European Council

The European Council brings together the chief executives of the 12 member 'countries—the prime ministers of Belgium, Denmark, Great Britain, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain, the chancellor of Germany, and the president of France. These are the most prominent political leaders in Europe—John Major, Francois Mitterrand, Helmut Kohl, Felipe Gonzalez, and so forth. In the initial phase of the European Community, the European Council did not yet exist. It evolved from the practice, dating back to 1974, of regularly organizing informal meetings of the chief executives. French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing and German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt were instrumen­tal to set up this tradition. In the Single European Act, the European Council was formally established as an institution of the European Community. It meets about three or four times a year for short sessions of a couple of days. The chair for these meetings rotates among all the member countries every six months—the same system as for the Council of Ministers. The president of the Commission— who will be discussed in the next section—attends the meetings of the Euro­pean Council in his own right. The foreign ministers are also in attendance at these meetings, f

ComparecT'with the United States, the European Council corresponds closely to the Governors' Conference. Imagine if the Governors' Conference were the most powerful political body in the United States! Each governor would prob­ably feel primarily responsible to the interests of his or her own state. This is indeed the situation in the European Council. John Major is first of all prime minister of Britain; Francois Mitterrand, president of France. The power base for each participant is in his or her own respective country. To survive politically, the members of the European Council must first of all win elections at home. If they lose those elections, they are also out of the European Council. Thus, the members of the Council naturally view a problem first from their own national perspective and not from an overall European view. Therefore, important deci­sions can only be reached if all national interests are more or less accommodated. Meetings of the European Council often resemble a "game of chicken" in which each participant tries to wait out all others before making concessions. This leads to hectic, late-night sessions in which some bargain is finally struck out of exhaustion. Quite often, however, such late-night agreements tend to obscure real differences, so that the issue must be taken up again at a later council meeting. Observers have grown accustomed to an atmosphere of crisis at European Council meetings. But somehow the council muddles through, to keep the European Union going. After all, the participants know that the demise of the European Union

3S4 WESTERN, CENTRAL, AND EASTERN EUROPE

would leave every country worse off. Thus, a solution of some kind is always found, even if it is only to study the problem further (see Box 17.2). Overall, the European Council has become the most important institution of the Euro­pean Union. It is here that the basic political compromises are worked out. They are usually prepared elsewhere, but the key issues are left to the chief execu­tives. If their power base is weakened in their home countries, this also weakens the decision making in the European Union.

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