Council Bibliographies: General Secretariat

Gijs Jan Brandsma compiles a diverse range of perspectives to assess the ever-changing institutional architecture of the EU, paying close attention to the interlinking mechanisms between the supranational, national and subnational level. Encompassing the institutions, organisations and policy processes that make up EU public administration, it critically reviews existing literature and presents avenues for future research. Contributors consider a broad spectrum of theoretical approaches to the topic, including federalism, institutionalism, constructivism and organisational theory. The Handbook introduces and discusses specific aspects of European public administration, in particular EU-level institutions, agencies, committees and networks, and their impact on EU governance. Chapters also analyse different stages of the policy cycle and issues surrounding the legitimacy of EU public administration.

Ce manuel comporte l'étude du droit institutionnel de l'Union européenne tel qu'il se présente 5 ans après l'entrée en vigueur du traité de Lisbonne. L'ensemble des dispositions relatives à l'Union, à ses institutions, au processus décisionnel, à l'ordre juridique ainsi qu'au contrôle politique et juridictionnel sont traitées de manière complète.

The Council of the European Union is a complex negotiation machinery daily managed by two institutional actors the Council general secretariat and the rotating Council presidency. These two pillars, working in close interaction and collaboration, keep the Council coordination system smoothly running. This research raises two main questions how does the interaction between the presidency and the Council secretariat takes place in the EU decision- making process? What drives the different patterns of the interaction between these institutional actors? In order to answer these compelling questions, the author approaches the interaction phenomena from the perspective of comparative institutionalist and general communication studies in the policy framework of development cooperation. This tentative study has a great potential to be further developed by EU researchers, offering also a comprehensive insight of the Council s everyday work for students of European studies and non-specialists interested in the EU decision-making processes.

Thanks to new transparency rules and increased efforts by scholars, researchers are better equipped than ever before to analyze the decision-making processes of the Council of the European Union and to test old wisdoms. This book covers the most contentious areas and important debates in current research.

Though it is one of the least well-known parts of the administration, the General Secretariat of the Council or the ‘Council Secretariat’ supports both the European Council and the Council of the European Union, and plays a central role at the heart of the EU system. This chapter discusses the origins and development of the organisation, and its importance to the institutions it serves. It considers the functions that the Council performs and the challenges it confronts in carrying out its responsibilities in a complex and changing institutional environment. Drawing on a unique dataset collected by a team led by the authors, it looks at the educational and professional backgrounds, and the motivations and beliefs of the people who work in the Council Secretariat. It discusses how the functions of the GSC have affected the staff profile and how the presence of four professionally based sub-populations leads to variation in career expectations, mobility, and outlooks. As well as putting accepted wisdoms about the EU bureaucracy and eurocrats to the empirical test, it compares the views and preferences of staff in the Council Secretariat with personnel in the European Commission. Finally, the chapter addresses the debate about the administrative culture of the Council Secretariat.

This chapter considers the roles of the Legal Adviser (CLA) to and Legal Service (CLS) of the Council and the European Council. The chapter opens by outlining the constituent documents, principles, and situation of EU law following, inter alia, the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon. It considers the ways in which the rule of law is protected in the Union. The functions and structure of the CLS and the work of its six directorates are detailed, including the unique ‘Legislative Quality Directorate’. The CLA/CLS’s roles are centred on advice, negotiation, and litigation. They facilitate the development, clarification, implementation, and enforcement of EU law and international law; have played a central role in the development of the EU Treaties; and are confronted with several complex legal issues, most notably challenges derived from the uncertain relationship between EU law and international law. The chapter closes by examining the EU’s significant contributions to international law as well as challenges relating to the EU’s enigmatic status therein.

A partir du point de vue personnel et de la grande expérience de l'auteur, Jean-Louis Dewost, ce chapitre présente une analyse comparative des fonctions de jurisconsulte du Conseil et de directeur général du service juridique de la Commission. Une analyse qui, selon les termes de l'auteur, est " nécessairement subjective, mais qui s'efforcera d'être aussi scientifique que possible ".

Origins of a power of coordination -- Constructing an autonomous administration -- Power based on trust: the 1980-82 inflexion -- Politicisation through the management of the pillars (1994-99) -- Leadership and diarchy (1999-2008) -- Conclusion

This chapter argues that intergovernmental Council decision making is not a neutral transmission belt. EU governments are often dependent upon leadership provided by actors such as the Presidency and the Council Secretariat to help them translate their often vaguely defined governmental preferences into actual contractual agreement.

In scholarship on bureaucratic socialisation, length of service is frequently identified as the key variable in explaining alignment of the beliefs and values of staff members with those of the administration. This article challenges this view. Presenting analysis based on data from the European Commission and the General Secretariat of the Council – two parts of the EU administration, which draw staff from the same talent pool and are governed by the same staff regulation – and using organisational values to measure socialisation, it finds that length of service is not the only or the most important variable in explaining alignment of staff views with the organisation. It also shows not only that both staff beliefs and organisational values differ between the two bodies, but that as socialising environments the Commission and the Council Secretariat have differing impacts on their staff.

Le présent article explore le double contexte des réformes politiques et administratives qui traversent le Secrétariat général du Conseil de l’Union européenne. De quelle manière ces réformes successives modifient-elles l’espace du Conseil ? Comment s’insèrent-elles dans les transformations plus générales du champ bureaucratique européen ? Pour répondre à ces questions, ce travail analyse le Secrétariat général à travers le prisme de sa dynamique historique de long terme et de celui de ses perceptions par les fonctionnaires.

Cet article esquisse une sociologie politique du personnel du Secrétariat général du Conseil de l’Union européenne (SGC). Après avoir montré que le personnel du SGC représente une déclinaison singulière du fonctionnariat européen façonnée par un triple processus d’identification, on se demande dans quelle mesure les réformes néomanagériales lancées en 2016 érodent la singularité identitaire qui caractérisait les fonctionnaires du Conseil jusqu’à présent. L’hypothèse défendue ici est que les transformations en cours s’inscrivent dans un double mouvement : un mouvement de dédifférenciation semblable à celui qui s’est opéré à la Commission ; et un mouvement de désingularisation qui tend à remettre sociologiquement en cause la spécificité du Conseil comme institution de type diplomatique et au service de la présidence.

The view that silos are endemic in organisations in general and the European Civil Service in particular has become increasingly widespread. Yet, silos are rarely investigated theoretically or empirically. What is a silo? What are the individual and organisational factors associated with silos? We propose a functionalist approach to silo definition and identification, which links individual and organisational tasks to expected intra-organisational interactions: we operationalise silos as clusters of employees lacking communication with other parts of the organisation, and analyse civil servants and departments as bipartite networks of communication using stochastic blockmodelling. We explore the existence of silos in two European bureaucracies, which differ in mission, size and workforce composition: the European Commission and the General Secretariat of the Council. We do not find evidence of silo-isation in either bureaucracy, but rather task-based patterns of interaction. Our approach can be extended to include other theoretical perspectives, e.g., socialisation effects.

The quality of EU legislation is often criticised. This article considers the factors influencing the formal quality of EU legislation, some of which are common to most legislation while others are particular to the EU. Many of the factors contributing to the good or bad formal quality of EU legislation are inherent in the EU's complex structure and decision-making process and are fixed. Other factors are variable and EU staff, in particular the Council's lawyer-linguists, are making a sustained effort to tackle them. In general substantial progress has been made. However, there are times when the political process demands the adoption of a lot of legislation in a short time and then the quality of that legislation inevitably suffers

Government communication plays a key role in democratic societies as it helps public understanding of government policies and raises awareness of the roles and actions of decision makers. Within the European Union (EU) polity, communication plays a crucial role for citizens' support for the European integration process. Despite the increasing relevance of communication about major activities of the EU, studies on the EU institutions' communications are scarce, and very little is currently known about the external communication of the Council of the EU. Focusing on the media relations activities of the Council, this paper investigates the communication practices and roles of press officers working in the Council's General Secretariat as perceived by these government communicators themselves. Qualitative interviews with the press officers, analysis of Council documents, participation in their work processes and observations of their professional behaviour were used to establish the empirical basis of the study. The findings highlight the apolitical and reactive nature of these European civil servants' communication activities and identify some of the institutional and political challenges that they face in the performance of their professional duties.

The Council Secretariat General has emerged as one of the institutional winners of the dynamic development of the EU’s foreign and security policy, especially in the field of crisis management. Despite this, the role of the Council Secretariat in European foreign policy remains under researched. Based on extensive qualitative and quantitative data, the article provides new insights into the context of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) by examining the role(s) of the Council Secretariat and its officials from the perspective of the latter. Firstly, it discusses the theoretical framework drawing on the insights of role theory. Secondly, it provides a historical account of how the Secretariat has developed into the kind of actor it is today – especially in foreign and security policies – and also presents rich empirical evidence about EU diplomats (e.g. nationality, professional background, etc.). Third, it explores in detail the officials’ views on the roles they themselves play and the roles of the Secretariat as an institution involved in the making of European foreign policy. In this regard, the article reveals interesting differences amongst the constitutive parts of the Secretariat as to how they perceive both their individual and institutional roles. It also uncovers potential conflicts in perceptions between old and new institutional roles.

1. Origines historiques : les conditions de création, en 1952, à Luxembourg -- 2. Modèle organisationnel, continuité institutionnelle et capacité d'adaptation --3. "Culture administrative : genèse d'un "esprit de corps" -- 4. Les transformations d'un rôle : du notaire au courtier, de l'assistant au conseiller

Conceptual Considerations -- The role of the General Secretariat -- Critical Junctures in the Council's Evolution -- The Parliamentarisation of the EU -- 30 Years of Continuous Treaty Reform -- The Politicization of European Integration -- The Securitization of the EU -- The Big Bang Enlargement -- The Creation of European Council and EEAS