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During the trainings that Shannon and I gave over last year we noticed that the Council was one of the most problematic institutions to understand. People tend to focus on the European Commission or the European Parliament because they tend to be more transparent and approachable. This is a pity because you will need the Council. There is no workaround. Its way too powerful. High time to demystify this important institution and give you the insights and tools to work with it.
The Basics
Anything simple can be made very difficult in the European Union. This starts with the name of the Council. When we speak of the European Council we actually mean the gathering of the heads of states of the EU. It’s when the Macron’s and the Scholz’s of Europe descend on Brussels to discuss high politics or discuss a crisis. Most of the time (and for this blog) when we speak of the Council we actually mean one of the Council of configurations. Like for example the Agriculture and Fisheries Council (where the Agriculture Ministeres reside) or the Health Council (where the Health ministers meet). Not every Council configuration meets every month. Some meet twice during a half year. The EU could have made life easy by mirroring the Council formations with the committees of the European Parliament or the DG’s of the European Commission, but that would be too easy. So we have a total of 10 Council configurations. There is no hierarchy among the Council configurations, although the General Affairs Council has a special coordination role and is responsible for institutional and horizontal matters such as enlargement, constitutional affairs and sometimes the budget. The ministers are not the ones doing most of the work. Most of the stuff is done by the ‘Council preparatory bodies’. These consist of more than 150 working parties and committees and have vague names like Asia-Oceania Working Party (COASI). Or the even more vague Friends of the Presidency Group which tends to work on specific (and sometimes) big issues like multi-annual budgets. When the European Commission sends the proposal to the Council, the working parties hammer out the position of the Council. I am not sure about the exact figure but I think around 80% or even 90% of all negotiations take place in the working groups before it is sent to Coreper. As many of you know, Corepor 1 is in fact the second highest diplomat of the Permanent Representations and deals with policy, while Coreper 2 is headed by the highest diplomat of the Permanent Representations and deals more with political stuff. Corepor1 and 2 sit in between the working parties and the ministers and try to resolve all left issues before bothering the ministers.If you are into agriculture then you will now that Coreper 1 and 2 have an lesser known brother called the Special Committee on Agriculture which has the same rights as Corepor but doesn’t get the kuddo’s for it. At least they didn’t teach me about the powerfull SCA while I was in Maastricht. The high-diplomats of Coreper 1 and 2 are assisted by diplomats with James-bond-worthy names; Mertens (Coreper 1) and Antici (Coreper 2).
Some inside stuff
The Council is a powerful body and is often described as opaque and the ultimate “old-boys-network”. To some part their puzzling website, acronyms and byzantine structures are to blame. The only thing worse then their public website is their intra-net; The Delegates Portal. Here you will find most of the preparation documents, non-papers and documents for the negotiations with the European Parliament.That is if you are lucky enough to have access to it as it is reserved for diplomats of the permanent representations. Something which is nice to know is that members of National Parliaments also get the password and are allowed access to documents. They can’t however use/quote the documents which are designated as confidential and have the word “Limité” written on them. Members of the national parliaments complain that the Council is too fast to designate a lot of documents as confidential.
How to work with the Council
I had wonderful experiences working with all levels from the Counci. I have worked with Perm Reps directly, the diplomats in the Council configurations as well as people from the secretary. In order to successfully work with the Council you need to respect the written rules. When it comes to the written rules you can easily find them in the Council Rules of Procedure. Asking something that lies beyond the scope of the procedures will get you onluy irritation, closed doors and strange looks. If you can show you know the rules (especially those about timing of agenda’s) will help.The unwritten rules are more difficult to articulate but not impossible. The people at the Council don’t want to be embarrassed by sending out to a mission-impossible or demanding them to spend all their political capital on one file. Also realise that this a tight-knit bunch. I once went to the Perm Rep of Denmark only to be called the same day by the Dutch diplomats asking me why I didn’t approach them first. While the diplomats’ loyalty lie with their countries first, they will try to preserve group coherence with other Perm Reps. If you do find your interest aligned with that of the Perm Rep you can assist them by going after the other institutions and feeding them insider info of the discussions in other places. I had civil servants coming to me to pursue a more activist approach which they were not able to as a serious member state. Trust is the key-word. Sometimes you have to not do something with a piece of information in order no to emberass the diplomat from whome you got the information. You will miss an opportunity but it will help you in the long run. They key of a fruitfuill coopetationship is to make sure your file is important and important enough. The diplomats from the Council receive their instructions from the capitals and if you do not have a working relationship with them they will always advise you to talk with their counterpart back home who writes the instructions. This sometimes requires you even to go to the national parliament in order to make sure something is considered a national interest. Even then it is important to keep track because even when diplomats ánd ministers have mandates and positions they need to chose their battles in the Council. For very practical reasons. If you are trying to push for all the items on your list you will lose alliances and moreover people will think you talk too much. A tour the table in the Council is already 27 member states and if everybody limits his position to 5 minutes that still means more than two hours of introduction. I had the honour to interview Tom de Bruijn, the former Dutch Perm Rep who later went on to become the minister of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands. One of the things I asked him is how external players can work with the Council and this is what he answered.
“You can also assist by explaining what the conse- quences are of certain parts of draft legislation. This is not always clear in negotiations, and we do not want to be faced with unintended consequences from legislation when we have already adopted the texts. By identifying, articulating and explaining problems with certain policies or draft legislation the lobbyist can play a key role.”