Council Working Party

[3] In a Council working party, every Member State is represented by its civil servants, who come either from their ministries or their permanent representations.

[5] During the sessions of the working party, it is the task of the civil servants of the European Commission to explain and defend their proposal.

This is often done by informing the Council working party orally and sharing an updated "four-column document", a document which has the Commission proposal in its first, the European Parliament's position in its second, the Council's general approach in its third and finally the current compromise position in its fourth column.

[8] During the working party sessions, the Members States can give feedback and guidance to the presidency on their opinions concerning the various compromise positions.

This is of high importance because the compromise position adopted during trilogue needs, inter alia, to be formally approved by Coreper and the Council (at ministerial level), so enough support for it is essential.

[10] This position is justified by the observation that if an agreement was reached at working party level, this decision will usually simply be formally approved by Coreper and the Council without any substantive discussion.

[10] Ondřej Doležel, a temporary agent of the European Commission, has similarly concluded that "70–99 per cent of the content of legislative acts" is "sorted out by working parties".