The Influence of the Council of Europe on the European Union: Resource Exchange and Domain Restriction as Venues for Inter-Institutional Influence

Abstract

When looking at the institutional environment of the EU, the Council of Europe is habitually overlooked, despite being one of the oldest and largest institutions of European integration. It is hardly known to the public and remains under-researched in European and institutional studies. The Council of Europe was founded in 1949 and comprises 47 member states from the Atlantic to the Ural.¹ Its core competences closely resemble the values and concerns of the EU; the protection of human rights, the promotion of good governance and the rule of law in Europe. However, due to the increasing political integration and geographic enlargement of the EU, the two institutions have become competitors. Through successive treaty reforms the EU has ventured into previously exclusive domains of the Council of Europe (CoE), notably human rights protection and governance reform. As the EU started to include Eastern European countries and emerged as the more powerful and attractive institution for European integration, the CoE was dubbed the mere ‘antechamber’ or the ‘waiting room’ for EU membership for Central and Eastern European countries. Indeed, the EU accession process consumed most available resources in the candidate countries and the political and economic influence of the EU ousted CoE authority so that candidate countries gave priority to EU conditionality over CoE commitments. The CoE experienced a loss of significance and political decline. In the late 1990s and early 2000s a latent fear therefore swept through the corridors at Strasburg that the EU would slowly but steadily co-opt all policy fields governed by the CoE and make it irrelevant.