THE ‘STABILITY ROLE’ OF THE PRESIDENCY OF THE COUNCIL OF THE EU IN AN EVOLVING INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK

Three years after the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty on the 1st Decem¬ber 2009, Europe is slowly emerging from an unprecedented crisis in its history. Reforms in response to the financial and then economic crisis affecting the European Union (EU) and the euro area since 2008 have transformed the European institu¬tional landscape considerably. By tracing the trends towards more differentiated forms of European integration back to a number of innovative instruments introduced over the past years, this paper outlines some of the major determinants of today’s evolving role of the rotating Presidency, which we define as the ‘stability role’.