This course is an advanced-level seminar on the Council of the European Union and its role as a central policy-making institution within the EU’s political system. It specifically introduces students to the Council as a diverse policy-making environment in which member state representatives simultaneously and by using different working methods engage in legislative decision-making, policy coordination and executive decision-making.
The course discusses how the role of the Council as the central forum for representing member state governments in EU decision-making has changed within the context of new intergovernmentalism, as a key dynamic of institutional change in post-Maastricht integration. Besides its traditional role as a co-legislator the Council is reviewed as being the key organisational structure through which member state governments as well as the Commission exercise far-reaching executive powers collectively in some of the EU’s most prominent policy domains.
The course will be taught by prof. Uwe PUETTER.