La institucionalización de las Conferencias Intergubernamentales en la Unión Europea

Since the mid-eighties, the European Union has conducted six Intergovernmental Conferences (IGC) in order to revise the communitarian Treaties. How can we explain the product results of this chain of negotiations? In this paper we’ll consider that the way negotiations are taken influence the IGC results. In particular, there are a number of procedures and practices that make easy the achievement of agreements. Based on the literature of new institutionalism, we develop three functions of the procedures and practices in the IGC: structuring the negotiations, distribute information and define the role of mediator in the negotiation process. This argument is shown through some examples of the IGC held since the nineties.

• Primary Source

Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/glossary/intergovernmental_conference_en.htm

Primary law http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/institutional_affairs/decisionmaking_process/l14530_en.htm

Research Network on EU Administrative Law http://www.reneual.eu/

http://www.mzes.uni-mannheim.de/publications/wp/wp-78.pdf http://www.mzes.uni-mannheim.de/publications/wp/wp-78.pdf

---