The British Presidency of 1998: New Labour, New Tone?

In this chapter I will offer some critical reflections on the British Presidency of the EU in a way which promotes comparison with other Presidencies in the period 1997 to 2002. In particular I will try to develop ways of thinking about the evaluation and comparison of Presidencies which takes into account both formal and informal factors. In order to achieve this I will use the framework adopted in this book to examine four functions of the Presidency: administration, agenda-shaping, mediation and representation. In addition, I will argue that the means by which we attempt to evaluate and compare Presidencies is the determining factor in our assessments – efficiency, ambition, expectation and impression are all important in our reading of Presidencies.