The Prevention of Deadlock through Informal Processes of ‘Supranationalization’: The Case of Coreper

Abstract: In 2004 and 2007 the European Union faced the biggest rounds of enlargement to date. It is not difficult to imagine that enlargement affected the way the European Union and its institutions function and that the effects of enlargement are especially noticeable in the Council of the EU and its preparatory bodies. Many researchers expected procedures, especially in the Committee of Permanent Representatives (Coreper), to become more formalized and 'intergovernmental' in nature and decision-making to become more complicated. However, enlargement contributed to institutional change in quite another way: it strengthened the influence of supranational and 'quasi-supranational' actors within the committee, such as the Commission, the presidency and the General Secretariat, and it made decision-making in many cases considerably easier. This paper analyses these processes and seeks to answer the question: Which mechanisms contributed to the process of 'informal supranationalization' that helped to prevent considerable losses in efficiency and functionality in Coreper?