About working groups and committees
Council working groups and committees are responsible for preparing all the items before they are referred to Coreper and finally to ministerial level.
Some 160 working groups and committees are involved in preparing Council meetings. Before the items are passed on to Coreper they are dealt with in one of the working groups. The working groups comprise civil servants from the Member States, usually from the ministries or from the permanent representations in Brussels.
The groups work in different ways depending on the nature of the issue and the group culture. They are also affected by the chair, who as a rule comes from the country holding the Presidency. Some of the working groups of a more technical nature include representatives from the General Secretariat of the Council as permanent chairs.
Some groups meet at fixed times while others are convened at short notice as the need arises. The frequency of meetings varies. Some working groups may meet several times a week, whereas others may only meet once every six months.
A working group normally works through the Commission's proposals thoroughly, article by article. It does not report to Coreper until the matter is regarded at having been studied sufficiently and all the issues that are possible to resolve in the working group have been resolved. On occasions, however, the chair can choose to allow Coreper to resolve an issue that prevents a working group from making progress in its work.
