Finding the Presidency’s Place in European Crisis Management Policy

European crisis management is an unusual policy area which, in spite of its relative novelty, has evolved considerably in the last decade. Its institutional architecture in particular is relatively complex but the EU Council Presidency is often forgotten in it, since it tends to be characterized as a powerless institution, deprived of any real influence. Unlike mainstream literature, I argue that the Presidency can be a very relevant actor in crisis management policy-making. The aim of this paper is to find the Presidency’s place among this crisis management institutional framework, and to explore its potential roles in policy-making. Hence, after an overview of this policy field and its institutional structure, we look at the Presidency’s evolution and main functions to question where it fits in this architecture and what can it do on what concerns policy-making. In the end, I argue that the Presidency should not be forgotten in this crisis management context since it is an actor that can potentially play a very relevant role in policy-making in this field (as in many others)