ABSTRACT
Following a decision taken during the Convention on the Future of Europe, the Lisbon Treaty ‘consecrated’ the European Council (EUCO). It formally gave it its ‘title of nobility’ by mentioning it among the list of EU institutions. Although the EUCO for a long time has been considered the ‘top of the EU political system’ (Hix 2005: 35) or the ‘highest level of this “pyramid of negotiation”’ (Magnette 2005: 69), it was not formally an institution before December 2009 and the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty. Consequently, in legal terms, until the Lisbon Treaty, only the European Parliament, the Council, the European Commission, the European Court of Justice and the European Court of Auditors were designated by the treaties as EU institutions. 1 With the Lisbon Treaty, the EUCO is now legally one of the seven EU institutions, along with the European Central Bank. What did the Lisbon Treaty really change for the EUCO? How can we explain this late attribution of the status of institution?
