The President of the European Council and Other Formats of Presidency in the European Union: (Un)Constructive Ambiguity in the EU Political System

Abstract

SUMMARYThe semi-permanent presidency of the European Council, introduced by virtue of the Lisbon Treaty, has restructured the organizational space of the EU presidency, becoming the new leadership centre in the EU institutional engineering. Consequently the institutional balance in the whole system has been changed, however without a clear jurisdictional delimitation of the competences between the components of this multi-centre political system. In the imprecisely deined conceptual framework of the new space of the EU presidency, there exists a question of the possibility of various levels multiplying and overlapping with each other, giving rise to a potential conlict of power in this area.The aim of this article is to provide the assessment of the scope of implications of the introduced changes on the basis of analysis of the structural relations between the President of the European Council and his institutional partners in the EU hybrid presidency system, i.e. the President of the European Commission, the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and the rotating country presidency. Keywords: EU Presidency; President of the European Council; High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy; President of the European CommissionThe Presidency of the European Union, deined as an institutionalised procedure for leading the European Union, that is assuming the role of its leader Aleksandra Szczerba-ZawadaThe Jacob of Paradyż University of Applied Sciences in Gorzów Wielkopolski DOI: 10.17951/sil.2016.25.2.193 szczerba.aleksandra@gmail.com The President of the European Council and Other Formats of Presidency in the European Union: (Un)Constructive Ambiguity in the EU Political System Przewodniczący Rady Europejskiej a inne formaty unijnej prezydencji: (nie)konstruktywna niejednoznaczność kompetencyjnaPobrane z czasopisma Studia Iuridica Lublinensia http://studiaiuridica.umcs.pl Data: 29/03/2019 06:38:01 U M C S 194 combined with an at least alleged political responsibility 1 , has been transformed as a result of the Lisbon reform, which gave it a hybrid character. As a result of the changes, the EU presidency is exercised in two ways, both in the most traditional dimension, that is by the Member States within the framework of a rotating presidency, and in the denationalised dimension, in which the presidency over a speciic institution is entrusted for the duration of a speciic term to a personal substrate of said institution 2 . However, after the Lisbon Treaty the semi-permanent presidency mechanism, encompassing currently also the Foreign Affairs Council and the European Council, was markedly broadened.Institutionalized presidency of the European Council, by restructuring the organizational space of the EU presidency 3 , has undoubtedly changed the institutional balance in the whole EU political system. This statement, as right as obvious -such a consequence of the creation of the position of the permanent President of the European Council was antici...