Committee Of Permanent Representatives Research Articles

Intergovernmental cooperation networks, national policy positions and partisan ideologies: longitudinal evidence from the Council of the European Union

ABSTRACT This study describes and explains the evolution of cooperation networks among member states in the European Union. We examine the effects of similarities between states in their policy positions on specific controversial issues, the ideological orientations of their national governments, and the presence of populist parties in national governments. This builds on a prominent explanation of political ties, according to which political actors who share similar characteristics are likely to cooperate. The analysis examines cooperation networks in the Committee of Permanent Representatives (Coreper I), one of the highest-level committees in the Council, in the period 2003–2018. The findings indicate that states with similar policy positions on specific controversial issues tend to form cooperative relationships, while party ideology indirectly and relatively weakly affects the formation of ties. Surprisingly, the presence of populist parties is unrelated to network evolution. These findings have implications for the extent to which cooperation in the Council is shaped by national democratic processes.

Decision on the Report on the Joint Retreat of the Permanent Representatives’ Committee (PRC) and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) – Doc.EX.CL/1089(XXXIII) I

Decision on the Report on the Joint Retreat of the Permanent Representatives’ Committee (PRC) and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) – Doc.EX.CL/1089(XXXIII) I

Caught between the ACP and the AU: Africa’s relations with the European Union in a post-Cotonou Agreement context

ABSTRACTThis article traces the formation of Africa’s position in view of the negotiations with the European Union for a successor to the Cotonou Agreement set to expire in February 2020, providing some explanations for the failure of the ACP Group and the African Union to achieve a consolidated position. By examining official discourses and the role of different actors, it demonstrates that the ACP Group and the AU manifested alternative views on the EU–ACP cooperation model and on the part that each wished to play in the negotiation and implementation of the future agreement. Moreover, it shows how, in spite of previous frictions, the ACP Secretariat and ACP Committee of Ambassadors on the one hand and the AU Commission and the AU Permanent Representatives Committee on the other formed two separate common fronts to defend their territories and preserve (or increase) their role as the EU’s legitimate interlocutors.

THE ISSUE IS NOT CLOSED: WHICH SANCTIONS AGAINST RUSSIAMIGHT BE LIFTED

THE ISSUE IS NOT CLOSED: WHICH SANCTIONS AGAINST RUSSIAMIGHT BE LIFTED

Exploring the role and place of the Permanent Representative Committee within the African Union

It can be confidently stated that, since its constitutive act came into effect in July, 2001, the African Union (AU) has enjoyed increasing attention at the administrative level from a number of scholars. Most of these scholars focus, however, on the evolution of the AU in general or on the Peace and Security Council and its components and how it links with regional organisations and the United Nations. This article adds to the existing literature by looking closely at the role and place of the Permanent Representatives Committee (PRC) in the decision-making framework of the AU. It also critically analyses the potential of the PRC and the challenges facing it as one of the most important decision-making committees of the AU. Lastly, it examines the evolution of the PRC and its functions. Finally, among other things, the article questions the lack of transparency practised by the PRC and proposes new approaches.

Avoiding Paralysis: The Eastern Enlargement and the Council of the European Union

Why does the Council of the European Union continue to function without apparent problems, despite the increase in the number and heterogeneity of its members brought about by the Eastern enlargement? We argue that the reason why the Council has not become paralysed lies in the increased delegation of its agenda load from the ministerial meetings downwards to the Committee of Permanent Representatives (Coreper). We assess our argument on the basis of quantitative analysis of the amount of the so-called A-points (decided by Coreper) and B-points (decided by ministers) on the Council agenda in the years 2000 through 2007. Studying the delegation mechanism deeper, we argue that two design features of Coreper — its permanent nature and its broad scope of agenda coverage — enabled the delegation from ministerial meetings to take place and thus helped the Council cope with the larger and more heterogeneous membership.

The European Union as a Template for Regional Integration? The Case of ASEAN and Its Committee of Permanent Representatives

AbstractThis article compares the decision‐making structures of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) with those of the European Union (EU). It asks whether the EU is an appropriate template for ASEAN or whether, given the apparently unique circumstances of European integration and Southeast Asian regionalism, analogies between the two are counterproductive. Attempts, for example, to model ASEAN's Committee of Permanent Representatives (CPR) on the EU's Committee of Permanent Representatives (Coreper) throw into relief the latter's uniquely consensual modus operandi. Can this consensus be replicated by ASEAN simply by institutional mimesis? First, the EU's evolution is briefly outlined; second, ASEAN's institutional architecture is set in the context of the ASEAN Charter's innovations that most invite comparison with the EU; and third, the two organizations are compared by assessing a ‘zone of discretion’ between setting ambitious, but realistic, goals for ASEAN's greater integration and adopting structures that might be inappropriate to ASEAN.

Is There a Real Model in Spain for Autonomous Communities to Participate in the Council of the European Union or Is It Only a Mirage?

Since December 2004 the Autonomous Communities have been able to form a part of the Spanish Delegation in the Council of European Union. Specifically, in the Conference on Affairs Related to the European Union (Conferencia para Asuntos Relacionados con la Unión Europea, CARUE). In December 2004, the CARUE adopted two agreements to regulate the participation of the Autonomous Communities in some of the Council formations and its preparatory bodies. This article analyses whether there really is a system of participation for the Spanish regions before the Council and preparatory bodies, or whether it is merely a mirage. To answer the above question, we should consider two areas: first, the participation process of the Autonomous Communities in the preparatory bodies—the Working Parties and the Permanent Representatives Committee; second, the Autonomous Communities direct representation on the Spanish Delegation in some configurations of the Council. The application of these agreements has been a little confusing and subject to change depending on the configurations of the Council. The initial starting point was that greater involvement of the Autonomous Communities in the European Union decision-making process would strengthen the internal cohesion of the State. However, the extent of that involvement, far from being consensual, appears as a difficulty. At present, despite some attempts to isolate European affairs from other controversial issues regarding the Spanish territorial model, it is mixed in practice. In fact, the current model, instead of contributing to the cohesion between administrations, is an additional source of dispute.

Diffusing Regional Integration: The EU and Southeast Asia

Given its distinctive structure and norms, is ASEAN's recent institutionalisation an instance of diffusion from the EU to ASEAN? Or do we observe adaptation to changes in the external and domestic environments of ASEAN states that are unrelated to, or independent of, the EU? Or is there some combination of both at work here – diffusion and adaptation to changes that do not relate to the EU? This article argues that ASEAN members have started to adopt EU-style institutions, in particular, the EU's Committee of Permanent Representatives and economic integration processes. This adoption process can be conceived as both lesson-drawing and normative emulation from the EU. This has not led to a comprehensive and systematic copying of EU institutions by ASEAN. Rather, member states have acted selectively in line with their ‘cognitive priors' about state sovereignty. We observe institutional change only, but not a change in behavioural practices.

Rethinking Subsidiarity and the Balance of Powers in the EU in Light of the Lisbon Treaty and Beyond

The principle of subsidiarity is meant to demarcate the exercise of competences between the EU and its Member States and to balance the claim for regulatory power which these two legal worlds make. This article takes the view that subsidiarity has not proven so far to be a very useful touchstone in this regard. Moreover, there are still shortcomings in its envisaged application based on the legal framework provided by the Lisbon Treaty. It is therefore suggested that an approach beyond subsidiarity should be taken in future research in order to shed more light on how powers are balanced in practice in the EU. This approach submits for exploration the following hypothesis: the competences between the EU and its Member States are demarcated in daily practice by negotiating and balancing national discretionary powers, rather than defined through the legal framework and application of subsidiarity. In this view, two paths of research are proposed. The first identifies the Council, more specifically its de facto decision-making body, the Committee of Permanent Representatives (Coreper), as an arena for using Member States’ national discretionary powers in the process of negotiating legislation at the ex ante EU law-making level. The second view suggests an analysis of how the powers are balanced at the ex post law-making level by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) when assessing the principle of proportionality and thereof the margin of discretion left to the Member States in protecting their national powers and interests. These two specific perspectives are to be placed in the broader perspective of achieving national interests while still contributing to the unity of EU law-making.

The Prevention of Deadlock through Informal Processes of ‘Supranationalization’: The Case of Coreper

In 2004 and 2007 the European Union faced the biggest rounds of enlargement to date. It is not difficult to imagine that enlargement affected the way the European Union and its institutions function and that the effects of enlargement are especially noticeable in the Council of the EU and its preparatory bodies. Many researchers expected procedures, especially in the Committee of Permanent Representatives (Coreper), to become more formalized and ‘intergovernmental’ in nature and decision‐making to become more complicated. However, enlargement contributed to institutional change in quite another way: it strengthened the influence of supranational and ‘quasi‐supranational’ actors within the committee, such as the Commission, the presidency and the General Secretariat, and it made decision‐making in many cases considerably easier. This paper analyses these processes and seeks to answer the question: Which mechanisms contributed to the process of ‘informal supranationalization’ that helped to prevent considerable losses in efficiency and functionality in Coreper?

The Janus Face of Brussels: Socialization and Everyday Decision Making in the European Union

This article examines the European Union's Committee of Permanent Representatives, or COREPER, a group composed of the EU permanent representatives (permreps) and responsible for preparing upcoming ministerial meetings of the Council. As the heart of everyday decision making in the EU, COREPER is a key laboratory to test whether and how national officials become socialized into a Brussels-based collective culture and what difference this makes for EU negotiations. The key scope conditions for COREPER socialization are high issue density/intensity and insulation from domestic politics. COREPER also displays a range of socialization mechanisms, including strategic calculation, role playing, and normative suasion. Based on extensive interview data and a detailed case study of negotiations for a controversial EU citizenship directive, this article documents a socialization pathway in COREPER marked by adherence to a set of norm-guided rules and principled beliefs in collectively legitimating arguments and making decisions. COREPER socialization does not indicate a pattern of national identities being replaced or subsumed; rather, the evidence points to a socialization process based on a “logic of appropriateness” and an expanded conception of the self. For feedback on earlier versions, I am grateful to the project participants and especially Jeffrey Checkel, Matthew Evangelista, Iain Johnston, and Michael Zurn. I thank the editors and two anonymous reviewers for comments that greatly improved the final product. I also acknowledge generous support from the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies and the American Political Science Association's Small Grant Program, which funded portions of field research associated with this project.

Institutional Environments And Everyday EU Decision Making

What difference do institutional environments make? Do they primarily affect strategy, with constraining and enabling effects on behavior as rationalists hold? Or do they also affect attitudes, identities, and how interests are formulated as constructivists assert? Within a given institutional environment, what impact does the "style" of decision making-which beyond formal characteristics such as the decision rule includes informal rules, norms, and shared understandings-play in determining bargaining outcomes? This article examines these questions in the context of EU decision making by focusing on the Committee of Permanent Representatives (Coreper). Coreper is an ideal laboratory to test these questions empirically, because this committee represents the needle's eye through which the legislative workload of the Council flows. And the permanent representatives who live in Brussels and meet weekly to prepare upcoming ministerial meetings are exemplars of state agents given their prominence in articulating and defending national interests across the gamut of EU affairs.

Coreper Revisited

This article builds on earlier accounts of the work of the Committee of Permanent Representatives (Coreper) in two ways. First, it examines the role played by members of the committee under legislative co‐decision. Members of Coreper (especially Coreper I) represent the Council in conciliation with the European Parliament and are increasingly involved in negotiations between Council and Parliament at earlier stages in the co‐decision procedure. Second, the article considers in what circumstances Coreper can make a significant contribution to decision‐taking within the Council. It suggests that this is most likely to occur in negotiation on issues which are both politically sensitive and technically complex; but that Coreper has no monopoly on such negotiations. Coreper should be thought of partly as a co‐ordinator of Council business, partly as a fixer and trouble‐shooter.

The methods of community in EU decision-making and administrative rivalry in the Council's infrastructure

Decision-making in the European Union (EU) takes place in a rich normative environment and context of interaction where compromise is part of the organizational culture. A prominent example is the Committee of Permanent Representatives (COREPER) which has evolved a distinct style of making decisions. The main features include: diffuse reciprocity, thick trust, mutual responsiveness, a consensus-reflex, and a culture of compromise. These features, or ‘methods of community,’ suggest a need to refine theories of EU decision-making to take into account the sociality and normative environment in which interests are defined and defended. This article also diagnoses a robust level of administrative rivalty among EU preparatory committees operating within the Council’s infrastructure, which can have deleterious effects and unintended consequences for the decision-making process. The rivalry is especially pronounced over the competencies for pillars two (Common Foreign and Security Policy) and three (Justice and Home Affairs).

The European draft directive on a common framework for electronic signatures

On 16 June 1998, the European Commission officially submitted a proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive on a common framework for electronic signatures (COM (1998) 297 final). 2 After elaboration of the text by the Working Group on Telecommunications of the Council and the Committee of Permanent Representatives a final proposal was submitted to the Council of Ministers for political agreement during its meeting held in Brussels on 27 November 1998. 3 A political agreement could, however, not be reached on the directive and the Permanent Committee was instructed to further discuss the file. The most important reason for not agreeing on the proposal was the lack of consensus between the Member States on the need for requirements regarding the quality of the products used to create an electronic signature with full legal effect. It is the opinion of the authors of this article that the dispute between the Member States is due mainly to confusion on three levels.

Is the ‘Hard Bargaining’ Image of the Council Misleading? The Committee of Permanent Representatives and the Local Elections Directive

The quiet evolution of the Committee of Permanent Representatives (Coreper) into a de facto decision‐making body has received surprisingly little attention from integration researchers. Even less attention has been paid to the novel institutional form and underlying rationality of this forum at the interface between the national and Community levels. This article argues that Coreper maintains the performance of the Council through the production of a distinct culture of compromise and community‐method. The result, empirically demonstrated in a case study of the 1994 local elections directive, is a shared commitment to finding solutions, where membership in the collective decision‐making process has become part of the rational calculus of defining and defending self‐interests. These findings suggest the need to modify the ‘hard bargaining’ image of EU decision‐making.

The Canada-European Union Turbot War

One of the most serious issues facing coastal states and their distant water counterparts is the exploitation of straddling fish stocks (stocks that span the boundary between a coastal state's 200-mile zone and adjacent international waters). This was dramatically demonstrated in the spring of 1995 when Canada and the European Union (EU) engaged in a show-down over access to turbot, also known as Greenland halibut, in the northwest Atlantic beyond Canada's 200 mile limit where fishing is regulated by international agreement. The conflict was the culmination of a decade of controversy between the two over the activities of EU fishing fleets, especially that of Spain, in the region. Most studies of the dispute have focussed on the international legal implications.(f.1) This article explores the impact of internal politics on the Canadian and EU approaches.Internal politics is central to the fisheries policies of Canada and the EU. In Canada the federal government, through the Department of Fisheries and Oceans is responsible for fisheries policy. Although fishing is of limited importance to the national economy, it is a substantial contributor to the economies of the Atlantic provinces, especially in Newfoundland where it accounts for 10 per cent of the gross provincial product and 25 per cent of employment. Almost 700 Newfoundland coastal communities depend in whole or in part on fishing. These factors, combined with the fishing constituency's importance in regional politics, make fisheries issues important to all levels of government.Fishing by EU states is governed by the Union's common fisheries policy (CFP).(f.2) Under the CFP, the European Commission (the EU's executive arm) has exclusive authority to negotiate and conclude fisheries agreements with third countries and to represent the EU in international fisheries bodies. Undertakings are normally approved by the Fisheries Council, which is composed of member state fisheries ministers, assisted by the Committee of Permanent Representatives of the member states (COREPER). Council sessions are presided over by the presidency, which rotates among member states at six-month intervals. Most Council decisions are made on a qualified majority or weighted voting basis, although consensus is generally sought. While fisheries policy is adopted by the Union, implementation and enforcement are left in the hands of member states. International fisheries matters are of primary concern to Portugal and Spain whose vessels have a long history of fishing in the northwest Atlantic. Spain maintains the largest fleet, almost half of which, including all trawlers involved in the turbot fishery, is based in the northwestern region of Galicia, where fishing is a pillar of the economy.This article argues that the EU attempted to increase its turbot quota in response to pressures from the Spanish government and industry. Canada sought to impose an enforceable limit on EU vessels to maintain a viable fishery in the face of long-standing domestic frustration over their fishing practices. The dispute was resolved by an agreement that raised the EU's turbot allocation and established a comprehensive control and enforcement regime to govern fishing outside Canada's offshore zone. The agreement addressed both the Union's access goal and Canada's aim of effective surveillance and policing. It also gave the EU an additional measure of assurance of member-state compliance with EU commitments.BackgroundCanada is one of a handful of coastal states in which the continental shelf extends beyond its 200-mile limit. About 10 per cent of Newfoundland's Grand Banks is located outside the offshore zone in areas known as the nose and tail. Important fish stocks, including cod, flounder, redfish, and turbot, straddle the boundary. Fishing beyond the 200-mile limit is managed by the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO) which had fifteen members in 1995 -- Bulgaria, Canada, Cuba, Denmark (for the Faroe Islands and Greenland), Estonia, the EU, Iceland, Japan, South Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Romania, and Russia. …

The European union's common foreign policy: the role of the commission in an “intergovernmental” process

ABSTRACT The importance of South Africa's relations with the European Union (EU) is well established. What is perhaps less well understood is the complexity that underlays the foreign policy‐making process within the EU. South Africa's own form of consultation and consensus style of decision‐making, albeit extensive by nation‐state standards, pails when confronted by the multi‐layered process of foreign policy‐making in the EU. The current negotiations between South Africa and the European Union over the “free trade” versus “development and trade” options makes this study of Europe's foreign policy making process both timely and important. To understand the present negotiations it is useful to examine the more recent past, in particular the 1993–4 EU joint action that has been instrumental in shaping contemporary policy. It is more than twenty five years since Henry Kissinger drew attention to what remains an unresolved problem by asking the question – who speaks for Europe in foreign affairs? The establishment of a spokesperson to perform this function in the 1997 Amsterdam treaty revisions has done little to clarify this central issue. The future spokesperson will be a bureaucrat drawn from the Council Secretariat, not an international statesperson and, as such, can hardly been seen as speaking “for Europe”. The actors in the EU's decision‐making process are diverse. They include the individual fifteen member state governments; the collective EU institution the Council of Ministers; the diplomatic representatives of COREPER (Committee of Permanent Representatives); the Commission; the European Parliament and national parliaments; and, arguably, even the Court of Justice if the legal basis for action requires a treaty competence. Add to this the non‐institutional factors such as domestic and European interest groups and the more general world system or realpolitik factors and the difficulty of Europe “speaking with one voice” becomes all too apparent.

Au cœur du processus de décision européen : le Comité des représentants permanents (COREPER)

At the Center of the European Decision making Process : the Committee of Permanent Representatives (COREPER) Formally, the role of COREPER is to prepare Council decisions. In practice, however, COREPER is responsible for attempting to resolve problems and not only to prepare discussions. COREPER members, thus, hold community and national responsibilities. The permanent representatives also play the role of mediators between government and members of parliament, in particular to explain to MEPs the positions of governments that they represent. The increasing divergence in political and administrative cultures, the language problem, difficult to resolve with the progressive enlargement of the EC could lead to the asphyxiation of community procedures unless the EC untertakes substantial structural reforms.