Council Presidency

This study compares the role of the Council presidency before and after Lisbon focusing on the continuity of the legislative work of the Council, which was a major concern in the discussions leading to the Lisbon Treaty. The Lisbon Treaty established an elected
presidency to head the European Council for a period of up to five years. In addition, 18-month programmes should facilitate smooth proceedings in the Council. The presidency of the Council, however, continues to rotate every six months between member
states at the ministerial and working group level where the bulk of the legislative work takes place. Discontinuity of leadership in negotiations decreases their efficiency. Different priorities of the changing chairmen can be disruptive and lead to major delay. The
hybrid solution of the Lisbon Treaty falls short of an institutional design that would have put a premium on continuity in the legislative work of the Council.

Europa Varietas Institute
Authors : Anikó Bródy; Zsolt Horbulák; Kinga Torbicka; Dr. András István Türke Ph.D; Dr. Hortenzia Hosszú Ph.D; dr. Dávid Pusztai; Katalin Velich
Comparative analysis of the presidencies of the Council of the Europan Union and preparatory processes between the period of years 2008-2011, special assessment of Hungarian EU Presidency.
Europa Varietas Institute - http://www.europavarietas.org

This paper deals with the media relations activities performed in the Council of the European Union and more specifically explores the communication tasks and practices of press officers in the Press Service of that institution. We begin by reviewing the literature on public sector communication and government public relations in relation to the European Union. In the second section we state our research objectives and present our methodology. The third section focuses on the Council press officers" institutional

Most studies in public relations focus on communication within business organizations. Communication in the public sector has largely been ignored, even though it poses unique problems (Gelders & Ihlen, 2010; Graber, 2003; Lee, 2001a, 1999; Heise, 1985). Only few case studies on public sector communication exist (Avery et al., 1996) and in most cases these studies have applied models developed for analysis of private sector communication (Liu & Horsley, 2007; Fairbanks et al., 2007). Within the European context, only a limited ...