"Understanding the Dutch Presidency's influence at Amsterdam: A constructivist analysis"

During the Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) on Political Union in late September 1991, the Dutch Presidency of the Council introduced a draft Treaty on European Union text that departed significantly from that of its Luxembourg predecessor. This draft, which presented a unified Treaty structure, reflected the federalist convictions of politicians within the Dutch coalition government. The Dutch Presidency, during the initial months of its tenure, relied more on the Delors Commission than on the Council Secretariat and thereby alienated ten of the other eleven member states in the Treaty negotiations. What, if any, lesions did the Dutch Presidency learn from this experience that led to its success in the Presidency during the Amsterdam intergovernmental conference in June 1997? This paper draws on social constructivist analysis to present a diachronic study of the role of the Dutch Presidency during Treaty revision negotiations. In this context, its comparative findings shed light on the extent to which the Dutch Presidency fulfilled a "brokerage" function among the IGC participants and the extent to which its respective tenures as Chair shaped distributive or integrative outcome