The Presidency Effect. EU Member State Behaviour in the Rotating Council Presidency and its Impact on EU Decision Making

Every six months, the Presidency of the European Union (EU) Council of Ministers rotates to a different member state (MS), and there is some evidence that in the run-up to and during their tenure, MS sometimes change policy positions and (voting) behaviour in ways that defy established theoretical expectations. The Presidency has evolved from a merely administrative Chair into a key player in EU decision making with responsibility for representation, mediation/brokerage and agenda setting. Thus, this project examines the impact of the Presidency’s changing role(s) in the context of EU governance on the behaviour and policy positions of the incumbent MS, in order to determine to what extent tenure of the Presidency can explain changes in Council members’ policy positions and behaviour where other factors, including (power) resources, relative stakeholder positions, issue salience and (other) institutions cannot. The compilation of a new, and the first, data set of the population of Presidencies to date (114 cases by 2015) will form the basis for a systematic comparison of the multi-faceted historical cases using a multi-method approach: Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA), supplemented where necessary by case studies, will capture the non-quantifiable aspects of Presidency roles, while statistical analyses can be used for quantitative aspects and alternative explanatory factors (such as economic performance and other power resources). The research goal is to establish those combinations of structural, institutional and ideational conditions that explain (changes in) member state behaviour in the Presidency.