High midnight in Brussels: an analysis of the September 1993 Council meeting on the GATT Uruguay Round

Most of the recent theoretical work on the European Union (EU) and the European integration process stresses the erosion of the capacity of the governments of the member states to influence policy decisions. This article analyses a meeting of the Council of Ministers in Brussels in September 1993, the run-up to the meeting and its sequel. At this meeting, the conflict between the Commission and France over an agricultural trade accord negotiated by the Commission and the US in the GATT Uruguay Round came to a head. In effect, this conflict was won, it is argued here, by France, suggesting that the national ‘veto’ or threat of it may still be an effective weapon in the EU.

The analysis emphasizes the extent to which the EU decision-making process, in this decisive phase of the Uruguay Round, was dominated by the Franco-German ‘tandem’. The bilateral ‘pre-negotiation’ of EU decisions by Bonn and Paris and the multilateralization of their agreements in the Council are neither ubiquitous in the EU nor limited to the great ‘history-making’ issues. Franco-German bilateralism, where it does function, may constitute an important device for the mediation of conflicts that could otherwise paralyse or slow down the decision-making process.