Russia's invasion of Ukraine, including the military build-up before the invasion began on 24 February, dominated every one of the nine meetings of the European Council in 2022. It affected most issues with which the European Council dealt during the year, ranging from energy policy to the...

The onset of the coronavirus pandemic in early 2020 affected the work of the European Council in many ways. One was operational. The European Council switched in March from in-person meetings to video-conferencing. During the year, the European Council held eight video-conferences and met five...

The year 2019 provided a respite for the European Council from crisis management, but was not without major challenges. Three stood out: the Spitzenkandidaten process for selecting the next President of the European Commission; Brexit, which unexpectedly remained on the agenda of the European...

The purpose of this paper is to assess the follow-up and delivery by the European Council on the priorities that were set in the declaration adopted in Rome on 25 March 2017 on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Treaties of Rome. The analysis shows that in the year since Rome, and a...

The odometer readings of second-hand cars traded across the EU are manipulated more frequently than those of vehicles traded on national markets. Odometer fraud is difficult to track and leaves no trace. This incurs costs and creates challenges on the EU internal market. It can also impact EU...

Whereas economic governance is now undertaken in the EU through a regulated, 'hard' framework, there is no equivalent framework for social governance. At present, social governance in the EU functions mainly within the 'soft', unregulated realms, although it is also marked by some 'hard'...

This latest Global Trendometer, produced by the Global Trends Unit within the European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS) seeks to contribute to the process of identifying and addressing medium- and long-term trends, and their possible implications for policy-making in the European Union. In...

This In-Depth Analysis by the European Council Oversight Unit of the European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS) is the second in a series of annual publications examining the activity of the European Council. In 2016, the Heads of State or Government devoted most of their attention to three...