Informal Decision Making in the European Community under the Luxembourg Compromise: The Law That Never Was

This book analyses the informal decision making process in the EU against the background of a gradually emerging European legal order. Based on extensive multi-archival research in the UK, France, Germany, the Benelux countries and in Community institutions, the book explores the resistance against majority rule under the so-called Luxembourg Compromise of 1966, a European 'soft law' that allowed Member States to invoke 'vital national interests' and to veto legislation. This 'gentlemen's agreement' was never sanctioned or codified. However, as a 'rule of the game' it had a significant impact on the operations of the EU for several decades and became an integral part of the EU's 'consensus' approach. Its underlying rationale is still alive in the present-day EU. Presenting a deeply revisionist account of European law and politics, the book demonstrates how the Luxembourg arrangement served as a compromise between the Treaty text and political reality, as a counterweight to technocratic ideas, and as a bridge between irreconcilable divides over European unification. It includes case studies from 1965 - 2000, such as the 'Eurosclerosis' of the 1970s, British exceptionalism as an EU member, the European revival of the mid-1980s, and intergovernmentalism on the verge of negotiating the Maastricht Treaty. Highly original in its interdisciplinary, comprehensive and archivally-rooted method, the book interrogates the most important and controversial debates about the past, present and future of the European Union.

Table of Contents:
Part 1: The Gaullist Legacy 1965–72 1. The 'Empty Chair' Crisis 2. Suspending the Transition to Majority Voting 3. Decision-Making Sociology after the 'Empty Chair' Part 2: Transition 1972–78 4. British Accession 5. The Lifting of the 'Culture of Unanimity' in the Mid–1970s 6. The Tindemans Report 7. Southern Enlargement 8. The Three Wise Men Report Part 3: Transformation 1978–84 9. Reconceptualising the Compromise 10. A Case Law History 11. The Search for Clarification Part 4: Trade-Off 1984–86 12. The European Revival of 1984 13. The Dooge Committee and the Reception of its Report 14. The Milan European Council of 1985 15. The Single European Act Part 5: Towards Maastricht Europe and Beyond 1986–2016 16. The SEA Ratification Debates 17. The Council Internal Rules of Procedure 18. The 'Evocability' of the Compromise 19. The Maastricht Treaty and the GATT 20. The Compromise in Today's European Union

About the Author :
Philip Bajon is Senior Lecturer in Law at Aston University, Birmingham, UK.