How does the council work?
Devices to oil the Council machine
The Council is a busy organization in need of mechanism to facilitate its work. The Council presidency has acquired increased importance and carries the weight of considerable expectations as to the enhanced responsibilities it might bear. The General Secretariat of the Council has established itself as an important part of the institutional infrastructure for the Council. Some say that the Franco-German tandem has long engine others that the impetus still often comes from the founder member governments.
With whom does the Council interact?
The Council interact perpetually and simultaneously with other EU institutions and with the political life of the member states. From the mid ’70 the relatopmns between the Council and European Parliament become increasingly important. Council has po pay serious and regular attention to the European Parliament. Pressure groups, big firms, lobbyists and consultants have always been active in Brussels and have become much more now.
To whom is Council responsible?
It’s hard to define that. On one hand the Commission as a proto-executive was made accountable to anyone under the treaties, through it’s hemmed in by increasing rules to report the European Parliament and work with it. The members of the Council are responsible to their own countries, parliaments and electorates.
Looking behind the scenes and into the corridors
There are at least 4 of political tussle within member states that bear on behavior in the Council.
- arguments within the governing party or parties over the definition of policy and bargaining positions
- arguments between government and opposition over what ‘national’ policy should be on European issues
- arguments between national parliaments and national ministers over European proposals and policies, and
- competition between sectoral interests and pressure groups within the member states, as they seek to capture influence over national policy.
How has the Council changed over time?
- Council procedures and decisions rules have altered considerably they are much more hard to understand
- The volume of business transacted and outputs achieved through the Council has steadily expanded within sectors and across areas of public policy
- The relationship of the Council with other institutions have altered in critical ways, but also with contradictory patterns.
Main information’s about the Council of the Ministers
Altogether there are nine different Council configurations:
- General Affairs and External Relations
- Economic and Financial Affairs ("ECOFIN")
- Justice and Home Affairs
- Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs
- Competitiveness (Internal Market, Industry and Research)
- Transport, Telecommunications and Energy
- Agriculture and Fisheries
- Environment
- Education, Youth and Culture
Nevertheless, the Council remains one single institution.
Each minister in the Council is empowered to commit his or her government. In other words, the minister's signature is the signature of the whole government. Moreover, each minister in the Council is answerable to his or her national parliament and to the citizens that parliament represents. This ensures the democratic legitimacy of the Council's decisions.
The Council has six key responsibilities:
- To pass European laws. In many fields it legislates jointly with the European Parliament.
- To co-ordinate the broad economic policies of the member states.
- To conclude international agreements between the EU and one or more states or international organizations.
- To approve the EU's budget, jointly with the European Parliament.
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To develop the EU's Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP: for further details see the section on ), based on guidelines set by the European Council.
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To co-ordinate co-operation between the national courts and police forces in criminal matters (see the section on ).
Most of these responsibilities relate to the "Community" domain - i.e. areas of action where the member states have decided to pool their sovereignty and delegate decision-making powers to the EU institutions. This domain is the "first pillar" of the European Union.
However, the last two responsibilities relate largely to areas in which the member states have not delegated their powers but are simply working together. This is called "intergovernmental co-operation" and it covers the second and third "pillars" of the European Union (CFSP and police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters).
Legislation
1. Much EU legislation is adopted jointly by the Council and Parliament
As a rule, the Council only acts on a proposal from the Commission, and the Commission normally has responsibility for ensuring that EU legislation, once adopted, is correctly applied.
2. Co-ordinating the economic policies of member states
The EU countries have decided that they want an overall economic policy based on close co-ordination between their national economic policies. This co-ordination is carried out by the economics and finance ministers, who collectively form the Economic and Financial Affairs ("ECOFIN") Council.
3. Concluding international agreements
Each year the Council "concludes" (i.e. officially signs) a number of agreements between the European Union and non-EU countries, as well as with international organizations. These agreements may cover broad areas such as trade, co-operation and development or they may deal with specific subjects such as textiles, fisheries, science and technology, transport etc.
In addition, the Council may conclude conventions between the EU member states in fields such as taxation, company law or consular protection. Conventions can also deal with co-operation in the field of Justice and Home Affairs (see the section on ).
Approving the EU budget
The EU's annual budget is decided jointly by the Council and the European Parliament. If the two institutions do not agree, the rules allow the Council to take the final decision on "compulsory expenditure" (mainly agricultural expenditure, and expenses arising from international agreements with non-EU countries), while Parliament has the last word on "non-compulsory" expenditure and the final approval of the budget as a whole.
Common Foreign and Security Policy
The member states are developing a Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). But foreign policy, security and defense are matters over which the individual EU member states retain independent control. They have not pooled their national sovereignty in these areas, so Parliament and the European Commission play only a limited role here. However, the EU countries have much to gain by working together on these issues, and the Council is the main forum in which this "inter-governmental co-operation" takes place.
To enable the EU to respond more effectively to international crises, the European Council (at the Helsinki summit meeting in December 1999) decided that the EU would create a "Rapid Reaction Force" of up to 60 000 military personnel that could be deployed within 60 days and kept in operation for at least a year.
This will not be a "European army". The personnel will remain members of their national armed forces and under national command, and their role will be limited to carrying out humanitarian, rescue, peacekeeping and other crisis management tasks.
To provide political control and strategic direction in a crisis, the European Council (Nice, December 2000) decided to establish new permanent political and military structures within the Council of the European Union.
These new structures are:
- the Political and Security Committee (PSC)
- the European Union Military Committee (EUMC) and
- the European Union Military Staff (EUMS), composed of military experts seconded to the Council Secretariat by the member states.
The EUMS is under the military direction of the EUMC, which it assists. See also the section on .
Justice and Home Affairs (JHA)
Drugs, terrorism, international fraud, trafficking in human beings and the sexual exploitation of children are all problems of great concern to European citizens. They are cross-border criminal activities, and only cross-border co-operation can tackle them effectively. If Europe is to do so, and to give all its citizens equal access to civil justice throughout the EU, then the national courts, police forces, customs officers and immigration services of all EU countries have to work together.
They have to ensure, for example,
- that a court judgement delivered in one EU country in a divorce or child custody case is recognised in all other EU countries;
- that the EU's external borders are effectively policed;
- that customs officers and police exchange information on the movements of suspected drugs traffickers or people smugglers;
- that asylum seekers are assessed and treated in the same way throughout the EU, so as to prevent "asylum shopping".
Issues such as these, collectively known as "Justice and Home Affairs" (JHA), are dealt with by the Ministers for Justice and of the Interior, acting collectively as the Justice and Home Affairs Council.
See also the section on .
COREPER
In Brussels, each EU member state has a permanent team ("representation") that represents it and defends its national interest at EU level. The head of each representation is, in effect, his or her country's ambassador to the EU.
These ambassadors (known as "permanent representatives") meet weekly within the Permanent Representatives Committee (COREPER). The role of this committee is to prepare the work of the Council, with the exception of agricultural issues, which are handled by the Special Committee on Agriculture. COREPER is assisted by a number of working groups, made up of officials from the national administrations.
The Council Presidency
The Presidency of the Council rotates every six months. In other words, each EU country in turn takes charge of the Council agenda and chairs all the meetings for a six-month period, promoting legislative and political decisions and brokering compromises between the member states.
The rota for 2003-2006 is as follows:
If, for example, the Environment Council is scheduled to meet during the second half of 2006 it will be chaired by the Finnish Minister for the Environment, since Finland is holding the Council Presidency at that time.
The General Secretariat
The Presidency is assisted by the General Secretariat, which prepares and ensures the smooth functioning of the Council's work at all levels.
In 1999, Mr Javier Solana was appointed Secretary-General of the Council. He is also High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), and in this capacity he helps the Council to draft and implement political decisions. He also engages in political dialogue, on the Council's behalf, with non-EU countries.
The Secretary-General is assisted by a Deputy Secretary-General in charge of managing the General Secretariat.
How many votes per country?
Decisions in the Council are taken by vote. The bigger the country's population, the more votes it has. But the number is not strictly proportional: it is adjusted in favour of the less populous countries.
Until 1 May 2004, the number of votes each country can cast is as follows:
From 1 May 2004 (when new member states join the EU) until 31 October that year, there are transitional arrangements for changing the weighting of votes.
From 1 November 2004, the number of votes each country can cast (including the new member states) is as follows:
"Qualified majority voting"
The most common voting procedure in Council is "qualified majority voting" (QMV). This means that, for a proposal to be adopted, it needs the support of a specified minimum number of votes. (The details are given below).
However, in some particularly sensitive areas such as CFSP, taxation, asylum and immigration policy, Council decisions have to be unanimous. In other words, each member state has the power of veto in these areas.
Unanimous agreement is already hard to achieve between 15 countries: in an enlarged Union of 27 or more it will be virtually impossible. If it kept trying to operate under its present rules, the EU would be paralysed - unable to act in many important fields. So the Treaty of Nice changes the rules, allowing the Council to take decisions by qualified majority voting in quite a number of areas that used to require unanimity.
Until 1 May 2004, the minimum number of votes required to reach a qualified majority is 62 out of the total of 87 (i.e. 71.3%). For a six month period from 1 May 2004, when new member states join the EU, transitional arrangements apply.
From 1 November 2004, a qualified majority will be reached
- if a majority of member states (in some cases a two-thirds majority) approve AND
- if a minimum of votes is cast in favour - which is 72.3% of the total (roughly the same share as under the previous system).
In addition, a member state may ask for confirmation that the votes in favour represent at least 62% of the total population of the Union. If this is found not to be the case, the decision will not be adopted.
