Talk:Foreign Affairs Council

Members of the Foreign Affairs Council

There are no fixed members of the Foreign Affairs Council (in contrast to e.g. the European Council). The members change from meeting to meeting, although the foreign ministers of course play an important role. There are often other ministers, state secretaries or permanent representatives. See e.g. list of participants for the meeting in May [1]. --Glentamara (talk) 14:44, 25 June 2016 (UTC)

I've said it before, but I repeat it again: The Council of the European Union does not have well defined members. Who is a member of the Council varies from meeting to meeting, even for a certain Council configuration. Officially it does not consist of ministers, but of "representatives at ministerial level", which also includes permanent representatives, state secretaries etc. --Glentamara (talk) 16:16, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

And by the way, permanent representatives do participate in the Council meetings every now and then, see for instance the participant list of the most recent meeting here. --Glentamara (talk) 16:19, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

You dont even know what you are talking about, so I wont bother with you anymore. First you should understand that GAC and FAC is not the same thing.Sredina (talk) 10:49, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

I talked about Council meetings in general, as you claimed that permanent representatives do not participate in Council meetings in one of your edits. I know very well the ten different configurations of the Council. --Glentamara (talk) 12:25, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

What you do not understand somehow is that ministers (which is clear from the name COUNCIL OF MINISTERS itself, as it used to be called) are members by default, and all other (state secertaries, perm reps...) are only substitutes, they are not members, perm reps have corepers fro example.Sredina (talk) 17:37, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

Council of Ministers is an informal name, and of course it comes from, as you say, that the default is that member states send ministers. However, it is not a necessity as you can see from the treaties. It has to be a representative at ministerial level. And often it is someone else than a minister. They are members of that particular council in the sense that they have the voting right. Anyways, there are different ministers participating at different FAC meetings depending on the agenda (foreign ministers, defence ministers, development ministers etc). Again: There is no well-defined list of members for the FAC. --Glentamara (talk) 18:10, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

Yeah were still telling us, at least indirectly, that perm reps are "representatives at the ministerial level", they are not, and I said, that the table that put in the article can be upgraded with other ministers, for each MS, covering portofilos that fall within the scope of FAC. But you somehow do not get that. And why "ministerial level" is used instead of "ministers"? Probably because UK does not have ministers but secretaries. Sredina (talk) 20:37, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

Different representatives of the member states at different FAC meetings

Besides what I've already written above, there are also different sub-configurations of the Council. Sometimes trade issues are discussed, other times defence or developement. Different ministers and other representatives are participating depending on the agenda of a meeting. It is up to every government to decide who is participating as long as it is a "representative at ministerial level". See the conclusions and participant lists of the most recent meetings for the trade meeting, development meeting and defence meeting. --Glentamara (talk) 16:50, 19 July 2019 (UTC)