The rotating presidency of the EU Council as a two-level game, or how the “Brussels model” neutralises domestic political factors: the case of Romania

ABSTRACT

This article examines the Romanian rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union during the first half of 2019 as a two-level game. It shows how, despite heightened political tensions at the domestic and European level, the Romanian rotating presidency managed to fulfil its main functions. It is argued that the preparation and the conduct of the rotating presidency is not only a two-level game, but also one in which diplomats and civil servants play a central role. Their centrality in the process neutralises domestic political factors such as Eurosceptic governmental attitudes, the lack of political vision or credibility.

KEYWORDS:

• EU Council
• rotating presidency
• Romania
• organiser
• broker
• political leader
• agenda setter
• two-level game

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributor

Ramona Coman is Associate Professor in Political Science at the Université libre de Bruxelles (Belgium) and President of the Institute for European Studies at the ULB. Recent books include Governance and Politics in the Post-Crisis EU (co-edited with A. Crespy and V. Schmidt, Cambridge University Press 2020), Political Science in Motion (co-edited 2016, Editions de l'Université de Bruxelles), Europeanization and European Integration. From Incremental to Structural Change (co-edited, Palgrave 2014) and The State of Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe. A Comparative Perspective (co-edited Routlegde 2016). She has published in New Political Economy, Journal of Euro- pean Public Policy, The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, Journal of European Inte- gration, Journal of Contemporary European Studies, Europe-Asia Studies, Revue Française de Science politique etc.

Notes

1 From Agence Europe, I retrieved 580 articles from 15 August 2019 to November 2018 related to the Romanian rotating presidency of the Council.

2 He ultimately reassured his European homologues, when in November 2018, after his meeting with Chancellor Kurtz, he declared: “I have various points of disagreement with the government but not in the field of EU affairs, nor with regards to the preparation of the presidency” (25 November 2018).

3 As one diplomat declared, the number of ordinary legislative procedures closed was higher than the number of acts published in the Official Journal of the European Union because at the end of the legislative procedure, the act is scrutinised by the legal services and translators; a process that can last eight weeks. The team of the Romanian rotating presidency in Brussels sought to accelerate this procedure so that the number of acts adopted matched the number of acts closed, as a recognition of the work accomplished (informal discussion in Brussels, Romanian diplomat, August 2019).