Abstract
In the preceding chapter we assessed the European Council’s impact by measuring how well it had performed its various functions. Two broad conclusions emerged. On the one hand, the European Council has at no time carried out all its functions in a complete manner. On the other hand, the emphasis of its activities has shifted over time. Especially since 1981, there has been a decline in its attention to extra-Community issues, due in part to a pre-occupation with internal policies (particularly the EC Budget) and, in 1985, to its efforts to make changes to the EC treaties.
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Notes and References
For example: C. Blumann, ‘Le Conseil Européen’, Revue trimestrielle de droit européen, XII (1976), p. 10; R. H. Lauwaars, ‘The European Council’, in: Common Market Law Review, XIV (1977), p. 41. Constantinesco adds COREPER as a fourth tier: L.-J. Constantinesco, Das Recht der Europäischen Gemeinschaften, Band 1: Das institutionelle Recht (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlag, 1977), p. 504.
H. Wallace, ‘The presidency of the Council of Ministers of the European Community: tasks and evolution’, in: Nuallain, The Presidency of the Council of Ministers, p. 11. Wallace quotes some of the outline of La Marlia procedure, contained in Bulletin of the EC, 1975, no. 11, p. 85. 8. See the list in the appendix to Bonvicini and Regelsberger ‘Organizational and Political Implications of the Establishment of the European Council’.
Ibid. The Secretary general is Mr Niels Ersbøll.
The Dooge Report was prepared by a committee consisting of personal representatives of the government heads. The committee’s composition thus avoided the laborious standard operating procedures of COREPER. In the case of preparations for the EMS a ‘Gang of Three’ was created for similar reasons and consisted of M Clappier (France), Mr Couzens (Britain) and Dr Schulmann (West Germany): see: Ludlow, The Making of the European Monetary System, pp. 104–17.
On the Commission’s functions in general, see Henig, Power and Decision in Europe (London: Europotentials, 1980), pp. 51 ff.
Ortoli, and others criticised this interference of one EC organ in the internal operation of another: Economist, 4 December 1976, p. 62. The Commission thus proposed submitting a report of its own.
Commission President Ortoli at the EP after the inaugural Dublin session: OJ (EP Debates), 12 March 1975, Annex 188, pp. 34–7.
The Commission submitted around sixty ‘proposals’ to the European Council between 1975 and the 1984 Fontainebleau session: J. P. Jacqué and D. Simon, ‘Le role constitutionnel et juridique du Conseil Européen’, pp. 24–5.
H.-J. Glaesner, ‘Das Konzertierungsverfahren zwischen Rat und Europäischem Parlament’, Integration, 1981, no. 1, pp. 22–7.
The EP was also aggrieved at the failure to secure a permanent solution to the budgetary problem. See the assessment of the progress of the EC Budget in the EP in: D. Strasser, ‘Le budget 1983’, Revue du Marché Commun, no. 268 (1983), pp. 307–62, especially p. 317. Also see: Economist, 25 December 1982, p. 59. Both articles refer to a supplementary budget for 1982 in order to facilitate the British rebate. Similar events occurred the following year.
A full account of the Reay Report’s recommendations are contained in EPWD 148/1978, 30 May 1978. For the broader context of the EP’s attempts to enhance itself in the institutional balance, see: M. Palmer, ‘The Development of the European Parliament’s Institutional Role Within the European Community, 1974–1983’, Journal of European Integration, VI (1983), pp. 183–202.
The London Report is published as Report on European Political Co-operation, 13 October 1981 in Bulletin of the EC, Supplement 3/1981.
On the Genscher—Colombo proposals: J. H. H. Weiler, ‘The Genscher—Colombo Draft European Act: The Politics of Indecision’, Journal of European Integration, VI (1983), pp. 129–53. The relevant decisions stemming from this initiative are contained in the Solemn Declaration on European Union, Bulletin of the EC, 1983, no. 6, para. 2.1, pp. 25–6.
For a full analysis of the Draft Treaty’s content, see R. Bieber, J. P. Jacqué and J. Weiler (eds), An Ever Closer Union: a critical analysis of the Draft Treaty establishing the European Union (Luxembourg: EC Commission/European University Institute, 1985).
E. Stein, ‘Lawyers, judges and the making of a transnational constitution’, American Journal of International Law, LXXV (1981), p. 1.
The two dynamics and their inter-relationship are discussed by J. H. H. Weiler, ‘Community, member states and European integration: is the law relevant?’, Journal of Common Market Studies, XXI (1982), pp. 46–7.
For brief information on EC Tripartite Conferences, see: G. Parker and B. Parker, A Dictionary of the European Communities (London: Butterworths, 1981), p. 74.
E. Kirchner and K. Schwaiger, The Role of Interest Groups in the European Community (Aldershot: Gower, 1981), p. 128.
For an account of de Gaulle’s initiative, the Fouchet Plans and the role of summitry in them, see: S.J. Bodenheimer, Political Union: A Microcosm of European Politics 1960–66 (Leiden: Sijthoff, 1967). A much briefer account which also covers the creation and early development of EPC is provided by D. Allen and W. Wallace, ‘European Political Co-operation: the historical and contemporary background’, in: Allen, Rummel and Wessels European
This does not apply at the specialist level in the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office but this is the exception: G. Edwards, The Presidency of the EC: the Case of the United Kingdom’, in: Nuallain, The Presidency of the Council of Ministers, p. 243.
See K. Kaiser, W. Lord, T. de Montbrial, D. Watt, Western Security: What has changed? What should be done? (London: Royal Institute for International Affairs, 1981).
Ludlow, The Making of the European Monetary System, pp. 198–205; S. Bulmer, ‘West German Political Parties: Structures Without Function’, Political Studies, XXXI (1983), pp. 581–2.
For example, the European Council agreed in Strasbourg (June 1979) to maintain crude oil imports for 1980–85 at an annual level no higher than that of 1978 so as to oblige greater responsibility on the energy policy of the United States. In the event the Tokyo economic summit, for which the Strasbourg decisions were prepared, agreed on national import targets. Hence the. participants at Tokyo had agreed in effect to national targets for the smaller states without consulting them: Putnam and Bayne, Hanging Together, pp. 123–5.
J. H. H. Weiler, ‘Community, Member States and European Integration’, Journal ofCommonMarketStudies, XXI (1982), pp. 46–7.
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© 1987 Simon Bulmer and Wolfgang Wessels
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Bulmer, S., Wessels, W. (1987). The European Council and its Policy-Making Environment: A Cuckoo in the Community’s Nest?. In: The European Council. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-07228-6_6
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