ABSTRACT
The European Council emerged as the de facto highest level decision-maker in the European Community (EC) without a legal foundation for this role. The controversy over treaty tampering began with de Gaulle's proposal of summitry and continues to affect perceptions of the European Council. This chapter reviews the history of summits, as meeting of Community heads of government were first called. It considers the original factors leading to the creation of the European Council and the earliest conceptions of the role of heads of government in the EC. The European Council appealed to the nationalistic impulse to make the EC an international power player while giving rise to fears that it would upset the Community's delicate progression toward federalism. No matter how confused its credentials, the European Council has an established position in the EC institutional structure and exerts a significant influence on EC policy content and scope.
