The Council of Ministers

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The Council of Ministers
History Functions Characteristics COREPER The
Presidency Qualified majority voting
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Introduction

• European Council and Council of Ministers
• Two chamber systems (US Senate, German Federal
  Chamber)
• A federal chamber?

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History

• ECSC national control body of supranational High
  Authority
• 1965-66 the empty chair crisis and Luxemburg
  compromise
• Single European Act qualified majority voting
  (qmv) and co-decision procedure,
• Maastricht extension of qmv, unanimity in second
  and third pillar
• Amsterdam constructive abstention
• Nice flexibility

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Responsibilities and Powers

• embodiment of the Member States on ministerial
  level
• According to the matters on the agenda, the
  Council meets in different compositions
• main decision-making and legislative body
• It concludes, on behalf of the EU, international
  agreements with one or more States or
  international organisations
• It shares budgetary authority with Parliament

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Council of Ministers hybrid nature
INTERGOVERNMENTAL

• Represents 27 national governments
• Agrees legislation binding on all members
• National Ministers belong to national governments
• Council of Ministers form part of the EU

SUPRANATIONAL
EXECUTIVE
LEGISLATIVE
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Multiple roles

• The Council through different lenses (Wallace
  2002)
• Tandem with Commission (where EU has powers)
• Club of governments (new challenges)
• Location of persistent competition for
  governments
• An arena for networked governance
• A forum for developing policies through
  intensive transgovernmentalism where the EU
  lacks powers
• EU legislature (alongside EP)

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Council of Ministers Composition

• Consists of national ministers or their
  representatives
• Many different manifestations (circa 23).
• Most important
• - General Affairs
• - Agriculture
• - ECOFIN
• - EURO

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Council of Ministers an intergovernmental body?

• Difficulty secrecy and lack of transparency
• Variation in collegiality
• frequency of meetings varies from 15 to 1 per
  year.
• 85 per cent of decisions not made by ministers
  (COREPER, technical committees)

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Clusters

• lines of conflict
• Net payer/ net receiver (budget, regional and
  social funds)
• Small and medium/bigger ms (setting norms, power)
• North/south (asylum, social policy, worker
  rights)
• Socialist/conservative (social rights,
  employment)
• Old/new ms (idealistic)
• France/Germany/GB/(Italy) (different coalitions)
• IMPORANT Informal meetings, fireplace sittings

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Committee of Permanent Representatives
COREPER Composition and Function

• Ambassadors of member states to EC
• Prepares agenda and meetings of ministers
• Classified A-points (rubber stamped) and B-points
  (discussed)

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COREPER

• Dual faced
• Executers of national interests BUT High degree
  of socialisation
• Act collectively against governments
• caught between collectiveness and national
  politics (loyalties)
• Strong sense of being involved in iterated games

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Prisoners Dilemma simple, non-iterated game
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Prisoners Dilemma simple, non-iterated game
A 4gt1gt3gt1 B 2gt1gt3gt4
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Technical Committees

• Prepare recommendations for COREPER
• Intensive interaction between national and
  Commission officials
• colleagues judged by competence, not nationality
• Distinction between Commission and national
  officials soon lost

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COREPER and Committees

• autonomy from/through
• technical nature of dossiers
• Ministers too busy to monitor
• instructions loosely drawn
• need to allow room for manoeuvre
• PermReps can influence the national position

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The Presidency
- rotates between member states every six
months troika supported by secretariat -
Prestigious advertising the Country on
international stage - system has been
criticised (terms too short, scope of demands not
manageable by small members) question of
enlargement
2004  January-June Ireland July-December
Netherlands 2005  January-June Luxembourg July-De
cember UK 2006  January-June Austria July-Decem
ber Finland 2007 January-June Germany July-Dece
mber Portugal 2008 January-June Slovenia July-
December France
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Qualified Majority Voting

• To overcome the unanimous-vote-dilemma (smallest
  common denominator)
• To avoid veto-deadlocks
• To challenge Commission action by common accord
• Votes to reflect the different sizes of the
  states
• Introduction of pass votes and minimal blocking
  minorities

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Qualified Majority Voting - EU 6
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Qualified majority voting EU 15
368.7
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Weighted Votes in the Council EU 27
Germany, France, Italy, United Kingdom 29 Spain,
Poland 27 Romania 14 Netherlands 13 Belg
ium, Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary,
Portugal 12 Austria, Sweden, Bulgaria 10 Denmar
k, Ireland, Lithuania, Slovakia,
Finland 7 Cyprus, Estonia, Latvia, Luxembourg,
Slovenia 4 Malta 3 TOTAL 345
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Nice Triple Majority

• Majority of countries (5014 or 6718) and
  votes (74255) and population (62306)
• In many cases Simple majority / no voting at all

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Lisbon Double Majority Voting

• Weighted Voting replaced by
• Majority (55) of council members
• that represent 65 of the unions citizens
• Who wins/loses?
• Postponed until 2017 (at least)

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The new Council of Ministers

• Due to increasingly applied intergovernmental
  method, in the centre of decision-making more
  than ever
• Council Secretariat has become a collective
  institutional actor, which has sometimes more
  influence than EP or Commission (Beach 2005)
• Questions of QMV and transparency prevail

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Class Questions

• To what extent has the power of the Commission
  been eclipsed by the Council of Ministers in the
  decision making process of the EU?
• Is that a good or a bad thing?