Leading Successful Negotiations on Behalf of Europe: An Analysis of the European Commission High-Ranking Officials’ Practices

Permanent dialogue, steered by continual negotiation, was the driving force behind the construction of Post-War Europe. In this context, the countries of the European Union have extended the mandate of the European Commission (EC) to negotiate an increasing number of topics, giving the EC’s high-ranking officials a pre-eminent role of agents in the process. It is, then, urgent and useful to investigate these negotiators’ practices, to list a number of recurrent features, and to compare them with current negotiation theories. In 2004, at the request of the EC, 15 in-depth interviews were conducted with high-ranking EC officials, from different directorates, in charge of top-level negotiations. An interview guide was drawn up to address the five following points:•the success factors in negotiation,•the reasons for failure,•the management of people, relationships, cultural aspects, the mandate, and the stakeholders’ map,•the management of substantive issues and their solutions, including the use of justification criteria,•the management of the process, agenda, multilateral mechanisms, and communication.Following the interviews, a report was submitted to the EC’s General Administration Directorate. The report highlights a number of features that may favour the success of European negotiators. In what follows, some keys to success are linked to three dimensions of negotiation: process, people, and problem.