| ● General Secretariat of the Council | | | | | Few journalists, if any, have covered the evolution of the European Council as continuously as Dutch journalist and academic, Jan Werts. In 2022 he published his latest book on the European Council, “The European Council in the era of crises”. As he has decades of stories about the history and evolution of the European Council, the Council Library recently met with him to hear them and share some with you. |
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‘The European Council in the era of crises’- an interview with Jan Werts28 November 2022
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EU member states Institutional affairs
Few journalists, if any, have covered the evolution of the European Council as extensively as Dutch journalist and academic, Jan Werts.
Who is Jan Werts?
Jan Werts is the author of the first ever doctorate on the European Council and has covered every European summit since its inception.
Werts covered the first historic meeting almost fifty years ago, in Dublin Castle, when leaders of the then 12 member states met for the first time as the European Council.
He was in Dublin in 1979 when Margaret Thatcher demanded her money back. He plodded his way through the snow to attend the meeting in Vienna in the winter of 1998 and sweltered in the heavy heat in Seville in 2002, where the working methods of the European Council were reformed.
The European Council in the era of crises
In 2022 Werts published his latest book on the European Council, “The European Council in the era of crises”. The former president of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, described it as, “Jan Wert’s story of the European Council is the story of the Union itself.”
Interview with Jan Werts
You have been a European affairs correspondent for nearly 50 years. In your latest book you describe your “incessant fascination with European affairs”. How did this come about?
