Between ‘National’ and ‘European’ Interests: Small Countries and Their Presidencies of the European Union

by Boštjan Udovič and Marjan Svetličič,

The article looks into the relationship between national and common European interests in the case of the small countries’ presidencies of the Council of the European Union. Based on a self-evaluation of the Council of the European Union presidencies of Slovenia, Sweden, Belgium, Hungary and Denmark, the article presents three conclusions. Firstly, national interests are, in the case of Council of the European Union presidencies, more relevant for small states than theory predicts. Secondly, small states treat national and common interests as twins during their EU Council presidencies, which means they try to pursue both at the same time. Finally, external/random factors have a greater influence on EU Council presidencies than ‘objective factors’, such as country size, duration of membership/presidency experience.

published in Vol 18 – No 2 – 2018 // General issue
ABSTRACT

    Vol. 18, no. 2, Winter 2018 – General issue

    The 2018 Winter issue of our journal covers two articles that complement the current debates preceding Romania’s takeover of the rotating presidency of the EU Council: one article deals with the interplay of national and European interests on the agendas of presidencies held by small states, while another one investigates the behavior of Hungarian ministers... »
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    The article looks into the relationship between national and common European interests in the case of the small countries’ presidencies of the Council of the European Union. Based on a self-evaluation of the Council of the European Union presidencies of Slovenia, Sweden, Belgium, Hungary and Denmark, the article presents three conclusions. Firstly, national interests are,... »
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    PolSci (Romanian Journal of Political Science) is a bi-annual journal edited by the Romanian Academic Society (RAS). PolSci is indexed by ISI Thomson under the Social Sciences Citation Index and by other prominent institutions such as IPSA, GESIS, EBSCO, CEEOL and ProQuest. Previous PolSci contributors include Francis Fukuyama, Larry Diamond or Philippe Schmitter, as well... »

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