normatively, this study demonstrates that the European Council - despite the national veto power - is not doomed to failure. Rather, it depends on its members sticking to and enforcing key norms of cooperation.

empirically, we conduct two case studies where an individual member arguably violated cooperation norms: David Cameron in the run-up to the Brexit referendum by asking for too many concessions, and Viktor Orbán in the EU's assistance to Ukraine by refusing to show goodwill.

theoretically, we formulate expectations for when, why and how the majority of European Council members looks for ways to bypass a norm violator in their own ranks. We argue that they do so if domestic costs become prohibitively high.

We analyze norm enforcement in the European Council, one of the EU’s most important institutions. Our focus is the norm of diffuse reciprocity: the European Council only functions if its members are prepared to make concessions. We make three contributions to existing literature:

4/n

My argument and findings have implications for the current debates about an EU competitiveness plan and joint funding, notably for security and defence

3/n

I probe the plausibility of this argument by analyzing two recent crises - the Covid-19 pandemic and the energy emergency - and document typical patterns of Germany‘s EU fiscal politics

2/n

- a general national tendency to act as status quo power that is largely satisfied with the current supranational setting

vs.

- appeals by other EU countries and the felt need to promote supranational polity stability, especially during crises

2/2

We offer a more nuanced understanding of differentiated integration in the European Union, showing that de facto differentiation has been more integrative in the Eurozone whilst more disintegrative in the Schengen area than what de jure differentiated integration suggests

3/3

- Co-author of a paper on norm contestation inside the European Council (Saturday 1:30pm)

Looking forward to meeting old and new friends in Philadelphia!

2/3

- Chairing a panel on European integration in the geopolitical age (Friday 3:45pm)
- Co-author of a paper on the relations between the European Council and the European Parliament (Saturday 8:30am)

3/3

The data and findings are based on a research article that was recently published in the Journal of European Integration

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

2/3

With enlargement back on the EU’s agenda, I assess the critical role played by the European Council in the accession procedure.

I scrutinise the four (successful) EU enlargement rounds to date, showing that geopolitical motives have always loomed large in European Council deliberations.