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Interesting about the US senate! I'm not sure that an EU member state can unilaterally make a similar decision though. The treaty is pretty clear that the counc

Interesting about the US senate! I'm not sure that an EU member state can unilaterally make a similar decision though. The treaty is pretty clear that the council is made up by government ministers: > Citizens are directly represented at Union level in the European Parliament. > Member States are represented in the European Council by their Heads of State or Government and in the Council by their governments, themselves democratically accountable either to their national Parliaments, or to their citizens.

ajb 3y ago
It's true that the wording runs like that. But here's the angle: the Council is the body intended to represent the member states, so the member states are the ones who get to decide who is going to represent them in council. At the moment, that's usually the minister for the subject under discussion. It's true that on those occasions where it is the head of state, you probably can't get round sending your head of state (and probably wouldn't want to). But if a member state decides they are going to define their own rules such that it's an elected representative that gets sent the rest of the time, the rest of the EU shouldn't be able to overrule it, because that would defeat the purpose of the role being one that is under control of a member state.