EU Council Presidency Roles – A Case Study of the Latvian Presidency in 2015: Analysis of the Council of the European Union Presidency Roles and National Interests

Abstract

The presidency of the Council of the European Union occurs every six months. It provides all member states, regardless of state size, with the equal opportunity to be in the centre of EU decision-making. The presidency performs a wide range of roles, which include organizer/administrative, agenda setter, broker and political leader. National interests are also an inherent part of the presidency and they can influence the role performance of several of the roles. Such national interests and their impact on the other roles are the subject of this thesis. The roles that the presidency performs are also the focus of this thesis. These subjects are examined using the case study method in the Latvian context. In particular, the focus is on the Latvian presidency that took place from 1 January to 30 June 2015. While the study is based on a single case study, the findings can be applied to other small member state presidencies. Interviews were conducted with individuals who worked closely with the presidency and press releases by the Saeima and Latvian permanent representation were analysed. As a result, it was shown that in the organizational/administrative role, Latvia was able to plan the presidency in a timely manner and it focused on logistics and training of the civil service. In agenda-setting, it was able to push forward their fairly modest agenda and was able to reach agreements between member states regarding the agenda points. Latvia did not take a strong political leadership approach but rather aimed to mediate various positions. Latvia undertook the broker role admirably and they were able to frame their interests as European wide ones as is expected from the presidency. National interests were found to influence the Latvian presidency term in several ways. What helped Latvia in realizing the national interests was agenda-setting because it is the biggest power the presidency has. Holding a successful first-time presidency was a national interest because they started the preparations early and spent a lot of resources on planning. It was found that national interests influenced the role performance for several roles.