asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs if the procedure outlined by him in reply to Question No. 36 on 4th February, 1975 concerning the EEC arrangements of the agenda at the beginning of a session applies to meetings of all councils of all ministers; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - EEC Agenda Arrangements.
16.
As the Deputy is aware, the procedure in question is aimed at implementing Point 6 of the communiqué issued at the end of the meeting of the heads of Government of the European Communities held at Paris on 9th December last in which the heads of Government stated that they consider that the practice of making agreement on all questions conditional on the unanimous consent of the member states should be dropped. In other words the procedure seeks to ensure that in the case of any particular proposal for which the Treaty provides for decision by a qualified majority, the practice of decision by unanimity will not apply where no vital national interest is concerned.
Use of the procedure, of course, presupposes that there are items on the agenda for which the Treaty provides for a decision by a qualified majority vote as otherwise its application would be somewhat superfluous.
To date the procedure has been applied at Council meetings attended by Ministers of Foreign Affairs although because of the presence of consensus among the member states in relevant instances it has not proved necessary to seek for a decision by a qualified majority vote.
At the meeting of the council in its other formations the practice adopted has depended on the circumstances. In a number of cases no formal decisions have been required: this for example is sometimes the case with meetings of Finance Ministers. In other cases all decisions may have to be taken by unanimous agreement so that, as I stated earlier, application of the procedure in these instances would be superfluous. Finally, I should perhaps add that the normal Council practice of taking qualified majority votes on budgetary items or on Commission decisions taken in accordance with specific regulations has, of course, continued.