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Duke, Simon --- "The Role of Committees and Working Groups in the CFSP Area" [2007] ELECD 179; in Christiansen, Thomas; Larsson, Torbjörn (eds), "The Role of Committees in the Policy-Process of the European Union" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2007)

Book Title: The Role of Committees in the Policy-Process of the European Union

Editor(s): Christiansen, Thomas; Larsson, Torbjörn

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781845426224

Section: Chapter 6

Section Title: The Role of Committees and Working Groups in the CFSP Area

Author(s): Duke, Simon

Number of pages: 32

Extract:

6. The role of committees and working
groups in the CFSP area
Simon Duke

INTRODUCTION

The role of committees in the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP)
is rarely subject to the same type and depth of scrutiny as that of others in
the Community. It is therefore of credit to the editors of this volume that
they have specifically included CFSP committees as part of the examination.
The committees in the CFSP area, using the broad terminology adopted in
other chapters, include both the `low' committees, primarily the working
parties, and the `high committees'. The emphasis in this chapter will be
upon the latter and, more particularly, the Political and Security Committee
(PSC). The justification for this is threefold. First, when compared with
that of other EU high committees, the role of the PSC is perhaps under-
appreciated since it is at the hub of much of the EU's diplomatic activity
and is the linchpin for a growing number of crisis management operations.1
Second, the role of the PSC is an interesting case study of `Brusselisa-
tion', or the process whereby those competences formally attributed to the
Member States are increasingly executed by Brussels-based fonctionnaires
(see Allen, 1998). Finally, the relationship between the PSC and the other
principal high committee, the Committee of Permanent Representatives
(COREPER), is also of significance when trying to understand the role of
committees in the CFSP area.
The significance of this chapter (and volume) is hopefully also to be
found in ...