Research on the presidency of the EU shows mixed results.
Although most scholars agree that the EU presidency is not
able to advance its domestic interests in the European forum,
Tallberg (2006) provides evidence for presidency effects. In
the present paper, we empirically estimate presidency-based
power in the Council of the European Union on the DEU data
– a large-scale data set containing EU policy issues from
various policy areas. We show that holding the presidency
does significantly and positively contribute to the bargaining
power of member states, but only in the final stages of
decision-making.