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What is the Council of the European Union?

22.01.2009

The Council of the European Union (also called the Council of Ministers) is a major decision-making body of the European Union. Together with the European Commission and the European Parliament it is one of the main three actors taking part in the decision-making process of the EU. The main task of the Council is the adoption, along with the Parliament, of the European legal acts. The Council represents the Member States of the Union. The Council has no permanent composition: at the meetings of the Council one minister from each Union country always takes part according to the subject. If for example the problems concerning education are discussed than the Ministers of Education participate at the meeting. So the decisions taken by the Council of the EU is most frequently compromise reached after the laborious negotiations between all the Union members.

The Council of the European Union has its General Secretariat with its seat in Brussels and which task is to ensure the effective Council functioning.

There are nine possible Council configurations:

General Affairs and External Relations Council (GAERC)
Economic and Financial Affairs Council (ECOFIN)
Justice and Home Affairs Council (JHA)
Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs Council (EPSCO)
Competitiveness Council (COMPET)
Transport, Telecommunications and Energy Council (TTE)
Agriculture and Fisheries Council (AGRIFish)
Environment Council (ENVI)
Education, Youth and Culture (EYC)

What is the difference among the Council of the European Union, the European Council and the Council of Europe?

The Council of the European Union, the European Council and the Council of Europe are often confused with each other, although they are different in principle:

  • The Council of the European Union presided over by the national Presidency during the 6-month period, is a major decision-making body of the European Union. The tasks and the composition of the Council of the EU are presented above.
  • The European Council is a political body of the European Union. The prime member states ministers' or presidents' meetings are called The European Council and they take place about four times a year and it is where the most important problems are discussed if they were not discussed at the ministerial level. During the European Council summits the general directions of the EU development are set and the final texts of the Union's treaties are drawn up signed.
  • The Council of Europe is not at all a Union's institution but an independent from the EU international organization. The Council of Europe is mainly concerned with the human rights protection, democracy protection and the member states cooperation related to culture. The organization issues the acts called the conventions - they are not binding and serve as a guidelines and constitute the law standards.