COREPER

COREPER, from French Comité des représentants permanents, is the Committee of Permanent Representatives in the European Union, made up of the head or deputy head of mission from the EU member states in Brussels. Its defined role is to prepare the agenda for the ministerial Council of the European Union meetings; it may also take some procedural decisions. It oversees and coordinates the work of some 250 committees and working parties made up of civil servants from the member states who work on issues at the technical level to be discussed later by COREPER and the Council. It is chaired by the country holding the presidency of the Council of Ministers.

There are in fact two committees:

• COREPER I is made up of deputy heads of mission and deals largely with social and economic issues;
• COREPER II is made up of heads of mission and deals largely with political, financial and foreign policy issues.

There is also a special committee on agriculture.

Weekly meetings are held in private; they divide the ministerial agenda into three categories:

• I points which are for information and no ministerial decision is needed;
• A points where the decision can be made without debate - if any minister raises a doubt then they are returned to COREPER for further consideration;
• B points where debate is needed and the decision may not be known in advance.

An item may be described internally as a false B point - this is to give the public impression as a B point that ministers are actively debating it because of its importance when in fact it could have been treated as an A point because negotiation and compromise has already taken place in COREPER. Relatively few decisions are taken by ministers on true B points: they are usually sent back to COREPER until they can be returned as an A point or a false B point.

In Council documents and agendas, the A points, are referred to as "A"-item.