EU Council Of Ministers (ECM)
This year ZAGIMUN will feature a council that is not an organ of the United Nations, but rather of the European Union. The Council of the European Union, also called Consilium or Council of Ministers, is the principal decision-making institution of the European Union. Here all 27 member states are represented by a national minister and it is here that Regulations, Directives and general questions of policy are decided upon, often together with the European Parliament.
The Council of the European Union is probably the EU’s most interesting decision making body: Whilst the European Council is essentially an international conference, not unlike many others, and whilst the Commission is the bureaucracy that does much of the day-to-day work, the Council of the European Union is similar to a senate. The Council is, together with the European Parliament (EP), the Union’s legislative and can be seen as the more important chamber of parliament. Here, subject to the applicable rules and restricted to the areas outlined in the treaties, countries can vote on regulations and directives that bind even those countries who voted against. On the one hand the Council is very powerful, because its legislation overrides national law, but on the other hand its competence is limited to certain fields by the Treaties of the European Union and by the European Court of Justice's decisions.
The member states are represented by their national ministers most closely related to the issues at hand, which means that when e.g. agriculture is on the agenda, the national ministers for agriculture meet; or when economic issues are discussed, the States send their ministers of economic affairs.
The fact that people, who in the Member States are part of the executive, fulfil legislative functions on the EU level has been much criticised.
On the other hand this means that in practice the Council does not limit itself to its core duties of passing legislative acts, but that the Member States’ representatives seize the opportunity to discuss all matters they consider pressing, even if the resulting actions have to then be delegated to other institutions. With other words – the ECM can be used as a forum in which to discuss topics which fall outside of its legislative competence.
The ZAGIMUN 2009 will focus upon the European Council of Ministers of Foreign Affairs or as it is more appropriate to say – the General Affairs and External Relations Council (GAERC) of the Consilium.
The General Affairs Council is, together with the Agriculture Council and the Ecofin Council, one of the oldest configurations of the Council. Since June 2002, as the General Affairs and External Relations Council, it holds separate meetings on General Affairs and on External Relations respectively. It meets once a month.
Meetings bring together the Foreign Ministers of Member States. Ministers responsible for European Affairs, Defence, Development or Trade also participate depending on the items on agenda.
General Affairs
At its sessions on General Affairs, the Council deals with dossiers that affect more than one of the Union's policies, such as negotiations on EU enlargement, preparation of the Union's multi–annual budgetary perspective or institutional and administrative issues. It co–ordinates preparation for and follow-up to meetings of the European Council. It also exercises a role in co–ordinating work on different policy areas carried out by the Council's other configurations, and handles any dossier entrusted to it by the European Council.
External Relations
At its sessions on External Relations, the Council deals with the whole of the Union's external action, including common foreign and security policy, European security and defence policy, foreign trade and development cooperation. A priority in recent years for the Council, in cooperation with the Commission, has been to ensure coherence in the EU's external action across the range of instruments at the Union's disposal.
MORE AT: http://www.consilium.europa.eu/showPage.aspx?id=388&lang=en
