Lucas Schramm

📣 New #openaccess #BJPIR article out now!

'Bilateralism in multilateralism: France-Germany in Europe and the interlinking of institutional forms in Regional Order and World Politics' by Ulrich Krotz & @lucasschramm91.bsky.social

🔗 buff.ly/SFPCtBZ

@polstudiesassoc.bsky.social

(3/3)
Empirically, we show how Franco-German bilateralism shaped and advanced multilateral European politics in three pivotal episodes: the British budgetary rebate question, the end of the Cold War, and the Covid-19 pandemic.

The article is open access 👇

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

(2/3)
We first theorize and conceptualize the three different forms of bilateralism and/versus/in multilateralism. We then examine a particularly prominent form of bilateralism in multilateralism: Franco-German relations in European integration

🚨 New publication out in #BJPIR (British Journal of Politics and International Relations)

How do bilateral and other minilateral relations between a small group of countries, on the one hand, and multilateral politics in a regional or global organization, on the other, relate to each other? (1/3)

What The Economist magazine's coverage reveals about the European Council Based on a 67-year arc of reporting by British magazine The Economist, Lucas Schramm analyses the European Council, a key institution of the European Union. He shows how that coverage explains why the...

📰 Based on a 67-year arc of reporting by British magazine #TheEconomist, @lucasschramm91.bsky.social of @ecprsgeu.bsky.social analyses the #EuropeanCouncil.
🏛️ He shows how that coverage explains why the institution was created + why its dominance is both useful + unsettling.
👉 bit.ly/4kAIGzB

What The Economist magazine's coverage reveals about the European Council Based on a 67-year arc of reporting by British magazine The Economist, Lucas Schramm analyses the European Council, a key institution of the European Union. He shows how that coverage explains why the...

The Economist's coverage over seven decades is amazing, because it reveals many insider information and also critically discusses the shortcomings of this institution. Find my blog post for the ECPR's The Loop series 👇

theloop.ecpr.eu/what-the-eco...

Originally designed as fireside chats to discuss a limited number of high politics issues in confidential atmosphere, European Council meetings have turned into major media events that cover all aspects of EU policymaking.

(3/4)

I scraped and analyzed all relevant articles from the #Economist magazine that deal with the European Council or with the "intergovernmental summits" - as the meetings were called prior to 1975 - for the entire period 1958-2025.

(2/4)

The European Council #EUCO today comes together for an informal summit on EU competitiveness. Ever wondered how this institution has evolved since its creation in 1975 and how informed observers have assessed its role?

(1/4)

The European Council turns 50: Studying and analyzing a key institution of the European Union European Political Science | Cambridge Core

❇️ FirstView - 🔍 Research

@lucasschramm91.bsky.social analyses the European Council as a key actor in the EU’s multi-level and multi-institutional system of governance.

👉 buff.ly/SuulDLL

External Actors, Pressures and Influences: European Integration and the Outside World The European Union (EU) increasingly faces external pressures, ranging from Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine to an economically and politically assertive China to deep changes in the transa....

Our article provides a framework for the study of “externalism“. Opening avenues for future research, it suggests an explicit and systematic study of external pressures for the EU's institutional and policy trajectory.

Find the entire article open access 👇

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

🚨 new publication alert

The European Union increasingly faces external pressures. Whilst external pressures always mattered for European integration and EU studies, this article holds that they are more consequential today than in the past.

How can and should we study an important yet largely inaccessible institution like the #EuropeanCouncil?

In a new article, published in #EuropeanPoliticalSciene, I present key data, paradoxes and research avenues 50 years after its creation.

The article is available open access 👇

h7.cl/1n6zx

Promotional image for the European Political Science (EPS) journal featuring the text "European Political Science" and "EPS" with the hashtag "OpenAccess" on an olive green background.

#OpenAccess from @epsjournal.bsky.social -

The European Council turns 50: Studying and analyzing a key institution of the European Union - https://cup.org/3LI9FvV

- @lucasschramm91.bsky.social

#FirstView

This article marks the completion of our #JEPP special issue on the geopolitics of European integration 👇

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

The article introduces our distinct outside-in perspective, theorising how external geopolitical pressures affect EU internal policymaking dynamics 🇪🇺

When informal norms fail – how EU leaders lost their patience with Viktor Orbán - EUROPP Will Viktor Orbán derail future EU talks? New research shows the European Council stops obstruction only when the domestic political costs become too high.

Could Viktor Orbán derail upcoming EU discussions on financing Ukraine, future enlargement and the next EU budget?

✍ @mkleine.bsky.social & @lucasschramm91.bsky.social blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2...

Taming of the shrews? The (non-)enforcement of informal norms in the European Council The European Council is arguably one of the European Union’s (EU) most dynamic decision-making bodies. Both scholars and practitioners attribute its effectiveness to an informal norm of diffuse…

🇪🇺 In their new research, @mkleine.bsky.social and @lucasschramm91.bsky.social analyse decision-making and norm enforcement in the European Council, the leaders' club and one of the most important - yet vulnerable - EU institutions.

Discover it below 👇

www.lse.ac.uk/european-ins...

💪 Please send your abstract (~500 words) by December 15th, 2025 to lucas.schramm@gsi.uni-muenchen.de or christian.lequesne@sciencespo.fr and reach out directly if you have any questions

💡 The special issue will be published next year in Négociations / Negotiations, a French-English bilingual journal dedicated to a profound understanding of negotiations, strategies, and interactions:

shs.cairn.info/journal-nego...

🚨 Call for papers

👉 With Christian Lequesne (Sciences Po Paris), I am co-editing a special issue on EU Enlargement and Neighborhood Policies. We invite contributions looking at negotiation processes between EU institutions, Member State perspectives, and interactions with candidate countries.

normatively, this study demonstrates that the European Council - despite the national veto power - is not doomed to failure. Rather, it depends on its members sticking to and enforcing key norms of cooperation.

empirically, we conduct two case studies where an individual member arguably violated cooperation norms: David Cameron in the run-up to the Brexit referendum by asking for too many concessions, and Viktor Orbán in the EU's assistance to Ukraine by refusing to show goodwill.

theoretically, we formulate expectations for when, why and how the majority of European Council members looks for ways to bypass a norm violator in their own ranks. We argue that they do so if domestic costs become prohibitively high.

We analyze norm enforcement in the European Council, one of the EU’s most important institutions. Our focus is the norm of diffuse reciprocity: the European Council only functions if its members are prepared to make concessions. We make three contributions to existing literature:

Taming of the shrews? The (non-)enforcement of informal norms in the European Council The European Council is arguably one of the European Union’s (EU) most dynamic decision-making bodies. Both scholars and practitioners attribute its effectiveness to an informal norm of diffuse rec...

New publication alert!

Excited to share that my paper, co-authored with Mareike Kleine (LSE European Institute), is now online with JEPP

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

War as external cause: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the theorising of European integration and EU politics, and the EU’s arduous formation in foreign and security policy Russia’s war in Ukraine from February 2022 has had massive effects on Europe’s Union and its member states, prompting changes in policy, new policies, discussions of options and potential future tr...

Just out on @jeppjournal.bsky.social online first..Hurry up free copies expiring in 50..49..48..47 ..😁
www.tandfonline.com/eprint/25KK9...

Special thanks to @lucasschramm91.bsky.social and @cfreudlsperger.bsky.social guest editors of the Special Issue: European Integration in the Geopolitical Age

Today marks the start of our new winter term at #LMU I will again be teaching one of my favourite seminars:

“Franco-German relations in the European Union“ has an updated syllabus.

This time we will be looking more closely into crisis politics and the domestic challenges in both countries.

Excited to have started the new academic year at the #College of Europe in Bruges - my Alma Mater - for the first time as visiting professor.

I am co-teaching a course on the #EuropeanCouncil, using as a basis our forthcoming book. Happy to meet old and news friends!

Very excited about this moment! I am about to submit our #bookmanuscript on the #EuropeanCouncil to the publisher. Off now to the competent hands of @bloomsburypol.bsky.social

4/n

My argument and findings have implications for the current debates about an EU competitiveness plan and joint funding, notably for security and defence