Decision making in the European Community

In this first major assessment of EC decision-making at the highest levels for ten years, Emil Kirchner examines the Council Presidency's role in European integration. The author demonstrates how the EC Council Presidency plays a crucial role in the integration process enhanced by the Single European Act and the two Intergovernmental Conferences on EMU and Political Union. He evaluates the balance and distribution of power between national and Community actors, and asks whether the Council Presidency is primarily an instrument to maintain national control of EC decision-making, rather than a device for promoting integration. He sheds light on the negotiations which led to the SEA and the two Intergovernmental Conferences, and argues for a new interpretation of the relationship between the EC and its constituent states. EC decision-making is not characterised by a transfer of powers from the national to the EC level, but by a sharing of competences between national and Community institutions and a 'pooling of sovereignties' among member governments that is analogous to 'co-operative federalism'. Decision-making in the European Community will be vital reading for political scientists and students interested in the EC; and for all those seeking to understand European integration, potentially the 1990s' most important political development.