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AbstractThis study explores the coordination mechanisms managed by the central governments of the European Union (EU) in order to develop negotiation positions for their plenipotentiaries in the Council. Utilizing novel data from an expert survey, the first part examines the relationships within and between the structures and processes of EU coordination, the actors involved, and the mechanisms' efficacy. The analysis shows that highly formalized coordination mechanisms are associated with developing timely, clear and consistent negotiation positions. The second part allocates the 28 member states' EU coordination mechanisms into different clusters, including unicentric, pluricentric, decentric, proactive, reactive, politicized, depoliticized, high efficacy and low efficacy. Intriguing differences are identified, such as the fact that the Central and Eastern European member states' mechanisms are typically more reactive where coordination centres on the national capital and the Council negotiations.

AbstractStudies have suggested that people voting for Brexit were motivated by anti-globalization, anti-multiculturalism and anti-elite sentiments. However, little is known about how these factors are related and whether citizens in other member states share similar reasons for wanting to exit the EU. Methodologically, this question is addressed by utilizing path models on data from the European Social Survey, with respondents in 17 countries. Empirically, this article reveals considerable cross-country variation, which implies that motivations for voting Leave should be assessed on a country-by-country basis. Yet, two main pathways are identified. First, lower education is related to more negative attitudes towards multiculturalism, which increases the probability of voting Leave. Second, lower income decreases the level of trust in the political establishment, which again increases the probability of voting Leave. Theoretically, this implies that the anti-globalization model is subsumed by the anti-multiculturalism and anti-elite models, giving rise to two new mechanisms.

1. Introduction : EU presidencies between politics and administration -- 2. The early preparations phase : creating the foundation for the EU presidencies -- 3. The intensive preparations phase : putting the EU presidencies on track -- 4. The execution phase : managing the presidencies -- 5. The evaluation phase : transfer to the next membe state and lessons learned from the presidencies -- 6. Conclusions.

AbstractThis study revisits the salience of the Brexit negotiations using an advanced Decision‐Making in the European Union (EU) methodology to assess the relative importance of 20 key issues amongst the EU27 member states, the European Commission and the UK. Unlike earlier studies that suggest more uniform salience levels, except for the UK, our analysis identifies eight clusters of actors influenced by their political, economic and geographical contexts. These differences in salience levels have been conducive to logrolling, which likely supported a unified EU stance and a successful agreement with the UK. Additionally, our research quantitatively confirms the UK's distinct salience position, highlighting its isolation and reducing its ability to use divisive negotiation tactics. These findings offer insights into both the dynamics of past Brexit negotiations and ongoing EU–UK policy developments. They contribute to the analysis of Brexit and international negotiations in general by systematically exploring salience in high‐level diplomatic negotiations.