ABSTRACT
This book deals with the infl uence, possibilities, and limitations of political will and leadership in the complex negotiations and summit diplomacy that have characterised postwar European integration. In this book, I set out to cast doubt on the narrative that European integration is either a dynamic political and economic process on auto-pilot or the product of federalist visionary idealism. Despite the fact that European integration is closely linked to the creation of common institutions, norms, regulations, and law, as well as integrated economies and lofty ideals, these factors have proven to be thin glue in times of crisis. Time and again, national decision-makers have altered, superseded, or ignored the common institutions and norms – and rarely in a spirit of federalist idealism – whenever doing so was politically expedient. The institutions and norms that are designed to hold the European project together are much more fragile and open to contestation than is ordinarily assumed. Recurrent treaty revisions and institutional redesigns illustrate the extent to which major constitutive rules in the European Union (EU) are still far from being consolidated. In short, much of the gains achieved in terms of European integration have depended not on norms and institutions, but on political will and the ebb and fl ow of what I call the personal diplomacy among leaders.
