Informal integration and the supranational construction of the Council

Article is part of a special issue entitled 'Dynamics of formal and informal institutional change in the EU'.
Article abstract:

The standard treatment of the Council considers it the institutional heart of intergovernmentalism and Member State control in the European Union. This article does not challenge that view, except and in so far as it offers only a limited and potentially lopsided perspective of the Council's design and actual operation. A more balanced and accurate view of the Council needs to account for the robust levels of informal rules/institutions, norms, and conventions that are produced during interregnum integration and mark nearly every aspect of its internal development. The result, the author argues, is a composite Council system that combines the seemingly contradictory elements of both an intergovernmental and supranational construct.