The Administrative Dimension of the European Council after Lisbon: The Changing Role of the Council’s General Secretariat

The Lisbon Treaty provided for major institutional reforms, impacting significantly on the way the European Union is governed. The proposed paper analyses one particular aspect of this institutional reform process, namely the manner in which the General Secretariat of the Council (GSC), the key supporting body for the (European) Council and Presidency, has been affected by the establishment of permanent chairs of the European Council (EC). For the GSC, the creation of the position of semi-permanent President of the EC (PEC) introduced both opportunities and risks in terms of its institutional role. While the greater continuity promised by the creation of the post of PEC provides the potential for a more stable relationship between the postholder and the staff of the GSC, it also risks to reduce the secretariat’s room of manoeuvre and to diminish its core role of facilitating a smooth running of EU summit meetings. It raises a number of questions: how is the agenda being set for EuCo meetings? Has the provision of political and legal advice changed after Lisbon? Has the greater politicization of European Council business transformed the role of the secretariat? In addressing these questions, the paper first examines the GSC’s institutional preferences with regard to its role in supporting the European Council and successively identifies strateies and resources that were used to realise these preferences. The paper argues that the GSC largely succeeding in achieving its objectives in the case of the European Council and explains why this has been the case. Beyond bringing new insights on the role of GSC, an under-researched part of the EU’s institutional architecture, the paper also aims to contribute more generally to our understanding of the bureaucratic players and international secretariats with limited formal powers.