Council of the European Union

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The Council of the European Union is the institution of the European Union in which the Member States are represented through representatives with ministerial rank, which is why it is also informally known as Council of Ministers or Consilium, and to which correspond, together with Parliament, the legislative and budgetary functions. It also exercises functions of defining some policies and coordinating, in the terms established by the founding Treaties of the European Union. It should not be confused with the European Council, a community institution that brings together the heads of State and Government of the Member States to promote the general political action of the European Union, nor with the Council of Europe, an international organization of a different regional nature. and outside the European Union.

The functions of the Council have evolved, at least formally, from more to less; If at first it was the main decision-making body of the European Communities, today the institutional evolution of the Union has framed and reduced its functions. Thus, the European Parliament has been revealing itself since the entry into force of the Maastricht Treaty as an actor of increasing political importance as an institution of control of the other community institutions, bodies and agencies and, above all, as a co-legislator on equal terms with the advice. Likewise, the officialization of the European Council, as a separate body from the Council of the EU, which imposed the recent Treaty of Lisbon, have formally diminished its functions and constitutional powers in favor of it.

The European Parliament and the Council exercise the legislative powers of the European Union, under the conditions and within the powers indicated for it in the Treaties. Without the approval of one and the other (sometimes of one or the other) European laws (strictly regulations, directives and decisions of a legislative nature) cannot be validly adopted. Most of the Union's legislative acts must be proposed by the Commission and approved by Parliament and the Council, in accordance with the ordinary legislative procedure; but this is not always the case, the Treaties establish exceptions, legislative acts whose adoption is followed by special procedures. These last procedures (increasingly less) tend to be established for the benefit of the Council, and therefore to the detriment of Parliament. The Council is, therefore, a co-legislative body with certain additional political functions. In both cases it is pronounced at the initiative of the European Commission, in the mechanics of what is usually known as the "institutional triangle" (Commission, Council and Parliament).

The main headquarters of the Council is located in the Europa Building in Brussels, where its plenary sessions are held and where its Services and the General Secretariat are located, although in the months of April, June and October the meetings are held in Luxembourg.

History

This paragraph is an extract of History of the European Union § Union of the Three Pillars.[chuckles]edit]

In 1965, a treaty was signed that merged the executives of the three European communities through the creation of the European Commission (EC) and the Council of the European Union (EC). The European Single Act signed in February 1986 came into effect in July 1987, and had as its mission the re-engineering of European construction, setting the consolidation of the domestic market in 1993 and allowing the free movement of capital and services equally. Through this treaty, community competences are extended to the domains of research and technological development, the environment and social policy. The Single Act also consecrates the existence of the European Council, which brings together heads of state and government and promotes a common foreign policy initiative (European Political Cooperation) as well as security cooperation.

After the 2007 Lisbon Treaty

This section is an excerpt from Lisbon Treaty § Council.[chuckles]edit]

The Council of the European Union (CUE) is simply called the Council. However, the CUE will remain an organized platform for meetings between national ministers of specific departments (e.g. finances or ministers for foreign affairs). Legislative procedures, including discussion and voting meetings, will be held in public.

The Treaty of Lisbon expanded from 36 to 87 subjects to be adopted by a qualified majority vote. Although some areas of policy still require unanimous decisions (especially in foreign policy, defence and taxation). As of 2014 the formal application began double (from 55% of member States, with a minimum of 15, comprising 65% of the population), however Poland may invoke the Nice Treaty to achieve a minority of blockade. When the Council does not act on the proposal of the Commission, the necessary majority of all member countries increase to 72 per cent, while the population remains the same. To block legislation, at least 4 countries have to be against the proposal.

The voting rules of the Nice Treaty, which include in most countries (50% / 67%), the voting weight (74%) and population (62%) remained in force until 2014, and from then on a new version of the "Ioánin commitment", allows small minorities of the States to request a further review of EU decisions.

As for the rotating presidency of the Council, the Council will have a period of 18 months shared by a trio of member States in order to provide greater continuity. The exception is that of the Council for Foreign Affairs, which is chaired by the newly established post of High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.

See also: History of the Lisbon Treaty

Constitutional functions

In spite of everything, the Council remains today as a powerful institution, if not the main one then one of them, without which the functioning of the others would lack political logic. Thus, the Board holds and exercises the following responsibilities:

legislative and budgetary function, together with the European Parliament;
specific functions of political definition and coordination, particularly in the field of foreign policy and common security, following the guidelines and priorities established by the European Council.

More in detail, its functions can be presented as follows:

the adoption or return of the proposals of Legislative Acts submitted by the Commission, including the annual budget, according to the methods of implementation of the same, whose subsequent application is to be reserved, at the beginning, to the Community Executive. Such acts may be adopted either by a qualified majority and together with the European Parliament, through the ordinary legislative procedure, either through a special legislative procedure, unanimously, or without co-decisive participation of the Parliament, or both;
the definition of general policies and guidelines to be followed in the areas of intergovernmental dominance, with the eventual adoption of European Legislative Acts, and, in development of which, the necessary coordination of the policies affected at the national level;
the adoption of acts and decisions relating to the Common Foreign and Security Policy, and other areas that are constitutionally reserved for their sole knowledge, respecting always the advisory, participation or oversight and control functions that correspond to the European Parliament in such matters.

Legislative function

These paragraphs are an extract of Legislative Procedure in the European Union.[chuckles]edit]

The rules resulting from the legislative procedure, which therefore possess nature or legal rank, emanate from the compendium of the various legitimacy embodied by the institutions involved in their formation. In particular, three are the most directly concerned by this function, two as the formal depository of the legislature in a truly bicameral system, for this purpose - the European Parliament and the Council - and another as the holder of the legislative initiative - the Commission.

But there are also other institutions, bodies and agencies of the Union whose participation, more or less active or decisive, impose the Treaties. While most of the time they operate in a consultative capacity, there are special procedures for which they are given a certain capacity for legislative initiative. They are preceptive, but non-binding, in most cases of planned legislation, the opinions of two community bodies, namely:

Ordinary procedure

These paragraphs are an extract of ordinary legislative procedure (European Union).[chuckles]edit]

The regular legislative procedure (PLo), formerly known as the co-decision procedure, is the main legislative process by which a legislative bill can be adopted in the European Union, except for some areas under special legislative procedure (PLe) (only the Council or the European Parliament, in isolation) and those that are excluded from the legislation, such as the whole field of foreign policy and common security.

The PLo attributes to the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union, together and on the proposal of the European Commission, on an equal footing, which requires the approval of the same text by the two institutions, as collegiate legislative chambers, in a perfect bicameralism system. As a guarantee, it will be endorsed by the presidents of both institutions.

Special legislation

These paragraphs are an extract of Legislative Procedure in the European Union § Special legislative procedures.[chuckles]edit]

The main procedures of a legislative nature but other than the ordinary system are the so-called special legislative procedures emanating from the Legislative Acts of the Union (legislative regulations, legislative directives or legislative decisions), but with an asymmetrical attribute of the responsibility of the two chambers in their elaboration.

Its leadership will necessarily be presided over by the formula "of the Council" or "of the European Parliament", according to which of the two institutions formally adopt it, and will be endorsed by its president.

First, there are acts of a legislative nature which, as an exception to the ordinary legislative procedure, are adopted only by the Council, although the participation of the European Parliament cannot be excluded in its gestation, which is in any case given in the approval of any legislative acts, but with varying intensity, in accordance with the two parameters established by the Treaties.

This method should be considered exceptional in the legislative sphere - although it is not in fact uncommon, to say of the numerous appeals to the Treaty itself - but it is not, or at least not in the same measure, in other decisive areas, either in the exercise of the regulatory or executive power, attributed to the Commission and at times to the Council, whether in the legal fields in which any type of legislative procedure is excluded and where it is customary. Paradigmous example of this is foreign policy and common security.

This mechanism requires that, once the majority required in the Council is reached to adopt the law in question, its final adoption shall be subject to the final and comprehensive approval of the European Parliament as a whole. In this way, it is attributed here to Parliament an authentic capacity of absolute veto, since if the draft submitted by the Commission and approved by the Council does not obtain the final approval of the Parliament it cannot be adopted definitively; however, and in accordance with the nature of veto that corresponds to its intervention, the assembly may not introduce any amendment or modification to the act presented to it. You must approve or reject it as it is. If the approval occurs, the Council may adopt the act that it has drawn up and will collect its force of law; otherwise, the act may not be adopted or enter into force.

Through this procedure, which is less and less common in the community legislative sphere, the preparation, approval and adoption of the act shall, exclusively and without prejudice to the Commission ' s initiative to the Council. However, the act approved by the Council shall be twice: its first approval shall be of which the document to be submitted to the Parliament is born, which shall issue its criterion in an opinion, which shall be of a consultative character; then the Council receives the act which it approved - the Parliament cannot modify it - together with the assessment rendered by the Parliament - it is not a formal approval, but a free assessment - and may be given the same as a new version,

Budgeting function

This section is a European Union Budget Extract.[chuckles]edit]

EU global budget (2021-2027) Total: €1.8 billion

Direct transfer of the recovery package (0.39 billion) Recovery package loans (0.36 billion) Multi-year financial framework (1,074 billion)

The European Union Budget is the normative and binding forecast of all revenues and all expenses of this organization in the one-year period. It is prepared annually to order and regulate the public accounts of the Union for the following year, computed from 1 January to 31 December. The budget contains all the revenues and expenses of the EU. While it has been increasing over time, its limit is currently set at 1.27 % of the GDP of the Union. The annual budget is set within the pre-established multi-year financial framework (MFP) for a period not less than five years (currently 7 years).

The preparation and approval of the budget is carried out through a special legislative process involving various community institutions, including the European Commission, responsible for presenting the project and implementing the budget, or the European Parliament and the Council, which exercise the budgetary function through the joint adoption of the project and the monitoring and review of its proper implementation. The legal and institutional mechanisms that give life, sustain and complete the budgets make up the call budget procedure as provided for in article 314 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.

Foreign Policy and Defense

See also: Foreign and common security policy and Common security and defence policy.

In accordance with the Treaty on European Union, the common foreign and security policy (CFSP) that the Union carries out in the world is the result of a specific decision-making methodology, different from the one that guides the rest of the action community exterior, of which it nevertheless forms a part. Thus, the special sensitivity of the issues included in the CFSP agenda, which includes aspects and political areas very close to the so-called hard core of sovereignty (including a common security and defense policy), determines the almost total exclusion of the European Parliament from the entire decision-making process, as well as other control or supervision institutions such as the Court of Justice and the Court of Auditors. Likewise, acts of a legislative nature are legally vetoed from this area of European political action; There is no room for European laws in the area of foreign and security policy (nor in its defense policy), only other decisions, of an executive or regulatory nature.

The decision-making process in the field of the CFSP, clearly intergovernmental and different from the usual community procedure, is divided into different phases that assign different functions to each of the institutional actors, different from those that usually correspond to them in common matters. So:

the European Council defines strategic lines and objectives,
the Council implements through decisions such a strategy and monitors its implementation,
the High Representative proposes decisions and directs and executes policy and decisions taken,
the Commission participates and expresses its positions at all stages,
Parliament controls politically and deliberately.

As can be seen, the essentially intergovernmental channel of this policy determines the corresponding role of the two institutions that represent governments and national interests: the European Council and the Council. The most solemn and general functions of the European Council mean that, respecting the guidelines and strategic priorities established by it, it is the Council who bears the most immediate responsibility for adopting the specific decisions that apply said guidelines and general priorities to the international reality and against unforeseen events. One of its formations, the Foreign Affairs Council, made up of the foreign affairs ministers of the Member States and chaired by the High Representative, who also proposes and executes the decisions that he adopts, is the body in charge of dealing specifically with to these functions, both in the field of the common foreign and security policy and in the common security and defense policy, which forms an integral but autonomous part of the former.

For all other Community external action, the Council performs its functions in accordance with the Community method of decision-making, that is, in cooperation with the European Parliament and the Commission, as well as with the other institutions to the extent of their responsibilities.

Composition and organization

The Governments of the States of the Union are represented on the Council through a Minister qualified to commit the vote of his government, plus the Commission, with voice but no vote, which is represented by a European Commissioner.

The Council is the Institution of the European Union that brings together the voice of national interests, and it is its function, guided by the community method, to ensure their respect and their adequate projection in the policies of the Union, promoting the concordance and balance between them through the search for agreement and compromise. Through the Council, the States participate in the decision-making process, thus integrating their interests into the Union's policies and activities through the balance achieved through negotiation within the framework of institutional loyalty.

Internal trainings

These paragraphs are an extract from internal formations of the Council of the European Union.[chuckles]edit]

It is called internal formations of the Council to each of the different configurations in which this institution of the European Union, which includes ministerial representatives of the governments of the member States, is organized and constituted in a differentiated way to the sole effect of simplifying its meetings and adapting its variable composition to the issues involved. The agreements adopted by any of these formations are attributed and compromised to the Council as an institution.

The Council meets in different formations according to the order of the day to be treated; these contents give in turn the name to the formations and, to this extent, to the Council itself when it acts in particular formation. However, it should be noted that this peculiar characteristic, very related to its complex composition, has a functional and merely internal character, without such an organization interfering at all in its unique institutional and legal personality and in its unified organic nature. Their plenary sessions are divided into two sessions: the first session is reserved for the exercise of their non-legislative functions, and their deliberations are reserved, not their actions and conclusions; the second session (the "full") has a public character and in it matters related to the legislative function of the Council are discussed and voted. Currently the Council works through the formations set out below, called "Consejos".

These are internal formations of the necessary existence council (established by the Treaties):

General Council;
Council for Foreign Affairs;
Eurogroup, which is not strictly training but a special meeting of a stable and regulatory nature.

They are internal formations of the Council established through the Internal Council Regulation (also known as "sectoral formations"):

the Economic and Financial Affairs Council (ECOFIN);
the Justice and Internal Affairs Council (JAI);
the Council for Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumers;
the Competitiveness Council;
the Transport, Telecommunications and Energy Council;
the Council on Agriculture and Fisheries;
Environment Council
the Council of Education, Youth and Culture.

Presidency and secretariat

Charles Michel, President of the General Affairs Council

Josep Borrell, AR and President of the Council for Foreign Affairs.

Paschal Donohoe, president of the Eurogroup.

These paragraphs are an excerpt from the Presidency of the Council of the European Union.[chuckles]edit]

The Presidency of the Council of the European Union is an institutional responsibility and an internal body of the Council of the European Union. The Presidency is performed on a rotating basis and in shifts preset by a member State. In order to improve effectiveness, States collaborate on terrestrials of member States, which is often known under the name of trio of presidency.

There is no single president of the Council, each formation will be chaired by a minister other than the same national government. It is therefore the member State, and not a particular person, to whom it is the responsibility to exercise the presidency. It is in principle the minister-president of the General Affairs Council (regularly composed by the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the member States) who exercises the overall representation of the Council as a community institution. Only the Council for Foreign Affairs, chaired on a permanent basis by the high representative of the Union, is deterred from the general regime of the presidency.

The presidency, sometimes cited incorrectly as Presidency of the EUIts primary responsibility is to organize and chair all meetings of the Council of the European Union. However, the development of commitments capable of resolving difficulties in practice is also a primary responsibility. The position of President of the Council of the European Union rests on each meeting held to the Minister responsible for the Government of the Member State exercising the presidency.

General Secretariat

These paragraphs are an extract from the General Secretariat of the Council (European Union).[chuckles]edit]

The General Secretariat of the Council is the support and coordination body that administratively assists the Council in its legislative and budgetary functions, as well as in the coordination of certain policies, and the European Council as a presidential and impulse institution of the European Union. It also assists their respective presidents and the High Representative of the Union, as President of the Council for Foreign Affairs.

The Secretariat-General is headed by a Secretary-General, appointed by the qualified majority of the Council, who responds politically to the full of the Council and guarantees, in cooperation with the Presidency of the Institution, the proper functioning of its work. Under its authority, and upon approval by the plenary, the General Secretariat executes the budget of the Institution.

Currently the Secretary General of the Council is the French Thérèse Blanchet.

Thus, the General Secretariat of the Council is, in fact, of two community institutions and of an organically autonomous regional international organization, in this order: the Council, the European Council and the Western European Union (regional military organization closely linked to the EU). It also assumes the General Secretariat of the Intergovernmental Conferences of the Union.

The organizational structure of the General Secretariat of the Council integrates all officials of this institution, as well as the most relevant units of the typical intergovernmental functional area of the Union, in particular the common foreign and defence policies (PESC-PCSD). These include the European Union General Staff and the SitCen (information and operations centre).

Committees

All the work of the Council is prepared (the meetings) or coordinated (the policies) by a Committee of Permanent Representatives (Coreper), made up of the Permanent Representatives of the Member States who work in Brussels and assisted by the General Secretariat. The work of this first committee is prepared or delegated in turn to more than 150 committees and working groups made up of delegates from the Member States.

Among these, certain committees have the specific function of providing coordination and experience in a specific sector, such as the Economic and Financial Committee, the Political and Security Committee (responsible for supervising the international situation in the fields of common foreign and security policy and carrying out, under the responsibility of the Council, the political supervision and strategic direction of crisis management operations) and the Coordination Committee, responsible for preparing the work in the field of police cooperation and judicial in criminal matters.

Operation and headquarters

Vote weighting

Although the general rule of operation in decision-making is qualified majority, the Treaties provide for specific situations in which a decision or agreement will be adopted by unanimous vote, in addition to contemplating some cases in that the simple majority of its members will suffice to adopt them.

La unanimity, an exceptional rule that is frequently applied in some political spheres (such as PESC). Since, in any case, the abstentions or non-participation of a member in the voting do not impede the achievement of the agreements, the terminological difference with the consensus required to the Council of the European Union seems to have little real significance. However, there is, and once again, the Treaties seem to point towards greater informality in the procedures and institutional functioning of the Council of the European Union than in the Council, where there is necessarily a vote.
La qualified majority, redefined from Lisbon as a double-majority strengthened by States and population, is the usual method that the Treaties point to the Council to pronounce; for example in the ordinary legislative procedure. Where appropriate by qualified majority, this will be defined at least 55 per cent of the members of the Council of the European Union, which includes at least 16 of them, representing at least 65 per cent of the total population of the Union. A valid block minority shall include a minimum of four states, which shall be deemed to be attained in any case by the qualified majority. But this computation will only begin to work from 2014; until then the computing mechanisms agreed in Nice will be employed. For its greater complexity is explained more in detail below.
La Simple majorityFinally, it is a rule for the resolution of procedural matters and for the adoption of its own internal rules. In spite of the constitutional denomination, one half more of the members of the Council should be understood, excluding the representative of the Commission; that is, what is traditionally known as an absolute majority.

It will be the president of the Council (the one of each formation) who invites its members to vote, choosing the moment within the limits indicated by the Regulations, when appropriate. In any case, it must do so when so requested by at least half of its members.

Qualified Majority

This section is a qualified Majority extract in the European Union.[chuckles]edit]

Scope of application with the Lisbon Treaty Voting in MC by political areas
Political area	Legal basis in the Treaties
Subsidiary Initiatives of the High Representative	15 (b) TUE
Rules of the European Defence Agency	28 D2 TUE
Freedom of establishment	47.2 TFUE
Regulation of autonomous work	47.2 TFUE
Freedom, security and justice; cooperation and evaluation	61C g) TFUE
Border control	62 TFUE
Asylum	63 TFUE
Immigration	69 (a) TFUE
Crime prevention initiatives	69 (c) TFUE
Eurojust	69 (d) TFUE
Police cooperation	69 (f) TFUE
Europol	69 (g) TFUE
Transport	71.2
Organization of the European Central Bank	107.3 and 245 (b) TFUE
Culture	151 TFUE
Structural and cohesion funds	161 TFUE
Organization of the Council	201 (b) TFUE
Organization of the Court of Justice	245, 224 (a), 225 (a) TFUE
Free movement of workers	42 TFUE
Social security	42 TFUE
Criminal judicial cooperation	69 (a) TFUE
Criminal law	68 (b) TFUE
Organization of the European Council	9B.5
Election of the President of the European Council	15.5 TUE
Election of the High Representative	9E.1 TUE
PESC funding	28 TUE
Withdrawal of a Member State	50.2 TUE

The Qualified Majority in the European Union (MC) corresponds to the strengthened dual-majority system of States and population that must be achieved in the Council and in the European Council for the ordinary adoption of legislation or executive decisions, that is, when voting is held on the basis of article 16 of the Treaty of the European Union, which from Lisbon prescribes in its paragraphs 3 and 4 that:

3. The Council shall be pronounced by qualified majority, except when the Treaties otherwise provide.
4. As of 1 November 2014, the qualified majority will be defined at least 55 per cent of the members of the Council, which includes at least fifteen of them and represents member States that meet at least 65 per cent of the population of the Union.A minority of blockade shall be composed of at least four members of the Council, in the absence of which the qualified majority shall be deemed to have been reached.
The other regulatory modalities of vote by qualified majority are set out in article 238, paragraph 2, of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.

The system previously transcribed, which originates from the European Constitution, was established by the Constituent Convention in order to give greater transparency and clarity to the method of voting, in addition to adapting it to a more democratic structure by replacing the previous attribution of fixed vows by State, in force from Nice, by the general rule of computation of populations, which is inspired by more democratic principles by directly reflecting the demographic weight of each State required.

However, it should be borne in mind that until 1 November 2014, when the Council is delivered by MC, it will be computed according to the criteria set out in the previous Nice Treaty, which establishes a triple majority of votes (determined for each State), States and, when so requested by a member, also of the population.

Therefore, as a result of the Treaty of Lisbon, the demographic weight is erected in the main criterion of weighting of the vote, which, without prejudice to its greater democratic projection, gives a definitive and growing weight (it is to be hoped that the demographic growth, of geometric progression, will always be greater in absolute and relative terms global in the countries with the greatest population today) to the large States, allowing also a historical takeover of Germany, as a more populous state

Internal dynamics

Political parties

Main article: European political party

The Council is not organized into internal political groups, as is the case in the European Parliament; Its members exclusively represent the Governments of the States of the Union, in accordance with the principle of national representation, and in that capacity alone they participate and vote. To this we must add that the existence in several countries of coalition governments makes it possible for the ideological composition of the various formations to be altered depending on the ministers that integrate it. All of which does not prevent the frequent concurrence in the direction of the vote between representatives of governments with identical political affinity, since the Council is, after all, an institution of a political nature.

Lobbyists

These paragraphs are an extract of ordinary legislative procedure (European Union) § Pressure groups.[chuckles]edit]

It is already commonplace to point out as one of the most obvious signs of the notorious increase in power experienced by the European Union in the last two decades the parallel flourishing of a rich network of diverse economic and political interests that are organized and grouped systematically and structurally around the common institutions of Brussels, in order to promote the community dynamics that are favorable to them and suffocating, as far as possible, those other initiatives that are contrary or inconvenient to them. These stable pressure or power structures, known for their English denomination "lobbies", they generally operate through specialized personnel who, supported by a solid and discreet network of personal and professional contacts, infiltrate the different phases and between the various agents of the decision-making process with the objective of making known and, if possible, the interests of their representatives. These, in turn, tend to be grouped companies or industries (sectoral or vertically), civil associations, foundations, social groups interested in certain policies, organizations, etc... When the main functioning or impulsion of these groups progressively moves away from merely patrimonial interest and becomes more purely ideological, academic or even religious (political parties, universities, confessions, etc...), it is often considered to be more institutions that act as institutions. think tanks as authentic Lobbists. States (members or foreigners) also employ not rarely lobbing in their relations with European institutions in defense of their interests, or sometimes use the services of professional lobbists.

While this is a phenomenon that is consubstantial to power and has been given, in one way or another, since the very foundation of the European Communities, its evolution rises (in number and in importance of the acronyms or of the groups represented) and the displacement (or greater spectrum) of its focus of interest say much about the mechanisms of power in Brussels and the structures in which it truly resides, ultimately. Thus, if at the beginning were the Council and its participating ministers, and the European Commission itself the almost only centres of attention in the exercise of pressure or in the application of profitable contacts, it is given that today is the European Parliament the institution that most Lobbists have. This is due, without doubt, to the powerful increase in their legislative powers, but also to the greater permeability of their members and the less control over them, as direct and democratically elected representatives. However, its high number (750 deputies with Lisbon) continues to deter the few and return the ball to the roof of the Commission, in the preparatory phase of the decisions (the kitchens of power) or, already in a decision-making phase proper to the Council, where national representatives always seem better willing to bargain with European institutions, but where in turn the possibility of making amendments that do not have several and powerful support is significantly reduced.

To control this phenomenon, and to avoid, as far as possible, its potential negative effects on the general community interest, both the Commission and the Parliament have established voluntary records for Lobbists to register. Both institutions are negotiating the unification of their registers in a single jointly managed one, although the main criticisms mainly point to the reduced effectiveness of voluntary records.

Headquarters

This section is an extract from Building Europe.[chuckles]edit]

The European Building, popularly known as "El Huevo", is the operational centre of the European Council and the Council of the European Union, among other functions, serves as a cloister for the ministerial meetings and will also host the offices of the Presidency of the European Council.

With the progressive expansion of the European Union (EU), the previous headquarters facilities, the Justus Lipsius Building, were becoming small and that is why in 2004 it was agreed to build the European Building, which rests partly on a "art déco" style apartment opened in 1927.

Located in the European neighbourhood of Brussels (Belgium), the Europa Building has served since the beginning of 2017 to host the meetings of EU ministers.

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