{"id":35486,"date":"2016-08-10T03:00:19","date_gmt":"2016-08-10T07:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=35486"},"modified":"2016-08-09T08:54:00","modified_gmt":"2016-08-09T12:54:00","slug":"sir-humphrey-appleby-explains-the-organization-of-the-eu-to-his-new-minister","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2016\/08\/10\/sir-humphrey-appleby-explains-the-organization-of-the-eu-to-his-new-minister\/","title":{"rendered":"Sir Humphrey Appleby explains the organization of the EU to his new minister"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the Guardian<\/em>, Jonathan Lynn and Antony Jay<\/a> provide a new minister with the wisdom of Sir Humphrey Appleby:<\/p>\n

Sir Humphrey<\/strong> The first thing to understand is that there is a European Council and a Council of the European Union.<\/p>\n

Minister <\/strong>They\u2019re not the same thing?<\/p>\n

Sir Humphrey<\/strong> No. The European Council, whose members are the 28 heads of state of the 28 member states, defines the general political direction and priorities of the European Union whereas the Council of the European Union, on the other hand, develops the EU\u2019s common foreign policy, in so far as there is any, and security policy, concludes international agreements and adopts the EU budget.<\/p>\n

Minister <\/strong>Who\u2019s in charge?<\/p>\n

Sir Humphrey<\/strong> That\u2019s an interesting question. The president of the European Council is in office for 30 months and is in charge of preparing the agenda and chairing the meetings of the European Council, whereas the presidency of the Council of the European Union is held only for six months each, by rotating states, hardly enough time for a part-time president to get his feet under the desk. Which is probably the idea.<\/p>\n

Minister <\/strong>So who really runs Europe?<\/p>\n

Sir Humphrey<\/strong> Another interesting question. Well done, Minister! The European Union is run on an intricate and sophisticated system based on an hierarchical structure of interlocking and overlapping jurisdictions designed to separate the powers whilst reinforcing the authority of the departments, institutions and agencies who collectively and separately control and supervise the diverse activities of the Union and its associated organisations. So Europe is not run by the president of the European Council or the Council of the European Union but by the president of the European Commission, who is akin to prime minister of Europe because he is elected for five years and heads a cabinet government whereas the president of the Council, on the other hand, is not elected but appointed, and presides over the meetings of the Council, which is not the cabinet.<\/p>\n

Minister <\/strong>Who are the members of the European Council?<\/p>\n

Sir Humphrey<\/strong> The European Council\u2019s membership consists of the heads of member states while the Council of the European Union, on the other hand \u2013 which is often still referred to as the Council of Ministers \u2013 is the real voice of EU member governments, adopting EU laws and coordinating EU policies. Sometimes it is just called \u201cthe Council\u201d in the interests of clarity. And they\u2019re not even trying to be funny.<\/p>\n

Minister <\/strong>It\u2019s called the Council.<\/p>\n

Sir Humphrey<\/strong> Yes \u2013 but the Council of the European Union should not be confused with the European Council nor with the Council of Europe \u2013 nor the Council of Ministers, which is also sometimes just called \u201cthe Council\u201d, although it is not the same Council as the other Council and is in fact not an EU body at all.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the Guardian, Jonathan Lynn and Antony Jay provide a new minister with the wisdom of Sir Humphrey Appleby: Sir Humphrey The first thing to understand is that there is a European Council and a Council of the European Union. Minister They\u2019re not the same thing? Sir Humphrey No. The European Council, whose members are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,8,62,57],"tags":[337],"class_list":["post-35486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-britain","category-bureaucracy","category-europe","category-humour","tag-eu"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-9em","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35486"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35486\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35487,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35486\/revisions\/35487"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}