The
Spaak-method of
negotiatingNegotiation is a dialogue between two or more people or parties, intended to reach an understanding, resolve point of difference, or gain advantage in outcome of dialogue, to produce an agreement upon courses of action, to bargain for individual or collective advantage, to craft outcomes to satisfy...
is named after
Paul-Henri SpaakPaul Henri Charles Spaak was a Belgian Socialist politician and statesman.-Early life:Paul-Henri Spaak was born on 25 January 1899 in Schaerbeek, Belgium, to a distinguished Belgian family. His grandfather, Paul Janson was an important member of the Liberal Party...
, who applied this method at the
Intergovernmental Conference on the Common Market and EuratomThe Intergovernmental Conference on the Common Market and Euratom was held in Brussels and started on 26 June 1956 with a session in the Grand Salon of the Belgian Foreign Ministry. The negotiations went on at the Castle of the Valley of the Duchess in Auderghem and would continue until March 1957...
in 1956 at
Val DuchesseThe Castle of Val-Duchesse is a former priory situated in the municipality of Auderghem in the Brussels Capital Region of Belgium. The castle is owned by the Belgian Royal Trust....
castle in preparing for the Treaties of Rome in 1957.
During the negotiations leading to the conference at Val Duchesse, most of the real negotiations took place prior to the actual
Intergovernmental ConferenceAn Intergovernmental Conference is the formal procedure for negotiating amendments to the founding treaties of the European Union. Under the treaties, an IGC is called into being by the European Council, and is composed of representatives of the member states, with the Commission, and to a lesser...
(IGC) within the
Spaak CommitteeThe Spaak Committee was an Intergovernmental Committee set up by the Foreign Ministers of the six Member States of the European Coal and Steel Community as a result of the Messina Conference of 1955. The Spaak Committee started its work on 9 July 1955 and ended on 20 April 1956, when the Heads of...
that was charged with setting the agenda for the Val Duchesse conference. The final report of the committee then formed the basis for the final treaty which was then approved in
RomeRome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
. Within this negotiating method, the preparatory committee has a strong initiating and brokerage role in the phase preceding the conference, while the actual Intergovernmental Conference only deals with negotiating small changes in the original agenda prepared by the preparatory committee.
This method was also applied to the preparation of the
Economic and Monetary UnionThe Economic and Monetary Union is an umbrella term for the group of policies aimed at converging the economies of members of the European Union in three stages so as to allow them to adopt a single currency, the euro. As such, it is largely synonymous with the eurozone.All member states of the...
(EMU) by the
DelorsJacques Lucien Jean Delors is a French economist and politician, the eighth President of the European Commission and the first person to serve three terms in that office .-French Politics:...
Committee.
Source