ABSTRACT
In this paper, I will critically examine the role and functioning of the European Council of Ministers. Given the growing importance of the Council, and its quite recent creation, it seems particularly important to discern which are the main virtues and the main weaknesses of this institution. In order to have a ‘standpoint’ from where to examine the Council, I will resort to the institutional discussions held both in England and in the United States, at the end of the eighteenth century. The reason for this choice is the following: the political debates held at that time constitute an enormously rich source of arguments about how to design institutions, and why to choose a particular institutional model. Those arguments are particularly helpful given the questions that I want to examine in my analysis of the Council: Could we reasonably expect to obtain impartial decisions from this institution? How could we evaluate the relationship that this institution establishes between its members and the European citizenry? Could we expect the Ministers to properly represent their countrymen? Could we expect them to be properly accountable to the European people?
