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The European Council – the new centre of EU politics

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.