The European Council's Strategic Agenda

In this report authors and contributors René Cuperus, Cathelijn Padberg, Fabian Zuleeg, Claire Dhéret and Stefan Kok, focus on the European Council’s Strategic Agenda of 2014. They also look forward to Sibiu, where a new Strategic Agenda will be prepared by the European Council on 9 May 2019. This report thereby asks to what extent the Strategic Agenda has provided direction for EU policy-making and affected the EU’s inter-institutional balance in the latest political cycle 2014-2019.

To do so, first a description is presented of the future of Europe-debate and the related inter-institutional battle over political power. This includes an analysis of the European Council’s Strategic Agenda as an instrument in agenda-setting and implications for policy output by the European Commission. The authors take note of the attempted politicisation of the Commission, the current socio-political context and the increasing divisions between the EU’s Member States. Subsequently, the report assesses the outcome of the Strategic Agenda in three specific domains: the European Monetary Union; Social Europe; and Migration and External Borders.