Member States and Communication within the EU Council Working Group



Abstract: EU Council working groups still represent a topic that is neglected in the EU research.
If they are analysed, the effect of socialization is particularly tested while rationally motivated
factors such as Left-Right position, GAL/TAN placement or approach towards the EU are left aside.
This article analyses how EU Council working groups contribute to the Member states’ oral
communication at the working group level. Based on a dataset gathered by non-participatory
observation of interventions, the analysis suggests that none of the rationally constructed
variables play a significant role in shaping EU Member states oral communication. The article thus
confirms the effect of socialization on the communication as well as the influence of structural
factors such as Member states´ power and the character of the document under discussion.


Keywords: EU Council, Working Group, EU Member States, Communication, Cooperation



INTRODUCTION


The Council of the EU is one of the most important EU institutions, particularly for EU Member
States. It serves as an arena where they can express and defend their interests. Member States do
so particularly through bargaining and negotiations. Communication is an important factor enabling
this most important function of the Council.

The process of articulating interests starts in the Council working groups. In addition to being
the lowest level of the Council hierarchy, they are also its least known and least studied element.
This is especially true of the bargaining and negotiation processes within the groups, as well as
communication used there. Up to date research targets primarily tasks exercised by working groups
in the Council´s decision making process (Olsen 2011; Häge 2007a, 2007b, 2008, 2013, 2016).
However, not that much has been so far revealed when it comes to the internal praxis of the
Council's working groups or the factors which shape it. With the exception of the Kaniok (2016)
article analysing the general communication patterns within the working groups, there is no study
that deals with this phenomenon. Surprisingly, almost no interest has been so far paid to the
Member States in this regard. This is striking as they are the most prominent actor in the Council
activities. Moreover, working groups offer Member States the initial opportunity to express their
demands and national interests.

The goal of this study is to extend our knowledge about the working groups by analysing Member
states´ oral interventions expressed during meetings of the working groups acting mainly in the
area of the internal market. Based upon data collected during non-participatory observations of
more than 20 meetings, the paper uncovers how Member States communicate when intervening in the
working groups and how they contribute to the general atmosphere within them. More specifically, it
focuses on how Member State governments´ positions on the Left-Right scale, their position on
GAL/TAN and their approach towards European integration contribute to the cooperation in the
working groups. Hence, it tests a rationalist assumption claiming that life in the working groups
reflects and follows domestic political preferences.

The main findings of the analysis are as follows: rationally constructed factors which should
reflect the political interests of national governments do not appear to work as influential
variables at the Council working group level. Neither distance from the political centre, nor
GAL/TAN position nor general approach towards European integration seem to influence the form of
Member states´ communication at the working group level. On the contrary, the analysis confirmed
the impact of the socialization process that occurs within the working groups, as Brussels based
representatives tend to be significantly more cooperative than their capital based fellows.
Additionally, structural factors such as a Member state’s power or the character of the document
discussed play an important role. The article thus suggests that domestic politicization of EU
affairs does not necessarily shape the actual behaviour of Member states in the EU Council.

The article is organized as follows: the first section introduces the role of working groups in the
Council's decision-making system. It also provides an overview of the existing research on this
issue. The next section presents the theoretical framework and hypotheses. The third part describes
the data used, and informs how the data was gathered. It also explains how these data was analysed.
After that the paper proceeds to the analysis. The last part of the article places its findings in
the context of existing knowledge and outlines direction for possible further research.



WORKING GROUPS: WHY POLITICS MATTERS THERE?


What is the role of working groups within the Council and why may political aspects matter here?
Working groups construct the most basic component of the Council's work. Various authors provide
different estimates of their numbers – usually, there are between 170 – 200 working groups[1]. In a
nutshell, key purpose of a working group may be described as that of a body which allows the
negotiation and the deliberation of Member States' positions. That does not mean that Member States
acting there alone. Important tasks are expected from the Presidency, as well as from the
Commission, and form the Council Secretariat. Legislative work consists of the deliberating
proposals for the EU legislature whereas the main focus of non-legislative activities is to draft
first versions of Council conclusions. That means, each working group is supposed to prepare a
particular file for the Council decision. Therefore the working group should formulate a consensus
on the text which will allow its approval at the COREPER level and after that its formal adoption
by the ministers.

From a theoretical point of view, Council working groups are understood from two broad angles. The
rationalist one recognizes them as only formally important serving as nothing more than a channels
through which national interests are articulated. Member states´ participants in working groups
have to follow guidelines in form of national instructions. These are based upon preferences
formulated within their domestic political systems. Such preferences mirror the interests of
various actors  - be them economic, social or political ones - from particular member state and
theresult of bargaining that may need to occur at this level in order to formulate a coherent
national stance to be put forward in EU arena negotiations (Beyers and Diericks 1998; Moravcsik
1998). From the neo-institutionalist perspective, working groups represent more active and
independent players. They are perceived as arenas within which interests are bargained for and
where the very rules regulating such negotiations are defined. From the neo-institutionalist point
of view, the members of working groups go beyond the task of purely negotiating among pre-defined
interests. Instead they contribute to reshaping European public issues, the rules and norms that
construct negotiation and frequently the very identities and loyalties of those being involved
(Lewis 1998; Lewis 2005; Aus 2008, Trondal 2007).

Regarding the influence of the working groups, there is no agreement in existing work. Common
wisdom suggests that working groups are accountable for the majority of Council results (van
Schendelen 1996; Hayes-Renshaw and Wallace 1997). However, such conclusions have been rested either
on mere guessing or on estimates coming from insiders. More rigorous research corrects such
figures. Häge (2008, 2007b) revealed that working groups were in charge for less than 40 per cent
of Council decisions, Olsen (2011: 159) claims that an even smaller share of decisions, only 33 per
cent, are resolved by working groups as majority of files raise controversies among Member states
or have financial impact. Most recently, Howard Grøn and Houlberg Salomonsen (2015) suggest that
division between non-political working groups and political ministerial level is a questionable one
as different participants than ministers often participate in the ministerial meetings.

A similar conflict between “common wisdom” and more rigorous research applies to the role of
political factors for the working groups. Working groups were long perceived as an arena which
focused on the technical aspects of legislation while leaving the political issues for bodies such
as COREPER (Westlake 1999). Foilleux et all (2005) challenged this approach, however, arguing there
is no clear distinction between “political” and “technical” issues. The principal finding of their
study is that working groups do not operate solely at a ‘technical level’. Instead, they are vital
arenas through which the ambiguous nature of politics in the European Union heavily influences the
negotiating processes and legislative outcomes.

The most important tools for working groups´ activities are negotiations and bargaining. Here, both
formal and informal communication among participants creates the necessary conditions which enable
the working groups to operate smoothly. Pioneering articles by Beyers and Diericks (1997, 1998)
found  that discretion matters in communication between national delegates (Beyers and Dierickx
1997) and that informal communication is excessive in working groups occupied by Brussels-based
attendants. Notably, this communication is led by non-state players as for example Commission
representatives. The more influential actors were revealed to be those coming from large member
states, and communication patterns following a North-South division (Beyers and Dierickx 1998). The
presence of this conflict dimension was later confirmed by Naurin (2007). Kaniok’s (2016) analysis
revealed that working groups tend to be more competitive than consensus-oriented when it comes to
the internal communication. He also argues that participants there differ significantly in their
behaviour. Quite surprisingly, Member states are the most cooperative, followed by the European
Commission, while the Presidency focuses on promoting its own interests. Additionally, actor
affiliation does not play a role in communication, as Brussels-based delegates do not tend to adopt
a more cooperative stance than do delegates from the capitals. Naurin (2010) discovered that there
are prevailing patterns of discussion within working groups. He suggests that explanations are
given more often because of actor´s aim to persuade other participants than to to clarify one’s
position in order to promote a compromise in working groups.

Even that there some differences, the strongest conclusion from existing research says that
socialization takes place in lower levels of the Council (particularly at the COREPER level) and
participants act in a waywhich is far from being motivated only by their self-interests. Therefore,
to exaggerate a little bit, there is a cooperative spirit within the rooms and friendly atmosphere
among the delegates.

The socialization argument is quite often tested (see Egeberg 1999; Beyers, 2005, Lewis 1998, 2003,
2005, Juncos, Pomorska 2006, 2011), however, little is known about the rationally motivated factors
which may shape communication in the working groups. The Left-Right position of particular
government, its placement on the GAL/TAN scale (reflecting its position on democratic freedoms and
rights), and a government’s approach towards European integration are among the most prominent of
these factors. For the former, European integration has been traditionally seen as a project of the
political centre (Aspinwall 2002, Taggart 1998). As Marks and Hooghe (2006) argue, the European
Union has been created by mainstream parties – Christian democrats, liberals, social democrats and
conservatives – which have dominated national as well as European political institutions. At the
same time, many non-centrist parties attack European integration as an extension of their domestic
opposition. When it comes to the latter, Euroscepticism – or a party´s more general underlying
approach towards European integration – represents a phenomenon becoming increasingly important
since 90s when the process of politicization of the European integration has rapidly been speeded
up. As result of the persistent multiple crises which the EU has been facing since approximately
2008, both Member states party systems as well as the salience of Euroscepticism have become
increasingly important factors influencing the day-to-day decision making process in the EU.


THEORY AND HYPOTHESES

This study contributes to the research on the internal processes with the working groups, more
specifically to the nature of their internal communication. What is here understood as internal
communication? This paper operationalized it as set of oral formal expressions presented during
meetings by those who attend them – and those who are authorised to speak there -  otherwise called
interventions. Interventions, g, represent the most straightforward route by which a working
group´s actor can influence its business. In intervening, Member States are theoretically
restricted by the Council's Rules of Procedure. It encourages the Member States to intervene only
if they are proposing a modification to the issue under discussion (Council Decision 2009/937/EU,
annex 5). In reality, however, interventions do not often follow this rule. Participants can speak
about whatever they wish expressing for example support for another actor´s position or requiring
further clarification of a point. Interventions are not the only way by which a particular issue
can be communicated or shaped.  Actors may also send written comments. They may also negotiate
bilaterally or multilaterally in a completely informal format. A classic case of this kind of
negotiation is a ‘like-minded group’ or networks of countries sharing similar interests or goals
(Elgström 2000: 465, Elgström 2017). Such forms of communication are however disregarded from this
research as they can be hardly reached.

Rationally motivated components which can shape the content of interventions are tested through
three subsequent hypotheses. The basic logic departs from the assumption that pro-European actors
will emphasize cooperative communication and that representatives whose governments are critical or
sceptical towards the EU will communicate non-cooperatively.


H[1]: The farther a Member State´s government is from the political centre, the less its delegates
in the working groups contribute to cooperative communication within the working groups.

The problem of political party attitudes toward the process of European integration has attracted
growing attention by party scholars over the past decade. Some of the most significant attempts to
understand how European integration works for party systems come from heterogeneous literature
claiming that conflict over the EU is shaped by economic dimension. In particular, a large number
of contributions share the point of view that left/right ideology influences party preferences on
European integration (Ray, 1999; Tsebelis and Garrett, 2000; Gabel and Hix, 2004; Hooghe et al,
2004; Marks and Steenbergen, 2004; Hix et al, 2007). This approach builds upon the widespread
argument that European integration produces neither a new cleavage, nor new normative orientations
in conflict with other long-established ones; instead, it is largely subsumed by historically
rooted ideologies. Furthermore, attitudes toward the EU evolve with these ideologies; thus Europe
can be interpreted by the same party in different ways at different times due to ideological
change. In the end, the traditional socio-economic dimension of conflict is regarded as an
important (though not the only) explanation of party attitudes toward the EU.


H[2]: The farther a Member State´s government is from the cultural/non-economic centre, the less
its delegates in the working groups contribute to cooperative communication within the working
groups.


The economic dimension and party position on it is not the only explanation of what a political
party can think about the EU. As Marks et al (2006) claim, a second, noneconomic or cultural,
new-politics dimension has gained strength since the 1970s in Western Europe (Flanagan, 1987;
Flanagan and Lee, 2003; Franklin, 1992; Inglehart, 1977; Kitschelt, 1988). This dimension
summarizes several noneconomic issues as ecological, lifestyle, and communal, and is
correspondingly more diverse than the Left/Right dimension. In some countries, it is oriented
around environmental protection and sustainable growth; in others, it captures conflict surrounding
traditional values rooted in a secular-religious divide; and in yet others, it is pitched around
immigration and defence of the national community. Marks et al (2006) describe the poles of this
dimension with composite terms: green/alternative/libertarian (GAL) and
traditionalism/authority/nationalism (TAN). They have also found that hard GAL and hard TAN
positions usually lead to opposition towards European integration.


H[3]: The more Eurosceptic a Member State´s government is, the less its delegates in the working
groups contribute to the cooperative communication within the working groups.


When moving from mainstream to radical parties, the pattern seems to change as attitudes appear to
converge. The extreme left and extreme right often share a tendency to lean toward Eurosceptical
attitudes. This phenomenon has driven authors such as Szczerbiak and Taggart (2003) to argue that a
party's distance from the centre of the political spectrum determines its attitudes toward the EU.
In their view, wholly Eurosceptical parties are confined to the periphery of the political
spectrum, while parties located near the centre are, to different degrees, pro-European. The two
authors argue that signs of Euroscepticism from mainstream parties only come from factional
conflicts and do not involve the party as a whole, while Euroscepticism from radical parties is a
party-centric attitude (Taggart, 1998; Taggart and Szczerbiak 2004, Szczerbiak and Taggart 2008).
Other empirical studies (Hooghe et al, 2002; Sitter and Batory, 2008) confirm the same view. Sitter
(2001, 2002) contends that the most Eurosceptic parties are indeed those that are permanently
excluded from the government arena and, apart from a few exceptions, parties on the flanks of the
party system in the EU member states tend to be excluded.


DATA, VARIABLES AND METHOD


When it comes to the dependent variable, Kaniok’s (2016) binary dependent variable ‘Communication’
was analysed[2]. This variable is a result of non-participatory observation of more than 20
meetings of several Council working groups dealing particularly with Single Market agendas. During
these meetings, Kaniok captured the content of interventions expressed by the various actors (for
details see Kaniok 2016) and created two groups based on whether there was support for another´s
action or not. Hence, Value 1 (‘Cooperative’) combines interventions expressing support for another
actor – either being the alone content of intervention or being accompanied by the speaker´s own
position or by a procedural comment. Value 0 (‘Uncooperative’), on the contrary, includes
interventions delivering a speaker´s own position, either as the only content of the intervention
or in hand with procedural issue mentioned.

The logic behind the dependent variable (‘Communication’) and its two values is based upon
practitioners’[3] experience and the Council´s internal norms. According to reports by
practitioners, both what is said during the meetings as well as how it is said are highly
important. Dissent with, for example, modifications proposed by the Presidency may be expressed in
various ways. For example, requests which are set  in the context of other actors´ opinions are
perceived as more acceptable and more constructive than the mere expression of the speaker´s
position. Whilst the former suggests that such interventions are based upon a development within
the group – and send clear message of respect towards the other actors – the later way leave these
aspects aside. Even the Council´s official norms promote certain values such as consensus,
efficiency, or cooperation among Member States[4].  Therefore, these different styles considerably
influence both the overall atmosphere of the meeting and the perception of the speaker.

When it comes to the independent variables, they were computed on the basis of the Chapel Hill
Survey and its longitude dataset. The Chapel Hill Survey measures party positions towards various
aspects of European integration and it contains party positions on general political issues. Hence,
on the basis of such data, it is possible to compute values for Member states´ governments using
following formula:


‘MS government’ = ((CES variable[party1 ]* seatsnumber[party1]) + (CES variable[party2 ]*
seatsnumber[party2]) + (CES variable[partyn ]* seatsnumber[partyn])) / MS governmentnumber


The CES variable denotes a particular CES variable and its value for a particular party,
seatsnumber represents the number of seats held by the party in government and the MS
governmentnumber refers to the total number of seats in Member state government for which the value
is computed.

Governmental position from the political centre was calculated as its distance of LRGEN variable´s
value 5 signalling that such party belongs to the political centre. Negative values were
transformed into positive ones, as distance from the centre should have the same impact both in the
case of Left wing and Right wing cabinets. When it comes to the GALTAN variable, a similar method
of recalculation was chosen, in this case keeping the difference between negative and positive
results. This reflects – as Hooghe and Marks (2006) argue – a different approach of GAL and TAN
parties towards European integration. ‘Position towards European integration’ was measured by using
the variable EU_POSITION. It contains 7 values, where value 1 indicates strong opposition towards
the EU and value 7 strong support for the EU.

The analysis controls for various factors. First, the level of individual socialization of
participants make a difference in their behaviour (Fouilleux et al. 2007). Delegates working at
national Permanent Representations usually share a sense of dual responsibility – both to their
Member states as well to the Brussels. This is important as Brussels-based diplomats tend to follow
different pattern in behaviour than their capital based counterparts. In a nutshell, the former
emphasize a more cooperative style in negotiating than the latter. Therefore, records of
participants available at every meeting were used to construct a variable ‘Representative’. This
allows to distinguish whether a Member State was represented only by a national expert coming in
from the capital, or by a Brussels-based attaché, or, or a combination of the two.

Second, collective socialization considers time as an aspect which enables various actors to accept
internal rules and norms and follow them. One could thus expect that the longer a collective actor
takes part in working groups, the more it follows shared norms of consensus and cooperation which
exist there. The transfer of this collective socialization factor to individual delegates is
ensured by training of officials within Member states. Thus, variable ‘Length of EU membership’ is
expressed as the number of years a particular Member state has been a member of the European Union.

Third, salience influences actors´ behaviour within the Council and their eagerness to compromise
on a particular proposal. Selck (2003) suggests that there are signs that EU institutions involved
in legislative work use their procedural powers more vigorously when dealing with important issues.
For example, politically salient issues are more likely to be decided already during the first
reading stage (Rasmussen 2007). Whether a decision is made at the ministerial or the administrative
level in the Council also relies upon on the perceived salience of a document (Häge 2007).
Schneider et al. (2010: 92) claim that greater importance leads to a greater willingness to make
concessions to reach a consensus. Thus one may expect that cooperation – also in terms of
communication -  in the working groups will be higher when dealing with legislative files than when
preparing non-legislative documents. Hence, meeting agendas accessible on the Council website prior
to the meeting were used to construct the variable ‘Item’, which divides the agenda between
non-legislative and legislative issues.

Fourth, the language used can also impact the degree of cooperation. English can be regarded as the
modern lingua franca in the Council. Egeberg et al. (2003: 27-30) and van Els (2005) claim that a
considerable majority of both formal negotiations and informal communications among participants is
carried out using English. Also, in formal negotiations diplomats seldom speak either French or
German which are – apart of English - considered as another two EU working languages. If they do
not use their mother tongue, they are using English. As Egeberg et al. found (2003: 28), in the
late 90s, 90 per cent of non-native English speakers representing their countries in the Council
were able to communicate to some extent in English, and more than 80 per cent spoke English well or
very well. Therefore, using English can be perceived as an aspect which supports cooperative
communication in the working groups, because it saves time and provides a substantial majority of
delegates with equal conditions in the negotiation process. Therefore, the variable ‘Language used’
catches the language used during the meetings. The values recorded here are English and other
languages.

Last but not least, the size of the actor matters in terms of control. Ownership of more resources
can influence the willingness of such states to cooperate or act independently (Naurin 2015). ‘Size
of the Member State’ was calculated as their voting power expressed in terms of per cent share of
their votes in the total amount of votes available in the Council. The variable ‘QMV share’ hence
reflects the relative power of each Member State.


ANALYSIS


Overall number of interventions that was gathered during the reached 5,021 (purely procedural ones
included). However, only 2,179 of them were expressed by Member States, as reported in Table 1.


Table 1 here


Figure 1 reports the distribution of interventions across Member states. Purely procedural
interventions are excluded from the sample. That means that 2,049 interventions expressed by Member
states bear either a cooperative or uncooperative message. Figure 1 reports three different values
– the total number of interventions, the number of cooperative interventions and the number of
uncooperative interventions.


Figure 1 here


Figure 1 sends a couple of interesting messages. First, the size of the Member states seems to
matter quite a lot when it comes to oral activity in the working groups. All large countries – in
terms of their voting power or population share – can be found among the most active speakers. The
only exception is Poland, which is placed in the middle of the peloton. The second attribute which
seems to encourage or discourage representatives of the Member states to speak is tradition of EU
membership, or, to be more accurate, their “western” character. CEE countries and countries which
do not belong to the traditional “West” appear to be more passive than experienced EU members or
countries which have shared the same values with European Communities members even before 1989 –
such as, for example, Austria or Sweden. Big states also appear to be more assertive; this means
that they prefer to express their position when intervening. Being involved in the Presidency trio
– whether as a country holding the office or as a former or upcoming Presidency – has an impact as
well. Lithuania as an acting Presidency was completely silent (even though the country delegate was
present in all meetings) and the oral activities of Greece (upcoming Presidency) and Ireland (past
Presidency) were very low.


Figure 2 here


Figure 2 presents the share of uncooperative and cooperative interventions expressed in relative
terms, i.e. what percent of interventions from the total number of interventions expressed by
Member state were cooperative and uncooperative. This perspective offers other interesting
findings. First, the effect of size is a little bit downplayed, as the first five most
uncooperative countries – from a relative perspective – cannot be counted among the big players.
The same applies to membership tradition. “New” Member states can be found in both corners of
Figure 2, while traditional countries (particularly the founding “6”) are distributed across it.

In the second part of the analysis, a binary logistic regression was used to explore which
independent/control variables affect the dependent variable and to what extent. The analysis
included only 1,852 of 2,053 interventions. One Member state (Czech Republic) had a caretakers’
cabinet in the analysed period and three countries (Luxembourg, Malta, Cyprus) were not included in
the Chapel Hill dataset. In both cases, such governments could not have been characterized in terms
of right-left ideology, GAL-TAN position or approach towards European integration. They were
therefore excluded from the analysis.

Altogether, four models were constructed. The first three analysed particular individual hypotheses
and the fourth included all independent variables. All models encompassed the control variables ‘EU
membership’, ‘Language used’, ‘Item’ and ‘Representative’. Results of the analysis are summarized
in Table 2 reporting B value and its SE.


Table 2 here


Table 2 shows pretty well that in general terms the models do not explain that much of the Member
states´communication within the working groups. Values of the Nagelkerke R^2 coefficient[5] are
quite low for all models, and even the differences between values of –LL for initial models and
regression models are quite small in all cases[6]. Even though the analysis did not aspire to
explain the maximum of variety, this sends the message that the independent variables – as
constructed for this article – cannot be used to understand working groups’ communication. First of
all, any rationally motivated variable reflecting domestic interests in terms of ideology, EU
approach and GAL/TAN dimension reaches statistical significance. Even if significance is left
aside, the coefficients of all independent variables across models are very low in terms of their
values. Moreover, not in all cases they follow expected directions – for example, a more positive
approach towards the EU (Models 2 and Models 4) seems to decrease cooperative communication in the
working groups. Thus, all three hypotheses have to be rejected.

How can the conclusion that rationally motivated factors do not have substantial impact on the
communication in the working groups be explained? First set of responses can be found among control
variables. Their coefficients and statistical significance suggest that both socialization and
structural effects can be regarded as more powerful and decisive when it comes to the Member
states’ communication. For the former, the analysis proposes that the affiliation of the
representative plays a role. If a Member state is represented only by a Brussels-based attaché, the
probability of cooperative communication is increased – while in the opposite case, when a
capital-based delegate is present, he/she contributes to the uncooperative communication. More
powerful than this individual level variable seem to be variables that capture a) Member state
size, and b) character of the document discussed. First, voting power expressed as QMV share has
the biggest impact on communication within the working groups. Delegates from bigger Member states
often express what their countries want without packaging their demands into any softening cover.
However, the opposite seems to be case in small countries’ communication patterns. A quite strong
influence can be also spotted in case of document character. Here, if the issue under discussion in
a working group is a legislative proposal – and not for example a Council conclusion draft –
cooperation in communication decreases.

The remaining two control variables – Language and EU Membership – did not reach statistical
significance in any model. Length of EU membership seems to be unimportant, as its coefficients
across models were close to zero. When it comes to language, if English is not used in intervening,
cooperation in communication increases. However, the effect of language is not statistically
significant.

For the second, one can imagine that high level of technicity that characterizes agenda of Single
Market working groups can play a significant role per se. In many cases very detailed and specific
legislative proposals do not need to represent the best mirror to reflect rational political
preferences. Simply because that they go too much into depth and such micro level discourages
expression of political beliefs.


CONCLUSION


The working groups of the EU Council cannot be counted among the best understood actors in the EU
decision-making system. Even that research on them has been increasing in recent years, major
shortcomings still remain. First, existing work often merges all administrative levels of the
Council into one group and does not distinguish between COREPER and working groups. Data from
COREPER there still represents the major source. Second, it is built upon the information provided
by insiders and the ex-post evaluation of their activity. Third, regarding the theoretical
background, social constructivism represents the dominant – if not the only one – point of
departure. There exists, therefore, still a important gap in our knowledge of how working groups
accomplish their tasks and how the parties involved behave there. Particularly, Member states
represent neglected actors.

This study tries to address above-mentioned shrotcomings by analysing Member states´ formal oral
communication within working groups using a dataset based upon the non-participatory observation of
interventions. It focused – contrary to the existing research – on rationally motivated aspects
that can shape Member states´ behaviour in the working groups. The study expected that the
communication pattern in the working groups will be cooperative in case of pro-European, centrist
and moderate GAL/TAN governments while rather uncooperative in case of Eurosceptic, non-centrist
and significantly GAL or TAN cabinets. However, neither of these assumptions were confirmed.
Rationally-based factors do not appear to significantly shape the oral behaviour of Member states
at the working group level. This means that what is often said – particularly in a critical tone –
towards the EU on the domestic scenes is not necessarily reflected in the activities of the
Council´s lowest arena.

There are various factors which explain why the rationalistic variables that transfer domestic
political preferences are unable to explain Member states’ oral communication in the working
groups. In the first place, the study confirmed the influence of the socialization argument as
found in studies dealing with COREPER (Egeberg 1999; Beyers, 2005, Lewis 1998, 2003, 2005).
Contrary to Kaniok’s (2016) study, the article suggests that being Brussels-based has an impact on
participant communication. For Member states delegates, Brussels affiliation increases their will
to communicate in a cooperative way. The distinctive impact of this socialization variable can be
explained by different datasets including different participants. While Kaniok included all
participants in working group meetings – particularly the Presidency and Commission – these studies
focused only on Member states. While both the Commission´s and Presidency´s representatives are
almost in all cases Brussels based, the variety among Member states is substantially bigger. As
Kaniok (2016) found that both the Commission and the Presidency defend their interests – both
institutions push them forward through Brussels-based representatives – it can be claimed that
cooperative communication by members of working groups is encouraged particularly by Brussels-based
Member states representatives.

Another important factor that is more powerful than “politically” constructed variables is the
character of the document that is being discussed. In this sense, if legislation is debated, Member
states´ communication decreases. This is hardly surprising because the legislation is generally
perceived as more important than non-legislative points. In this respect, the study confirms
similar findings to Kaniok (2016).

Apart from the stronger influence of structural and sociological variables, a marginal effect of
domestic political factors can be also explained by the expert characteristic of discussions at the
working group level. Working groups usually examine both legislative and non-legislative proposals
using an article-by-article approach. This means that, particularly in case of legislative
proposals, the interventions often bear detailed and specific technical demands related to the
particular article of the file. Hence, a majority of such interventions are hardly influenced –
even at the domestic level – by either Left/Right government placement or its general position
towards European integration. This suggests that politicization is not very important input in the
earliest stage of the Council decision-making process. Taking into account the amount of decisions
that are adopted at working groups level, this means that the influence of political variables of
Member states’ governments can be overestimated and in reality they play a less significant role in
day to day EU political process

In general, the findings of this analysis should be seen as complementary to existing research on
Council administrative bodies. There is no agreement among scholars as to which pattern of
behaviour dominates in the Council. The analysis of Member states´ interventions confirms broad
work emphasizing the importance of socialization processes for the Council (e. g. Lewis 2005,
Juncos, Pomorska 2011) and expands it by stressing key role of Brussels based diplomats for
orchestrating the cooperative communication spirit within the working groups.  Being identified as
the important “masters of puppets” is not that much surprising. Majority of attaché working at
national Permanent Representations cover more than one working group. Being usually responsible for
two or more similar agendas inevitably leads to meeting the same people every week and thus
creating not only networks, but also feeling of shared responsibility. In this sense, Brussels
based national delegates seem to form similar circles as do participants in COREPER and can be
characterized with the famous Lewis (2005) Janus face metaphor.

On the other hand, the study also backs those who depict the Council and its components as an arena
where intergovernmental elements play a role. In this respect, for example, the study supports the
findings of Naurin (2010), who argues that the working groups areinvolved more in argument rather
than deliberation. This analysis shows that particularly bigger and traditional Member states are
quite active in this regard and that a character of a document discussed is a significant
predictor.

Several constrains which can problematize findings this study brings have to be mentioned. First,
this article focused only on limited amount of working groups operating in one – even that quite
broad – policy area of the Single Market. It could be therefore valuable for future research to
analyse working groups acting in areas that are more intergovernmental as one could expect that
traditionally salient issues as police cooperation or defence could more intensively reflect
governmental ideological or overall EU preferences. However, existing research suggests that even
in such “high level” areas socialization of participants involved in the bargaining takes place
(Juncos, Pomorska 2006, 2011). On the other hand, a greater variety of working groups could
strengthen the socialization argument – if confirmed – because working groups acting in different
policy areas are attended by different attachés than those negotiating in Single Market topics.
Second, inclusion of more policy areas, such as agriculture or social policy for example, could be
beneficial in that sense as well. Member states´ preferences vary across sectors and a more complex
dataset could thus produce more a colourful and balanced picture of the communication. Single
Market agenda – even if researched in a limited number of topics – touches to some extent each
Member state and each of them have some preferences there. There are however areas or policies
where particular Member state or groups of states does not need to have an interest at all – one
could for example imagine fishery policy being a case where countries as the Czech Republic or
Slovakia do not have any preferences. Such comprehensive research would require a very broad team
in order to collect such data. Third, the study focused only on Member states’ formal oral
communication, leaving aside, formal written inputs or informal processes that often precede
working groups´ meetings . Access to this kind of data – particularly regarding the informal level
– is however very problematic if almost impossible, particularly if the ambition of the research is
to include all Member states. Forth, this study also omitted the issue of saliency of particular
proposals for Member states. In this regard, it could be useful to measure the saliency of specific
parts of documents debated within the working groups, as saliency of technical details may vary
point by point. Fifth, the article did not account for increased role of populist parties across EU
Member states, in some of them being already part of governments. As this tendency does not seem to
be stopped, particularly this question – how and if can populism influence the functioning of EU
Council – represents interesting challenge for future work.



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________________________________

[1] The Council Secretariat regularly publishes a list of working groups. The last such overview
from February 2016, mentions 121 ‘preparatory bodies’ altogether, 100 chaired by the Presidency and
21 chaired by  an elected or an appointed chairman (Council Secretariat 2016).

[2] Dataset was kindly provided by Kaniok.

[3] Interview with attaché 9. 10. 2013, Interview with attaché 17. 10. 2013, Interview with attaché
18. 10. 2013, Interview with attaché 23. 10. 2013.

[4] For example, the Council´s Rules of Procedure considers a full round table as proscribed in
principle and encourages delegations to express their demands collectively. This concerns
particularly like-minded delegations which should hold consultations prior the meetings and then
present their common positions. The Council´s Rules of Procedure also expect that concrete
proposals for amendments should be sent in written form. See, in particular, Annex V of Council
Rules of Procedure

[5] Nagelkerke R^2 0.02 for all models .

[6] This difference is 29.45 for Model 1 (2552.72-2523,27), 31 for Model 2 (2552.72-2521.72),
31.19 for Model 3 (2558.00-2519.14) and 32.99 for Model 4 (2558.00-2525.01).