“The Commission is Always Ready to Help”: The Ambiguous Relationship Between the European Commission and the Council Presidency in the Ordinary Legislative Procedure

This chapter aims to answer the following question: how does the European Commission’s involvement in the Council’s policymaking affect the role of the Council’s Presidency in the Ordinary Legislative Procedure? In line with Greenwood and Roederer-Rynning (2021)’s perspective on the use of studying informal daily work to better grasp the EU decision-making process, the chapter analyses the practices of European Commission and Presidency officials during the first reading of the “copyright in the digital single market” directive between 2016 and 2019. This in-depth study of a highly politicized file allows the identification of three roles embraced by the European Commission within the Council: explaining its proposal, mediating between Member States, and writing the Council’s compromises. Eventually, the chapter shows that the Council Presidency relies on the European Commission as a source of expertise and that their relationship oscillates between partnership and competition.