

Democratic Implications of the Treaty of Lisbon
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• chairing the European Council and driving forward its work;
• ensuring the preparation and continuity of the work of the
European Council in cooperation with the President of the
Commission;
• endeavoring to facilitate cohesion and consensus within the
European Council;
• presenting a report to the European Parliament (EP) after each
of the meetings of the European Council.
In addition, the president should ensure the external
representation of the Union on issues concerning the Common
Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), in cooperation with the High
Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy
(Art. 15, TEU).
The earlier analysis of the informalization of Council
decision-making implies that intergovernmentalism, the signature
feature of the Council, is quietly being modified into what can be
termed “deliberative intergovernmentalism.” The Council used to
be where national executives, with domestic mandates in mind,
engaged in intergovernmental negotiation. Increasingly, national
executives acquire an “autonomous executive role” not embedded
in a system of parliamentary democracy and
deliberate
rather than
negotiate
in the Council (Curtin, 2009: 134; Puetter, 2012). When
the European Council and the Council of the EU function simply
as arenas for intergovernmental negotiations, it is neither necessary
nor fitting to introduce supranational positions, such as the
President of the European Council and the High Representative for
Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. When the two institutions
become less arenas for negotiation but more fora for deliberation,
these newly created posts become important conduits for policy
coordination. Gatekeeping can sometimes appear out of synch with
the new design, and this is more often the case for smaller and
weaker states. In the following, I focus on the position of European
Council President and evaluate its implications for democratic
accountability in the EU.