The Rotating European Union Council Presidency and Small Member States explores the opportunities and burdens for small states of holding the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union. While the functions and the achievements of the Council presidencies have been widely studied on the EU level, this book adopts the inverse and under-researched perspective of looking at the "domestic" impact of the Council presidency on the Member State, specifically small Member States. Combining new institutionalist theoretical approaches under the concept of Europeanisation, and employing both qualitative and quantitative methods, this book explores whether the Council presidency leads to Europeanisation of national polities and politics. More specifically, the book looks at the impact of the Council presidency on national administrations, ministers and public opinion. It suggests that the Council presidency presents a unique opportunity to (re)engage with EU affairs and institutions for Member States, especially the small ones and those holding the position for the first time. This book will be of interest to postgraduate students, researchers and academics of International Relations and European Integration, specifically those interested in small states in the European Union or the rotating European Union Council presidency.

This book describes, analyses, explains and compares the role performance of different presidencies. The expert and international authors ask why member states have different approaches and play the role differently, prioritising different functions and using a variety of strategies to realise their aspirations. The book consists of three parts i) describes the functions of the presidency, ii) compares nine different presidencies and iii) a concluding section comparing media images, and summaries looking at member state characteristics and behaviour.

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.

This book presents the first comprehensive analysis of the major treaty reforms over the past two decades, to consider whether the path from the Single European Act in 1985 to the present Constitutional Treaty has been pushed by the Franco-German tandem, or has been the result of leadership provided the Commission or smaller member states.