European Council: role, composition, history and significance

According to Article 15 of the EU Treaty, the European Council "shall provide the EU with the necessary impetus for its development and shall define the general political guidelines and priorities for it". In addition, the European Council also deals with important issues for which no consensus could be found at ministerial level (i.e. in the Council of the European Union). The Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) is also frequently discussed. The results of the Council meetings are recorded in the "Presidency Conclusions". These are initially not legally binding within the EU political system. However, since the heads of state and government usually have a directive competence within the government of their own state, the results of the negotiations of the European Council also serve as a guideline for the meetings of the Council of Ministers. The European Commission also usually acts in accordance with the compromises reached at the summit meetings.

Some operational decisions on EU policy provided for in the TFEU are also taken by the European Council. These include the nomination of the President of the Commission and the High Representative of the EU, through which the European Council has an influence on the EU executive. Elections are made by qualified majority. The European Council has a further function in connection with the passerelle provision in Article 48 of the EU Treaty: this enables it to introduce qualified majority voting or the ordinary legislative procedure for certain policy areas which, according to the EU Treaty, actually require unanimity in the Council of the EU. However, the national parliaments have a veto right for such passerelle decisions.

The European Council elects the members of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank by a qualified majority after non-binding votes in the Economic Committee and in the plenary of the European Parliament on a recommendation from the Council of the EU (Article 283 (2), second subparagraph, TFEU).

The European Council plays a special role in EU treaty reforms (such as the Treaty of Nice or the Treaty of Lisbon). These are international treaties under international law between the individual member states and must therefore be negotiated and signed by their governments. Again, the guiding decisions are usually taken at summit meetings of the European Council, which then convenes an intergovernmental conference at which officials of the member states negotiate the precise wording. The signing of the treaties again takes place at meetings of the European Council.

The European Council is officially composed of the Heads of State or Government of the Union, the President of the European Council and the President of the Commission, the latter having no voting rights. The High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy also participates in an advisory capacity (Article 15 (2) of the EU Treaty). As a rule, the summits are also attended by another Commissioner and the Secretary-General of the Council, who assists the President of the Council in his work. At the beginning of the summits, the President of the European Parliament also presents Parliament's position on the issues at stake. These participants also feature in the so-called "family photos" taken at each summit. In individual cases, the European Council invites other participants, such as senior officials, to its meetings in an advisory capacity.

Since the term "Heads of State or Government" is not clearly defined, the decision as to who exactly represents a Member State in the European Council is left to the respective national regulations. The purpose of the wording is that the government representative with the broadest decision-making powers is present in each case. In most countries this is the head of government; only for Lithuania and France, where the constitutional competence for foreign policy lies with the President of the Republic and not with the Prime Minister, does the respective head of state take part in the summit meetings. The national arrangement is particularly important in states with a semi-presidential system of government, where both heads of state and government have political influence but may belong to different parties. In the past, for example, there have been disputes in Finland and Poland as to whether the respective President of the Republic should attend the meetings alongside or instead of the Head of Government.

If a Head of State or Government is unable to attend a meeting, he or she may transfer his or her voting rights to another Member State. However, each State may represent no more than one other State (Article 235 TFEU).

Political alliances

Although the negotiating and voting behaviour of the heads of state and government is primarily determined by national interests, their party affiliations also offer an explanatory approach to the policies of the European Council as a whole. The heads of state and government of the major European parties or groups - Christian Democrats (EPP), Social Democrats (PES) and Liberals (ALDE or Renew Europe) - regularly consult with each other at separate meetings before the summit. These are usually attended by the leaders of the political groups in the Parliament, sometimes the Commissioners and other guests. For example, the then Greek Prime Minister Tsipras (European Left) was regularly invited to the meetings of the social democratic heads of government.

Current composition

The following table of the current members of the European Council also names the national political party and the European political party to which each politician belongs (as of 15 June 2021):