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Members: ministers of the 15 Member States
Presidency: from 1 July 1995 rotates every six months in the following sequence: Spain, Italy, Ireland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, the United Kingdom, Austria, Germany, Finland, Portugal, France, Sweden, Belgium, Spain, Denmark, Greece
Meeting place: Brussels
The Council of the European Union, usually known as the Council of Ministers, has no equivalent anywhere in the world. Here, the Member States legislate for the Union, set its political objectives, coordinate their national policies and resolve differences between themselves and with other institutions.
It is a body with the characteristics of both a supranational and intergovernmental organization, deciding some matters by qualified majority voting, and others by unanimity.
Its democratic credentials should not be in doubt. Each meeting of the Council brings together Member States´ representatives, usually ministers, who are responsible to their national parliaments and public opinions. Nowadays, there are regular meetings of more than 25 different types of Council meeting: General Affairs (Foreign Affairs ministers), Economy and Finance, and Agriculture meet monthly, others such as Transport, Environment and Industry meet two to four times a year.
In 1994, the Council held around 100 formal ministerial sessions during which it adopted about 300 regulations, 50 directives and 160 decisions.
The council of Ministers is making strong efforts to make more of its work accessible to the citizen. Votes on legislative matters, as well as the explanations of these votes, are now automatically made public.
The Presidency
The Presidency of the council rotates between the Member States every six months: January until June, July until December.
The Presidency´s role has become increasingly important as the responsibilities of the Union have broadened and deepened. It must:
. arrange and preside over all meetings;
. elaborate acceptabel compromises and find pragmatic solutions to problems submitted to the Council;
. seek to secure consistency and continuity in decision-taking.
Decision-making
The Treaty on European Union based the Union´s activities on three "pillars" and established that mainly decisions should be taken either by qualified majority voting or by unanimity.
Pillar One covers a wide range of Community policies (such as agriculture, transport, environment, energy, research and development) designed and implemented according to a well-proven decision-making process which begins with a Commission proposal. Following a detailed examination by experts and at the political level, the Council can either adopt the Commissional proposal, amend it or ignore it.
The Treaty on European Union increased the European Parliament's say through a co-decision procedure (chapter 2.1.1, 3.), which means that a wide range of legislation (such as internal market, consumer affairs, trans-European networks, education and health) is adopted both by the Parliament and the Council.
In the vast majority of cases (including agriculture, fisheries, internal market, environment and transport), the Council decides by a qualified majority vote with Member States carrying the following weightings:
Germany, France, Italy and the United Kingdom: 10 votes
Spain: 8 votes
Belgium, Greece, the Netherlands and Portugal: 5 votes
Austria and Sweden: 4 votes
Ireland, Denmark and Finland: 3 votes
Luxembourg: 2 votes
Total 87 votes
When a Commission proposal is involved, at least 62 votes must be cast in favour. In other cases, the qualified majority is also 62 votes, but these must be cast by at least 10 Member States. In practice, the Council tries to reach the widest possible consensus before taking a decision so that, for example, only about 14 % of the legislation adopted by the Council in 1994 was the subject of negative votes and abstentions.
Those policy areas in Pillar One which remain subject to unanimity include taxation, industry, culture, regional and social funds and the framework programme for research and technology development.
For the other two pillars created by the Treaty on European Union - Common Foreign and Security Policy (Pillar Two) and Cooperation in the fields of Justice and Home Affairs (Pillar Three), the Council is the decision-maker as well as the promoter of initiatives. Unanimity is the rule in both pillars.
The European Council Council of the EU (Ministers)
Since 1974, Heads of State or Government meet alt least twice a year in the form of the European Council or "European Summit". Its membership also includes the President of the Commission. The President of the European Parliament is invited to make a presentation at the opening session.
The European Council has become an increasingly important element of the Union, setting priorities, giving political direction, providing impetus for its development and resolving contentious issues that have proved too difficult for the Council of Ministers.
The European Council submits a report to the European Parliament after each of its meetings and an annual written report on the progress achieves by the Union.
Community Legislation
Community law, adopted by the Council - or by the Parliament and Council in the framework of the co-decision procedure - may take the following forms:
regulations: these are directly applied without the need for national measures to implement them;
directives: bind Member States as to the objectives to be achieved while leaving the national authorities the power to choose the form and the means to be used;
recommendations and opinions: these are not binding.
Organization
Each Member State has a national delegation in Brussels known as the Permanent Representation. These delegations are headed by Permanent Representatives, who are normally very senior diplomats and whose committee, called Coreper, prepares ministerial sessions. Coreper meets weekly and its main task is to ensure that only the most difficult and sensitive issues are dealt with at ministerial level.
Coreper is also the destination of reports from the many Council working groups of national experts. These groups make detailed examinations of Commission proposals and indicate, among other things, areas of agreement and disagreement.
The Secretariat-General provides the intellectual and practical infrastructure of the Council at all levels. It is an element of continuity in the Council proceedings and has the custody of Council acts and archives. Its Legal Service advises the Council and committees on legal matters. The Secretariat-General is appointed by the Council acting unanimously.
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