Committee of Permanent Representatives

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.

[1] COREPER's defined role is to prepare the agenda for the ministerial Council of the European Union meetings; it may also take some procedural decisions.

Article 240 of the Treaty on the functioning of the European Union lays down the legal basis of COREPER.

There are in fact two committees within the COREPER: Coreper I, comprising the Deputy Permanent Representatives, prepares the ground for the following Council configurations: Coreper II, comprising the Permanent Representatives, prepares for the other configurations: Representatives of the Council Secretariat from the relevant Directorates and from the Legal Directorate are also present.

Weekly meetings are held in private; the agenda of the meeting is divided into They divide the ministerial agenda into three categories: 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.