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Council

The Council of Ministers is often simply called 'the Council'. It is distinct from the European Council – which is the name for the meetings, within the framework of the EU, of the Heads of State and Government of the member states.

The Lisbon Treaty provided for three big reforms:

- A permanent President to chair the European Council for a 2½ year period,  renewable once. The President is to represent the EU in international affairs together with the new "foreign minister".

- From 2014 onwards, the qualified majority will represent a so-called "double majority". This may require 55% of the  member states representing 65% of the population.

- A system of team precidencies are introduced meaning that 3 countries will chair all council compositions for 18 months together. But they will all get to chair each council for 6 months. 

The first vote in the new voting systemrequires the support of 55% of the member states. The next and more difficult vote requires support from member states with a total amounting to 65% of the EU population, cast by at least fifteen member states. In the existing EU of 27 countries these Lisbon rules would allow three big member states and a small one to block a decision that is desired by the remaining 23 countries.  

ROLE

The Council is the prime law-making body of the EU even if most rules are decided by the Commisison on its own.  Laws are proposed by the Commission, and the Council may then approve or reject these proposals. In an increasing number of cases it must approve legislation jointly with the European Parliament through the process of co-decision. The procedure is now named Ordinary Legislative Procedure. See Art. 294 TFEU.

Ministers also meet informally. At such meetings they are able to negotiate more freely, but cannot formally take decisions. The Council is led by a six-months rotating presidency and is serviced by a Brussels-based secretary-general and secretariat.

The Council decides procedural matters by a majority of its members, which is 14 out of 27. The Council decides on most policy matters, directives and regulations by weighted or qualified majority voting, each country having a particular number of votes, and a simple majority of Council members having to approve. Thos system is changed in 2014.

Certain key decisions require unanimity, for example the admission of new member states, tax matters and major foreign and security issues.

Meetings of the Council of Ministers are composed of ministers from each of the member states. The type of ministers present depends upon the policy area under discussion. Agriculture ministers meet in the Agriculture Council, transport ministers in the Transport Council, and so on. Ministers are often represented at Council meetings by an ambassador of state or other civil servant.

Notes

- Some 70% of all EU laws are decided in Council working groups and 15% in COREPER. Only 15%  or so are actually discussed  and negotiated in Councils of Ministers.

- There are around 300 working groups under the Council, see below - and 3000 under the EU Commission.

- Shares joint responsibility for the EU budget with the European Parliament. The Council has the final say on ‘compulsory expenditure’; the Parliament on ‘non-compulsory’ expenditure.

Links

website of the Council http://ue.eu.int/

See also Presidency of the Council, Luxembourg compromise and Voting in the Council.

Here you can see the working groups in th Council: http://register.consilium.euro....../10/st05/st05869-re01.en10.pdf (from February 2010)

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