This work describes, analyses, explains and compares the role performance of different European Union council presidencies. Nine different presidencies are compared and the book concludes by comparing media images and summaries looking at member state characteristics and behaviour.

In recent years, the failure of the constitutional process, the difficult ratification and implementation of the Lisbon Treaty, as well as the several crises affecting Europe have revitalized the debate on the nature of the European polity and the balance of powers in Brussels. This book explains the redistribution of power in the post-Lisbon EU with a focus on the European Council. Reform of institutions and the creation of new political functions at the top of the European Union have raised fresh questions about leadership and accountability. This book argues that the European Union exhibits a political order with hierarchies, mechanisms of domination and legitimating narratives. As such, it can be understood by analysing what happens at its summit. Taking the European Council as the nexus of European political governance, contributors consider council and rotating presidencies' co-operation, rivalry and opposition. The book combines approaches through events, processes and political structures, issues and the biographical trajectories of actors and explores how the founding compromise of European integration between sovereignty and supranationality is affected by the evolving nature of this new European political model which aims to combine cooperation and integration. The European Council and European Governance will be of strong interest to students and scholars of European studies, political science, political sociology, public policy and international relations.

Small States and EU Governance shows that the EU's rotating Council presidency and small states' capacity to make use of it have been underestimated. It examines the political objectives the presidency serves and presents a systematic and comparative assessment of its nature and influence in internal market and foreign policy issues.

The focus of this book is on the fifteen-member European Union but its coverage extends to many other bodies which form part of today's Europe, such as the Council of Europe, the European Economic Area and Western European Union.

The Oxford Handbook of the European Union brings together numerous acknowledged specialists in their field to provide a comprehensive and clear assessment of the nature, evolution, workings, and impact of European integration.

The challenges that have been facing the European Union in recent years have given rise to the question: who leads the EU? This book offers a systematic analysis of political leadership in the EU. This volume offers a theoretical and conceptual analysis of political leadership in the EU. It deals with questions such as what kind of leadership is there in the different domains (such as climate change or central banking). It also examines how various EU institutions (European Commission, European Parliament) exert or have exerted leadership. Furthermore, it examines the role of the presidents of some of these institutions, such as the European Commission the European Council, the European Central Bank, but also of selected national leaders. Although the book does not advance a single leadership concept, the findings of the individual case studies show that the EU is by no means leaderless. The chapters originally published as a special issue in the Journal of European Integration.

This book for children (roughly 9 to 12 years old) gives an overview of Europe and explains briefly what the European Union is and how it works.--Publisher's description.