly true of the European Council and so it was surprising to many observers when on 9 March 2017 Donald Tusk was re-elected for a second term as the European Council’s president despite the explicit negative vote of one member state (Poland). This event marked the first time the EC used the possibility of electing its president by qualified majority rather than unanimously. This paper will argue that using formal provisions allowing for qualified majority voting in such exceptional situations is, rather than undermining the culture of consensus, in fact necessary to maintain it. The argument is embedded in the practice turn contribution to political research. Practice turn moves social practices to the centre of researchers’ interest and emphasises the fact that they can be performed more or less competently. Therefore, if a member state performs the “practice of consensus” incorrectly, it cannot expect the norms which constitute the culture of consensus to help it impose its position on other member states. Because of the difficult to access way in which the European Council operates, the paper develops its argument by drawing from the ongoing qualitative research on decision-making in the Council (interviews with national officials), attempting to transpose its findings to the case of European Council. It also uses available sources relevant to the events of 2017 Tusk re-election to substantiate the argument.