Coreper is the Committee of Permanent Representatives of the governments of the member states to the European Union, the body of national ambassadors in Brussels that prepares every decision taken by the Council of the EU. The name comes from the French, Comite des representants permanents. Its job is to settle as much of a file as possible before ministers meet, so that the Council, which sits for only a few days a month, spends its time on the questions diplomats could not close. Formally, Coreper decides almost nothing. In practice it is where most of the Council's half of EU law is agreed, including the rules that govern cookies, consent, targeting and AI in European advertising.

Two committees, one body

Coreper meets in two formations. Coreper II brings together the 27 permanent representatives, who hold ambassadorial rank, and prepares the General Affairs, Foreign Affairs, Economic and Financial Affairs, and Justice and Home Affairs Councils. Coreper I gathers their deputies and prepares six configurations: Agriculture and Fisheries; Competitiveness; Education, Youth, Culture and Sport; Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs; Environment; and Transport, Telecommunications and Energy, according to the Council. The Council's own commentary on its rules stresses that "Coreper is, like the Council, a single entity" - the split is a division of labour, not a hierarchy.

Both formations usually meet at least weekly at the Council building in Brussels. The chair rotates every six months with the Council presidency, so the ambassador or deputy of the presiding country runs the table. Each is prepared the day before by a group of close aides: the Antici Group for Coreper II, set up in 1975, and the Mertens Group for Coreper I, set up in 1993, according to the Council's commentary on its rules of procedure.

Beneath them sit around 150 working parties and committees staffed by national civil servants, which together hold roughly 3,000 meetings a year, according to the Council. Katrina Williams, a former UK deputy permanent representative, described Coreper I in an October 2024 LSE paper as "the engine room of the EU Council", with around 200 open files at any one time.

How a file moves through it

A Commission proposal is first sent by the presidency to a working party, where national experts go through it line by line. What comes out goes to Coreper, whose agenda is split into two parts. "I" items were settled at working party level and pass without discussion. "II" items need debate, and the ambassadors can resolve them, send them back down or pass them up to ministers.

Once Coreper has agreed a point, it travels to the Council with an "I/A item note" and lands on the ministers' agenda as an A item, adopted without discussion. Under Article 3 of the Council's rules of procedure, the provisional agenda must circulate at least 14 days before the meeting, and an A item is withdrawn if a minister or the Commission asks or if it might prompt further discussion. Ministers spend their time on B items, the questions still open. Article 19 of the same rules states that "all items on the agenda for a Council meeting shall be examined in advance by Coreper unless the latter decides otherwise."

Most digital files are decided by qualified majority voting, which requires 55% of member states representing at least 65% of the EU population. Ambassadors know before ministers meet whether a blocking minority exists.

The legislative role

Under the ordinary legislative procedure, the Council and the European Parliament co-legislate. Coreper sits at three points in that process. First, it agrees the Council's negotiating mandate, sometimes called a general approach when ministers formally endorse it. Second, it supervises the presidency, which negotiates with Parliament in informal three-way talks with the Commission, and adjusts the mandate as talks move. Third, it examines the provisional deal. Under a 2007 joint declaration on codecision, "the chair of Coreper shall forward details of the substance of the agreement" by letter to the chair of the relevant Parliament committee, signalling that the Council will accept the text if Parliament adopts it unchanged.

The ambassadors approved the final text of the Digital Services Act on June 15, 2022, and the AI Act compromise on February 2, 2024, after France, Germany, Italy and Austria had reportedly sought late changes, according to Pinsent Masons.

Origin and evolution

The model predates the European Economic Community. On February 7, 1953, the Council of the European Coal and Steel Community created a coordination committee known as Cocor to prepare its meetings, according to the CVCE archive at the University of Luxembourg. An interim committee met 14 times between April and December 1957 to prepare the entry into force of the Rome treaties. On January 25, 1958, the Council decided to create a Committee of Permanent Representatives, confirmed in the EEC Council's provisional rules of procedure of March 18, 1958.

The division into two formations was formalised from 1962. Article 4 of the Merger Treaty, signed on April 8, 1965 and in force from July 1, 1967, gave the committee a treaty footing across the three Communities. The Court of Justice later described it as an auxiliary body of the Council, not an institution with powers of its own. The Lisbon Treaty, in force since December 2009, anchored Coreper in Article 16(7) of the Treaty on European Union and Article 240(1) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, adding the word "Governments" to make clear that permanent representations speak for governments rather than individual ministries.

Why it matters for advertising

Coreper is where national governments decide how far EU privacy and platform law reaches into the ad stack. The clearest example is the ePrivacy Regulation. The Commission proposed it in January 2017, with ideas such as moving cookie consent into the browser. Coreper rejected the Finnish presidency's compromise on November 22, 2019, according to the IAPP. Member states' representatives only agreed a mandate on February 10, 2021, and the Commission withdrew the proposal in February 2025 after eight years without agreement.

The same dynamic now governs the Digital Omnibus. On June 18, 2026, the Council's fifth compromise text removed Article 88b, the automated browser-level consent signal, after noyb said Germany, France and Poland had pushed for its deletion. French trade body Alliance Digitale had asked for that deletion in May. The Irish presidency's 158-page text of September 3, 2026, prepared for the Antici Group (Simplification), reworked the AI legitimate interest clause and dropped the unconditional objection right.

Coreper's position also shapes timing. The Council agreed its mandate on the AI part of the omnibus on March 13, 2026, days before Parliament's committees voted 101 to 9. Talks collapsed overnight in late April before a provisional deal on May 7 pushed Annex III high-risk deadlines to December 2, 2027.

Criticism and open disputes

The central criticism is opacity. Coreper and working party meetings are not public, and documents in ongoing procedures are typically marked LIMITE. In May 2018, European Ombudsman Emily O'Reilly found three forms of maladministration: failing to record systematically which governments took which positions, the disproportionate use of LIMITE, and late review of that marking. "Europeans need to know what their national governments are doing in Brussels," she said. Her report noted that 310 of 321 LIMITE documents on the GDPR were released on request while negotiations continued, which suggests the restriction was rarely necessary.

Leaks fill the gap. Restricted presidency texts on the Digital Omnibus reached the public through noyb, and a German diplomatic cable on the November 5, 2025 Coreper II meeting, published by former MEP Patrick Breyer, recorded national positions on the child sexual abuse regulation as mandatory detection orders were dropped.

A second dispute concerns accountability. The Council insists Coreper "is not an EU decision-making body", and its commentary calls it "neither an EU institution nor a decision-making body that can replace the Council". Critics argue that a body whose agreements are adopted without debate as A items exercises power that national parliaments struggle to scrutinise. Presidency haste is a third concern: noyb argued the Belgian presidency's push to close the GDPR procedural regulation produced a weak Council position.

Not the same as

  • Council of the EU: the ministers' body that adopts laws. Coreper prepares its work but cannot replace it.
  • European Council: the heads of state or government, who set political direction and do not legislate.
  • Council of Europe: a separate Strasbourg-based organisation outside the EU, author of the Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence.
  • Trilogue: the informal negotiation between Parliament, Council and Commission. Coreper mandates the Council's side and endorses the result, but is not the trilogue itself.

The name also belongs to the United Nations Environment Programme's Committee of Permanent Representatives in Nairobi, which is unrelated to the EU body.

Recent developments

As of October 2026, the Digital Omnibus data file sits with Coreper. Agence Europe reported that ambassadors were due to adopt a negotiating mandate on October 7, but the vote was postponed under joint pressure from Berlin and Paris over Data Act trade secrets protections and further GDPR easing. The Irish compromise cut the wait before re-requesting cookie consent after a refusal from six months to four. In September, 19 organisations asked the presidency and permanent representatives to reinstate Article 88b. Once Coreper agrees a mandate, trilogues with Parliament can begin.

Timeline

  • February 7, 1953: ECSC Council creates the coordination committee Cocor
  • April-December 1957: Interim committee meets 14 times to prepare the Rome treaties
  • January 25, 1958: EEC Council decides to create a Committee of Permanent Representatives
  • March 18, 1958: Provisional EEC Council rules of procedure confirm the committee
  • 1962: Split into Coreper I and Coreper II formalised
  • April 8, 1965: Merger Treaty signed, Article 4 giving Coreper a treaty basis
  • July 1, 1967: Merger Treaty enters into force
  • 1975: Antici Group created to prepare Coreper II
  • 1993: Mertens Group created to prepare Coreper I
  • June 13, 2007: Joint declaration sets the Coreper chair's letter for first reading agreements
  • December 1, 2009: Lisbon Treaty anchors Coreper in Article 16(7) TEU and Article 240(1) TFEU
  • January 2017: Commission proposes the ePrivacy Regulation
  • May 17, 2018: European Ombudsman's special report on Council legislative transparency
  • November 22, 2019: Coreper rejects the Finnish presidency's ePrivacy text
  • February 10, 2021: Council agrees its ePrivacy mandate
  • June 15, 2022: Coreper approves the Digital Services Act compromise
  • February 2, 2024: Coreper approves the AI Act final text
  • February 2025: Commission withdraws the ePrivacy proposal
  • November 5, 2025: Coreper II backs dropping mandatory detection orders in the child sexual abuse regulation
  • November 19, 2025: Commission presents the Digital Omnibus
  • March 13, 2026: Council mandate on the AI omnibus
  • May 7, 2026: Provisional agreement on the AI omnibus
  • June 18, 2026: Council compromise text deletes Article 88b
  • September 3, 2026: Irish presidency compromise text 12535/26
  • October 7, 2026: Coreper vote on the Digital Omnibus mandate postponed

Summary

Who: The 27 permanent representatives of EU member state governments (Coreper II) and their deputies (Coreper I), chaired by the country holding the six-month Council presidency and supported by around 150 working parties of national officials.

What: The Council of the EU's main preparatory body. It examines every item before ministers meet, agrees the Council's negotiating mandates with Parliament, endorses provisional deals and sends settled items to ministers for adoption without debate.

When: Created by decision of January 25, 1958, split into two formations from 1962, given a treaty basis by the Merger Treaty in 1965 and anchored in Article 240 TFEU since 2009. As of October 2026 it is negotiating the Council's Digital Omnibus mandate.

Where: The Council building in Brussels, with weekly meetings of each formation and its work applying across the EU's 27 member states.

Why: Ministers meet too rarely to negotiate complex legislation line by line. Coreper lets national governments settle most of a file in advance, which is why decisions on cookies, consent, AI and platform rules affecting the advertising industry are often effectively taken there.