Sources of Member States' Power in the Council of the European Union

Abstract

Power as a concept has been at the centre of attention of social sciences for a long time. Yet our understanding of power remains elusive. The Council of the European Union is a body where the main actors, Member States, exercise power in order to influence the decisionmaking and its outcome. Their basic aim is to defend the national interests. The primary objective of this article is to offer an overview of the Member States' sources of power in the Council, based on a review of the latest literature. We present both structural and procedural sources of power. Then we explain that the exercise of power depends also on concrete sectors and cases in which the actors negotiate. Our text confirms that the results of various research endeavours have often been contradictory and that continuing research is needed in order to deepen the knowledge of Council decision-making.

Keywords

• Concept of power
• sources of power
• Council of the European Union
• Member States
• decision-making