This book provides a detailed examination of the complex negotiation processes surrounding intergovernmental conferences in the European Union.

Since the Treaty of Amsterdam (1997) and its 'appendix', the Treaty of Nice in 2002, any reform of the treaty framework of the European Union seems to be doomed to fail, evidenced by the decline of the Constitutional Treaty and by the current fate of the Lisbon treaty. By presenting an extensive quantitative study of the Intergovernmental Conference of 1996/7 prior to the Treaty of Amsterdam, the authors argue that these...