The different Councils and its members
There are 7 different councils corresponding with the Ministries of the Member States.
-
General Affairs Council, consists of the
Ministers of
Foreign Affairs from each Member State and meet every month.
-
Economical and
Financial Affairs, consists of the Ministers of
Finance from each Member State and meet every month.
- Agricultural Affairs, consists of the Ministers of
Agriculture from each Member State and meet every month.
-
Transport, idem but meet two or four times a year.
-
Environment,idem but meet two or four times a year.
-
Industry, idem but meet two or four times a year.
-
European Council. Consists of the
Prime Ministers/
President of each of the 15 Member States and meet twice a year (June and December). The meetings take place in the country of the
nationality of the
chair person (holding this Presidency of the Council is on rotational basis amongst the Member States and lasts half a year). Normally they
debate and vote on major issues, resulting in things like the
Schengen Agreement or the
Amsterdam Treaty.
It also involves
demonstrations with
citizens of the
European Union. Unless they are put into "
preventive custody" of course; that is, that they're taken off the streets to prevent possible
riots the
police, EU
representatives (and public?) are afraid of that might occur.
For the readers who don't live in Europe: the Ministers are
appointed and not
elected and often the
government consists of a
coalition of at least two political parties as no "
ideology" seems to be able to please a
majority of the
voting population. Therefore most Ministers in the Council
are always speaking on behalf of a minority.
Activities
The Councils do have
legislative power in
co-decision with the
European Parliament (although the voice of the EP is weaker than the power of the Council, see
European Union). They coordinate general policies and concludes, on behalf of the
Community (I still don't know how exactly we give
them a
mandate. I guess you could say by voting on the political party of your preference in your country and hoping (read
praying if you wish...) that the
people with power make good decisions while appointing somebody), international
agreements (http://ue.eu.int/en/info/main.htm). This also includes taking decisions about common
foreign and
security policy (on the basis of
Guidelines and Agreements defined by the Eurpean council). These activities are
always after the first
initiative of the
European Commission.
Voting is normally with majority, but if the
Treaty or
Agreement decided else, it has to be with socalled
qualified majority or
unanimity. Before the latest
expansion of the EU, the situation was as follows:
Germany,
France,
Italy and the
UK 10 votes each,
Spain 8,
Belgium,
Greece, the
Netherlands and
Portugal 5,
Denmark and
Ireland 3 and
Luxembourg 2. Aka, the total is 76, and a qualified majority means at least 54 votes. All this is topic of debate regularly and changes over time. My apologies for not including
Austria,
Finland and
Sweden. They do have votes, but I couldn't find it on the EU website; if you know, please msg me and I'll change it.
These differences in the
voting system may sound
trivial, but it definitely is not. Say there's a proposal about
distribution of EU
funds, which is roughly the northern countries against the south + Ireland. This means 41 south, enough for majority that these countries will be netto receivers. But if during a Treaty is agreed that the Council has to agree with qualified majority, they have to
convince representatives from other countries. These situations occur regularly, because of the reason already mentioned above:
coalition governments (e.g. a Prime Minister of the
labour/
socialistic party and a
Minister in the Council from the
liberals, or vice versa).
See also the
European Union.
References:
http://ue.eu.int/en/info/main.htm and about the voting quota: EU-landbouwpolitiek van binnen en van buiten, De Hoog and Silvis, 1994.