THE COUNCIL of E.U.

The Council is the EUs main decision-making body. Like the European
Parliament, the Council was set up by the founding treaties in the 1950s. It
represents the member states, and its meetings are attended by one minister from
each of the EUs national governments.
The EC Treaty refers to the Council; many commentators refer to the
Council of Ministers. However, in November 1993, the Council chose to
rename itself the Council of the European Union. This reflects the fact that
this is the only institution which is truly an institution of all three pillars of
the European Union.
Which ministers attend which meeting depends on what subjects are on the agenda.
If, for example, the Council is to discuss environmental issues, the meeting will be
attended by the Environment Minister from each EU country and it will be known as
the Environment Council.
The EUs relations with the rest of the world are dealt with by the General Affairs and
External Relations Council. But this Council configuration also has wider
responsibility for general policy issues, so its meetings are attended by
whichever Minister or State Secretary each government chooses.
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 ministers 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 Councils decisions.

Composition

The Council consists of members of the governments of the Member States

authorised to commit the government of that Member State[1]. The
Council is therefore made up of politicians from the Member States who are
authorised to bind the Member State they represent.
The membership will vary according to the matter under discussion and
specialised Council meetings may have special titles:
The General Affairs Council, in which the foreign ministers participate,
deals with institutional and policy issues.
The Council of Economic and Finance Ministers (ECOFIN) meets monthly,
and covers the abolition of fiscal barriers and the coordination of the
economic policies of the Member States.
Agriculture ministers, transport ministers, and so forth, meet to consider
policy and legislation in their areas of responsibility.

The President of the European Commission, although not a member of the

Council and not entitled to vote, will, in practice, attend these meetings, or
another Commissioner may attend on his behalf.

Although Member States are normally represented by the senior minister in

each department, this may not always be possible and there are occasions
when Council meetings comprise ministers of different levels of seniority.

President of the Council

The office of President has to be held in turn by each Member State for a
period of six months[2] in the order decided by the Council acting
unanimously.
The President is responsible for preparing the agenda for Council meetings,
so that holding the presidency provides an opportunity for Member States
to ensure that issues that are of importance to them are placed at the top
of the agenda.
There is also an element of competition between Member States, so that
success or failure of a presidency will, to some extent, be judged by the
volume of legislation passed during that six-month period.
Council of European Union meetings are normally convened by the country
holding the presidency. In some cases, however, the Commission, or
another Member State, may take the initiative in convening a meeting.
The government of the Member State holding the presidency is primarily
responsible for arranging and chairing ministerial meetings of the Council
and of its subcommittees.
It also has to attempt to gain support among the other Member States for
new initiatives, for maintaining their momentum once they are launched
and for representing the Councils views to the other institutions.
The presidencys control of the agenda allows it considerable scope to
change and affect the pace of policy changes in the Community.
Achievement of the policy goals set by the presidency will depend to a
large extent on its ability to persuade the other Member States to go along
with new initiatives, often by a process of trade-offs and mutual
concessions in other, sometimes quite unrelated, policy areas.

The General Secretariat

The Presidency is assisted by the General Secretariat, which prepares and ensures
the smooth functioning of the Councils work at all levels.
The General Secretariat is also High Representative for the Common Foreign
and Security Policy (CFSP), and in this capacity it helps the Council to draft and
implement political decisions.
It also engages in political dialogue, on the Councils behalf, with non-EU countries.

The Secretary-General is assisted by a Deputy Secretary-General in charge of

managing the General Secretariat.

Functions

According to the Treaties, the main powers of the Council are the following:
1. it exercises the legislative power, together with the European Parliament, by
adopting normative acts which are compulsory;
2. it ensures the coordination of the general economic policies of Member States in
order to accomplish the proper functioning of the economic and monetary union;
3. it exercises the budgetary power, sharing it with the European Parliament;
4. it concludes, in behalf of the European Union, the international agreements with
other States or international organizations;
5. it ensures the coordination of the actions of Member States and it takes the
necessary measures in the field of judicial and police cooperation in criminal matters;
6. it defines and implements the Common Foreign and Security Policy, in the light of
the guidelines laid down by the European Council.

Finally, it should be made the difference between the Council of the European Union
or the European Council, which are two institutions of the European Union, and the
Council of Europe.
Thus, the Council of Europe is an international political organization outside the
European Union, which deals with education, culture and above all the protection of
human rights. It had been created in 1949 by the London Treaty on the Statute of the
Council of Europe. It now has 47 Members which are European countries that have
agreed to respect and protect the human rights and the fundamental freedoms. All
the Member States of the European Union are also members of the Council of Europe.
In 1950, the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms had
been adopted within the Council of Europe. According to the provisions of the Lisbon
Treaty, the European Union itself will accede to the European Convention on Human
Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.

The main bodies of the Council of Europe are as follows:

the Committee of Ministers, which is the decision-making body of the organization,
composed of the 47 Foreign Ministers of Member countries;
the Parliamentary Assembly, composed of 636 members, namely 318
representatives and 318 substitutes, from the national parliaments of Member
countries.

The function of the Council is set out in EC Treaty[3] in very broad terms:
a) to ensure coordination of the general economic policies of the Member
States;
b) to have power to take decisions.

The Council has six key responsibilities:

1.

To pass European laws. In many fields it legislates jointly with the European

Parliament.
2.

To co-ordinate the broad economic policies of the member states.

3.

To conclude international agreements between the EU and one or more states

or international organisations.
4.

To approve the EUs budget, jointly with the European Parliament.

5.

To develop the EUs Common Foreign and Security Policy, based on guidelines

set by the European Council.

6.

To co-ordinate co-operation between the national courts and police forces in

criminal matters.

1. Legislation
Much EU legislation is adopted jointly by the Council and Parliament (Treaties
decision-making). 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.

Decision making remains the central role of the Council and despite the
increasingly important role of the Parliament, the Council is the place
where final decisions will be made, in the overwhelming majority of cases.

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

The Council concludes, on behalf of the Community and the Union, international
agreements between the EU and one or more states or international
organisations.
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
organisations.
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.
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

4. Approving the EU budget

The EUs annual budget is decided jointly by the Council and the European
Parliament.
5. Common Foreign and Security Policy
The Council defines and implements the EUs common foreign and security
policy, based on guidelines set by the European Council.
The member states are working to develop a Common Foreign and Security Policy
(CFSP). But foreign policy, security and defence 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 European Union Military Staff is under the military direction of the EUMC,
which it assists.

In 2002, two agencies were set up to carry out specific technical and scientific tasks
for the Common Foreign and Security Policy. They are:

the European Institute for Security Studies (www.iss-eu.org), based in

Paris, France;

the European Union Satellite Centre (www.eusc.org), based in Torrejn de

Ardoz, Spain.

6. 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 EUs 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.

The Council co-ordinates the actions of member states and adopts measures
in the area of police and judicial co-operation in criminal matters.