The European Council’s Presidency: A Sociology of an EU Institution

While the European Council has long been considered a mere interstate body within the European political system, its presidency has been studied both in terms of responsibility without power or as an opportunity to pursue national interests, an opposition that has proven somewhat ineffective. Hypothesizing the Europeanization of the presidency, this introduction analyzes this function as an institution even though it has does not have that formal status. Gradually institutionalized since its modest inception in 1952, it has since the 1980s acted as a system of government in its own right, which raises questions about the incarnation, rotation, delegation, and temporality of power. Lastly, this introduction presents the papers that make up this thematic issue and develop a new historical and political sociology of the presidential office from the perspective of inter-institutional relations and competition between European institutions and no longer between Brussels and national capitals only.