Fouilleux, Eve; de Maillard, Jacques; Smith, Andy --- "Council Working Groups: Spaces for Sectorized European Policy Deliberation" [2007] ELECD 178; in Christiansen, Thomas; Larsson, Torbjörn (eds), "The Role of Committees in the Policy-Process of the European Union" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2007)

Book Title: The Role of Committees in the Policy-Process of the European Union

Editor(s): Christiansen, Thomas; Larsson, Torbjörn

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781845426224

Section: Chapter 5

Section Title: Council Working Groups: Spaces for Sectorized European Policy Deliberation

Author(s): Fouilleux, Eve; de Maillard, Jacques; Smith, Andy

Number of pages: 24

Extract:

5. Council working groups: spaces
for sectorized European policy
deliberation
Eve Fouilleux, Jacques de Maillard and
Andy Smith

INTRODUCTION

Our principal focus in this chapter is the working groups of the Council
of Ministers. More precisely, by examining through interviews and
documentary analysis how legislation has been processed via such groups
in different sectors, our research set out to shed light on the role played by
Council working groups in EU policy-making. This objective was and is
important because of the lack of attention paid by research to this subject.
Apart from some specific case studies (Beyers and Diericks, 1997, 1998;
Flynn, 2000), isolated references in readers on the Council (Hayes-Renshaw
and Wallace, 1997; Westlake, 1999; Sherrington, 2000) and one unpublished
PhD thesis (Trondal, 2001), working groups are somewhat of a `black box'
for political science, let alone the general public.1 A recent book questioning
the influence of committees in the EU even excluded the case of Council
working groups (Van Schendelen, 1998).
From examining how legislation has been processed via Council working
groups in five policy sectors,2 our principal finding is that working groups
always matter in EU decision-making but not because the Council is all-
powerful. At a time when the balance between the EU's institutions appears
to have shifted considerably, we consider instead that working groups are
vital parts of the EU legislative process because they are the arenas where
draft legislation begins to firm up and moves towards compromise solutions
...