Council of the European Union

The Council represents the member states and is the EU's main decision-making body. The Council meetings are attended by one minister from each of the EU’s national governments. Which ministers attend which meeting depends on what subjects are on the agenda. Each EU country in turn takes charge of the Council Presidency for six months at a time.

Twice a year the leaders of the member states meet as the “European Council”. These ‘summit’ meetings set overall EU policy. Usually, the prime minister in the summit, sometimes accompanied with the president, represents Finland.

The Council meets in different configurations depending on the subjects being examined. The ministers of member states and the members of the Commission of the field concerned attend the meetings. The place of work of the Commission is in Brussels but in April, June and October, the sessions are held in Luxembourg.

Development cooperation issues are discussed in General Affairs and External Relations Council. The decisions of the Council are prepared in about 250 working groups and committees, made up of officials from the national administrations. EU development cooperation policy is discussed in the Council Working Group on Development (CODEV).

The working groups take care of the technical questions and file the matters to the Permanent Representatives Committee (COREPER). COREPER is composed of the member state ambassadors in the European Union. It is in charge of the coherence of the dealing with the items on its agenda and solves techno-political issues before the items reach the Council. The Committee works in two different configurations: COREPER COREPER II and I. The Permanent Representatives of the member states attend COREPER II and it deals with general affairs and external relations (including development cooperation), economic and financial affairs as well as justice and home affairs.