EU Council’s Rules of Procedure

After the blog posts on Article 207 TEC and Article 240 TFEU, as well as on Swedish openness and the Lisbon Treaty, Information about EU Council: Swedish Presidency and first aid and Free EU Council publications, we turn to more detailed provisions.

While we are waiting for the Swedish EU Council Presidency to publish proposals for the new Rules of Procedure of the Council and other decisions concerning the implementation of the Treaty of Lisbon, we look at the existing Council’s Rules of Procedure.


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Council’s Rules of Procedure

Detailed rules on the Council of the European Union are given in Council Decision 2006/683/EC, Euratom of 15 September 2006 adopting the Council's Rules of Procedure, originally published in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU) 16.10.2006 L 285/47.



The latest consolidated version of the Council’s Rules of Procedure is of 1 January 2009.




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Contents

The headlines of the Articles and the Annexes offer a picture of the contents of the Council’s Rules of Procedure:



Article 1
Notice and venue of meetings

Article 2
Configurations of the Council, role of the General Affairs and External Relations Council and programming

Article 3
Agenda

Article 4
Representation of a Council member unable to attend

Article 5
Meetings

Article 6
Professional secrecy and production of documents in legal proceedings

Article 7
Cases where the Council acts in its legislative capacity

Article 8
Council deliberations open to the public and public debates

Article 9
Making public votes, explanations of votes and minutes

Article 10
Public access to Council documents

Article 11
Voting arrangements and quorum

Article 12
Ordinary written procedure and silence procedure

Article 13
Minutes

Article 14
Deliberations and decisions on the basis of documents and drafts drawn up in the languages provided for by the language rules in force

Article 15
Signing of acts

Article 16
Absence of the possibility to participate in the vote

Article 17
Publication of acts in the Official Journal

Article 18
Notification of acts

Article 19
Coreper, committees and working parties

Article 20
The Presidency and the businesslike conduct of discussions

Article 21
Reports from committees and working parties

Article 22
Quality of drafting

Article 23
The Secretary-General and the General Secretariat

Article 24
Security

Article 25
Duties as depositary of agreements and conventions

Article 26
Representation before the European Parliament

Article 27
Provisions concerning the form of acts

Article 28
Correspondence addressed to the Council


ANNEX I
LIST OF COUNCIL CONFIGURATIONS

ANNEX II
SPECIFIC PROVISIONS REGARDING PUBLIC ACCESS TO COUNCIL
DOCUMENTS

ANNEX III
DETAILED RULES FOR IMPLEMENTING THE PROVISIONS
CONCERNING THE WEIGHTING OF VOTES IN THE COUNCIL

ANNEX IV
(1. In application of the following provisions of the Rules of Procedure and for
decisions in respect of which, under the Treaties, members of the Council or
of Coreper may not participate in the vote, account is not to be taken of votes
by such members:)

ANNEX V
WORKING METHODS FOR AN ENLARGED COUNCIL

ANNEX VI
PROVISIONS CONCERNING THE FORMS OF ACTS


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Next, we are going to turn to Coreper, then the General Secretariat and finally publications about the Council of the European Union.



Ralf Grahn