General Affairs and External Relations Council

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The General Affairs and External Relations Council is one of the oldest configurations of the Council of the European Union. It holds separate meetings on General Affairs and on External Relations respectively. It meets once a month.

Meetings bring together the Foreign Ministers of the Member States. Ministers responsible for European Affairs, Defence, Development or Trade also participate depending on the items on agenda.

[edit] General Affairs

At its sessions on General Affairs, the Council deals with dossiers that affect more than one of the Union's policies, such as negotiations on EU enlargement, preparation of the Union's multi–annual budgetary perspective or institutional and administrative issues. It co–ordinates preparation for and follow-up to meetings of the European Council. It also exercises a role in co–ordinating work on different policy areas carried out by the Council's other configurations, and handles any dossier entrusted to it by the European Council.

[edit] External Relations

At its sessions on External Relations, the Council deals with the whole of the Union's external action, including common foreign and security policy, European security and defence policy, foreign trade and development cooperation. A priority in recent years for the Council, in cooperation with the European Commission, has been to ensure coherence in the EU's external action across the range of instruments at the Union's disposal. Under the proposed European Constitution this configuration would be headed by the Union Minister for Foreign Affairs.