The Council should not be confused with the ministerial cabinet of some countries such as France, nor with the European Council (regular EU summit meeting). It is responsible for approving European Union legislation and is composed of the ministers of the national states under a presidency which rotates among members semi-annually. This arrangement implies that European integration requires member states' agreement to proceed. In this sense it is paradoxically both a basic constraint on the Commission and European Parliament's pro-integration ambitions, and the main driving force behind what has been achieved. The idea that integration is ‘imposed from Brussels’ has therefore little grounding in reality. Important as the Council is in terms of decision-making, however, it does not fully control the agenda: it can only act on a proposal of the Commission, and approval on an increasing number of matters takes place in ‘co-decision’ with the parliament.
The Council passes legislation with a voting system weighted approximately to the square root of the member states' populations. The Commission is responsible for implementation in cooperation with member states. The actual personnel of the Council changes with the issue under discussion: finance ministers for budget, agriculture ministers the CAP, etc. The foreign ministers, as the senior council, meet at least once a month.
The issue of voting has not surprisingly been controversial in the operation of the Council. The various EU treaties assigned unanimity to certain Council decisions, and qualified majority voting to others. In 1966 the Luxembourg Compromise established unanimity as the accepted practice if any member claimed that vital national interests were at stake, and this was often abused. The Single European Act and subsequent Treaties of Maastricht, Amsterdam, and Nice have redefined and reinforced the role of majority voting, particularly with respect to Single Market issues, thus enhancing the supranational qualities of the EU. Voting procedure is also important in the context of upcoming eastward enlargement as growing diversity of membership may paralyse decision-making where unanimity remains the norm.
— Geoffrey R. D. Underhill
