This month saw another in a long line of European Council summits aimed at reforming the institutional framework of the eurozone. Uwe Puetter looks at the rise of deliberative intergovernmentalism in the European Union through European Council summits, and finds that while agreement is required at the highest level to make this system work, the process is remarkably stable

Puetter, Uwe

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LSE Research Online

blo gs.lse.ac.uk http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2012/10/30/the-european-council-uwe-puetter/Franco is Ho lland e  Cre d it: Phil ip p e  Mo re au Che vro le t(Cre ative  Co mmo ns BY NC ND)The European Council has become the new centre of politicalgravity in EU decision-makingby Blog AdminThis month saw another in a long line of European Council summits aimed at reforming theinstitutional framework of the eurozone. Uwe Puetter looks at the rise of deliberativeintergovernmentalism in the European Union through European Council summits, and findsthat while agreement is required at the highest level to make this system work, the process isremarkably stable.The European Council recently met in Brussels to discuss the recurrent issue of  ref ormingthe institutional f ramework of  Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) including the trickyquestion of  coordinating domestic budgetary policies more ef f ectively. Banking union was also discussed.As usual the meeting triggered a great deal of  media attention and Europe’s top policy-makers were quitetalkative ahead of  the summit. Herr (French President Francois) Hollande expressed impatience with thedecision-making on euro area ref orm and the question of  EU-level bank bailout schemes, and Madame(German Chancellor Angela) Merkel replied that this meeting was about discussing these issues f urther –not about making a f inal decision. She stressed that this was on the agenda only f or the next meeting. Yet,the Franco-German couple as well as all the other “heads” knew in any case that there soon will be anotheropportunity to sort these things out: the next European Council meeting.What I f ound more interesting in this regard wasanother statement by Hollande published in Le Mondeon 17 October, the day bef ore the European Council.The French president demanded monthly meetings ofthe heads – at least f or the euro area. He expresseddissatisf action with the notion of  European Councilcrisis meetings and called f or emphasising continuityinstead. This was an idea also f amiliar to some ofMerkel’s EU af f airs aides in the chancellery in Berlin.On the day bef ore the European Council meeting Ilistened to a programme on German national radioDeutschlandf unk with the tit le “The euro crisis and itsmanagers”. The program f eatured Thomas Wieser,the Austrian senior civil servant, who chairs theEurogroup Working Group – the of f spring of  theEconomic and Financial Committee which bringstogether the euro area’s deputy f inance ministers andprepares all Eurogroup meetings and, increasingly, theEMU related agenda points f or the European Council. I know who he is but who else does? Yet, we learnwhy Wieser is an important man in Brussels. Instead of  sitt ing in his empty of f ice (also mentioned in theprogramme) he spends most of  his t ime in meetings and talking to top- level decision-makers. What is hisrole in all this? “I am something like a marriage counsellor who tries – between two or several partners, ifone accepts polygamy – to achieve a common understanding of  things and seeks to make sure thatoperational implementation gets underway”, says Wieser.This is in a nutshell what I think the currently most important institutional trend in EU policy-making is. Whatwe are seeing is a new European intergovernmentalism. It is a dif f erent type of  intergovernmentalism. It isnot what was ref erred to as the opposite model of  polit ical integration in Europe. Instead of  standstill thereis a continuous intensif ication of  top- level intergovernmental policy coordination. Instead of  legislativedecision-making there is agreement on commonly shared policy objectives which is reiterated on a regularbasis. Implementation is f ully dependent on the polit ical self -commitment of  member state representativesin the European Council and the Council of  the European Union. To make this system work agreement isrequired at the highest level. Individual ministers of ten simply lack the authority within the domestic contextto guarantee implementation. This is a lesson f rom the open method coordination experience of  the early2000s. This is why the European Council becomes an ef f ective supervisor of  the relevant Councilf ormations and the Eurogroup. This is why the heads get involved in day-to-day decision-making.There is disagreement and there are conf licts, of  course and one should expect this given what is at stake.Yet, the process as such is remarkably stable. It seems that the more problems occur the more f requent arethe meetings. The heads themselves are overseeing this process. The Council and the Eurogroup receiveinstructions. Meetings among ministers in the relevant areas become more f requent too. Moreover,European Council and Council activity involves the emergence and continuing expansion of  a sophisticatedsystem of  comitology. All these processes including the underlying bureaucratic inf rastructure – committeeslike the one chaired by Wieser or the inf luential Polit ical and Security Committee – are geared towardsconsensus seeking among member state governments. Because of  this f ocus on institutionalisingcollective processes of  policy deliberation I have ref erred to this new institutional dynamic as deliberativeintergovernmentalism.It is the key mode of  governance especially in areas such as economic policy and f oreign and securitypolicy. Even on issues which involve classic community method decision-making – such as in the case ofthe ref orm of  banking supervision – the power to init iate and shape policy is not so much with theCommission anymore but with the European Council. Moreover, policy instruments and implementationresources are all decentralised and located at the national level. It all started with the Maastricht Treaty andthe decision to develop economic governance and f oreign and security policy outside the communitymethod. The crucial point is that these processes not only constitute new modes of  governance but overtime also triggered a process of  prof ound institutional change. We can trace numerous attempts atinstitutional engineering aimed at enhancing the problem-solving capacity of  f orums like the Eurogroup, therelevant Council f ormations and, most recently under the supervision of  its new f ull- t ime president, theEuropean Council. The creation of  the of f ice of  a f ull- t ime president (currently held by Herman vanRompuy) of  the European Council is a f unction of  this dynamic too.Read more on this: Uwe Puetter, Europe’s deliberative intergovernmentalism: the role of the Council andEuropean Council in EU economic governance, Journal of European Public Policy 19:2, pp. 161-178, 2012.Please read our comments policy before commenting.Note:  This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of EUROPP – European Politics andPolicy, nor of the London School of Economics.Shortened URL for this post: http://bit .ly/EUSumm _________________________________About the author Uwe Puetter – Central European UniversityUwe Puetter is Prof essor at the Department of  Public Policy and Director of  the Center f orEuropean Union Research (CEUR) at Central European University, Budapest. He holds theJean Monnet Chair in European Public Policy and Governance. His main research is ongovernance and processes of  institutional change in EU economic governance, social andemployment policy as well as f oreign and security policy. His recent research analyses thechanging role of  the European Council and the Council in EU decision-making af ter theMaastricht Treaty.

The European Council has become the new centre of politicalgravity in EU decision-making

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