The Council of the European Union, 3rd ed.

Abstract:

This book aims to bring to the reader a general introduction to the Council of the European Union, also known as the Council of Ministers. It gives more than a bald description of what the Council does, providing analysis and answers to the questions of 'why' and 'how' it does it.

The work is organised in seven parts. In part one, the first chapter introduces the Council and provides background history, while the second chapter goes on to describe the workaday issues of where it meets and what it speaks. The third chapter deals with the ground rules and basic practices within which the art of negotiating, bargaining and consensus building takes place. Part two looks at the Council in its various configurations, with chapters on the General Affairs and External Relations Council, the Ecofin Council, the Justice and Home Affairs Council and the Agriculture and Fisheries Council. Part three consists of two chapters which examine the European Council and Intergovernmental Conferences (IGCs). The fourth part looks behind the scenes; perhaps the most illuminating is the chapter on Coreper, the Permanent Representatives Committee. Other chapters in this section discuss the work of around 160 preparatory committees which cover the full range of EU business, and the role of the national negotiator in the work of such committees. Part five explores the formal decision-making rules and procedures and how these have evolved over successive enlargements. It also looks at the behaviour of national negotiators in the process of coalition building and conflict resolution, describing the nuts and bolts of the consensus building process in a major package negotiation and how Member States go about co-ordinating their EU policy. Part six addresses leadership and continuity in the Council, examining the increasing importance given to the Presidency of the Council and the part played by the Council's General Secretariat. The final part examines the way ahead and comments on the growing transparency of decision making and the challenges faced by continuing enlargement.

The work will interest scholars, students and researchers engaged in European Union studies and anybody who has to work with the European Union.

Martin Westlake is head of communications in the European Economic and Social Committee He is a professor at the College of Europe and an associate member of the Centre for Legislative Studies at the University of Hull.

David Galloway is director of the private office of the deputy secretary-general of the Council of the European Union. He is a visiting lecturer at the Europa Institute in Edinburgh University and the Université d'Auvergne in Clermont-Ferrand.