Notes on contributors

This analysis of Germany's management of the Agenda 2000 negotiations in the first half of 1999 has two aims. First, it seeks to highlight the critical role of the presidency in the management of large package deal negotiations in the Union. Second, it seeks to explore the contention of Council insiders that the ‘presidency costs’. This arises from the tension between national preferences and the need for the presidency, as an office of the Union, to foster agreement by producing compromises and by mediating between divergent interests. The paper highlights the complex relationship between the two questions and concludes that the presidency is the lynchpin or central node in any package deal negotiations because of the need for vertical and horizontal co‐ordination of dossiers that are handled in a number of different fora. The presidency is centrally placed to act as an architect of compromise. The ‘presidency costs’ also in that Germany had to abandon its preference for a significant cut in its net contribution in return for an agreement in Berlin.