Book Description

An Werts brings a unique perspective to the European Council. As a journalist, he has reported on the spot from virtually every European Council meeting since the start in the 1970s, a witness to countless episodes of last-minute arm-twisting and creative compromise. As a scholar, he wrote the first ever doctoral dissertation on the European Council, published in 1992. In 2008 another book carried the story forward to the verge of the start of the permanent presidency. In this latest book, against the background of the broad sweep of the history of the European Council, he focuses especially on the sequence of crises that began around the time of his previous book the Greek debt and broader euro crises, the migration and refugee crisis, Brexit and Covid among them. Jan Werts interviewed a galaxy of EU insiders whose assessments are extensively quoted in the text. He describes with realism, candour and some sympathy how the leaders, their officials and advisers battled against crises that at times seemed to threaten the European project itself. The institutional development of the European Council since its formal upgrading to an EU institution and the inauguration of the full-time presidency in 2009 is also a major theme. As Werts explains, while the European Council is by definition primarily intergovernmental in character, it has also become firmly embedded in the institutional architecture of the Union and in practice the main driver of EU integration, giving this the legitimacy that only the national leaders can provide. The book is divided into eight main parts. Part 1 offers an overview of the history and increase in powers of the European Council. Part 2 looks at how it has worked to resolve a succession of crises over the last decade and Part 3 assesses its role as provider of direction and leadership for the Union as a whole. Part 4 explores how the European Council has at times been the architect of its own failures. Parts 5 and 6 explain its mechanisms and procedures and how meetings are conducted, including what goes on behind the scenes. Part 7 considers the relationship with the other EU institutions and the changing balance of power, and Part 8 sums up with a series of key conclusions. --