At a critical juncture? Change and continuity in the institutional development of the council secretariat

Abstract

This article provides a historical institutionalist perspective on the General Secretariat of the Council of Ministers–an institution that has expanded significantly over the course of the integration process and whose role in the institutional politics of the EU has been recognised as significant in the recent literature on the subject. Charting the history of the institution, we demonstrate the way in which the original institutional design contributed to a particular trajectory which can be understood as a ‘path-dependent’ development. However, we also identify recent developments which can be seen as a break with the historical legacy of the Secretariat–an observation which raises the question as to whether the institution is at a critical juncture in its development. The article closes with an examination of the present and future challenges the Council Secretariat is facing at this time.

Acknowledgements

We are grateful for the useful comments we received from the conference participants as well as from the editors of this special issue, and we acknowledge the valuable research assistance provided by Johanna Oettel. The usual disclaimer applies.

Notes

1. While the Council Secretariat is not an official EU institution in the formal understanding of the treaties, it is treated here as an institution for the purposes of analysis.

2. A detailed analysis of the evolution of the Council's own rules of procedure demonstrates that these have developed in response to the changing external circumstances and reflect the growing importance of the Secretariat. Apart from a series of minor changes throughout history, there were six major revisions of the RoP which resulted in new versions being published in the Official Journal. This occurred in 1979, 1993, 1999, 2000, 2002, 2004 and 2006–a development that reflects the increasing and accelerating juridification of the Council's work in the wake of successive treaty changes and enlargements. If the early period of the Secretariat's institutional life was fairly unregulated–the RoP foreseen by Art.5 of the Merger Treaty in 1965 were only adopted in 1979–it allowed (or required) a process of institutionalisation along the lines of other, unwritten norms.

3. Growth in the total number of staff: 30 (1953); 264 (1959); 603 (1970); 1,475 (1975). Growth in the number of A officials: 5 (1953); 68 (1959); 94 (1970); 161 (1975) (Mangenot 2002).

4. In the ECSC the Presidency rotated every three months; in the EEC and Euratom there was a six-month rotation.

5. Before, it was the Permanent Representatives who prepared the draft conclusions.

6. Before, the contacts with the Commission only went through the Secretariat General of the Commission.

7. Art. 151, para. 2, TEU stipulates, ‘The Council shall be assisted by a General Secretariat, under the direction of a Secretary-General. The Secretary-General shall be appointed by the Council acting unanimously. The Council shall decide on the organization of the General Secretariat.’

8. The total number of Secretariat officials involved in policy-making numbers 750 (this figure excludes secretarial staff and linguists) but includes military and police officers. There are 540 permanent AD officials; 140 of them (25 per cent) work for DG E.

9. We already mentioned the changes to the language regime which are, of course, a direct result of the Union's enlargement to 25/27 members. These changes are best understood, however, as changes affecting the Council as a whole, rather than changes of the Council Secretariat. Indeed, the language regime concerns arrangements for meetings of member state representatives such as ministerial councils and working groups. Within the administration of the Secretariat, a more informal and secular trend towards the replacement of French with English as the dominant working language is under way.