The European Council - the new centre of EU politics (2013:16epa)
The fundamental task of the European Council has been to define the EU´s general political direction. Its influence and scope of intervention, however, is gradually increasing.
With the Lisbon Treaty it was given a status of an EU institution and its meetings are since chaired by a permanent president. The European Council has been playing a pivotal decision-making role during the euro crisis, and it now emerges as the EU´s new power centre.
In this publication, Professor Uwe Puetter provides a background to those developments and analyses the implications of an increasingly stronger position of the European Council.
The publication is part of SIEPS´ research project The constitutional development of the European Union