1.1 Membership
1.2 Chairs
1.2.1 Selection procedure
1.2.2 Length of chairmanship
1.2.3 Duties
1.2.4 Absence
1.3 Responsibilities and powers
1.4 Functioning
1.4.1 Organisation of work
1.4.2 Meetings
1.4.3 Languages
1.4.4 Agenda
1.4.5 Documentation
1.4.6 Participation in meetings:
1.4.6.1 Non-member States without observer status
1.4.6.2 Other external personalities
1.4.6.3 Staff Committee
1.1 Membership
Rapporteur Groups are open to all delegations wishing to take part in the activities, to the EU and to states enjoying observer status with the CM.
3 Their members shall be permanent representatives or their deputies. They will be assisted by the Secretariat (and, where necessary, the Chair or members of committees of experts).
The
current list of Rapporteur Groups is: GR-DEM, GR-EXT, GR-PBA, GR-C, GR-H, GR-J and GR-SOC.
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1.2 Chairs
1.2.1 Selection procedure5
1.
Chairs of a Rapporteur Group are appointed from among Permanent Representatives;
2. Whenever the Chair of a Rapporteur Group becomes vacant, the Chair of the Deputies will notify the Deputies and any candidate interested in the position will notify the Chair of the Deputies accordingly;
3. A list of all foreseeable forthcoming vacancies in the following 12 months will be put on the CM website in order to allow delegations to have an overview and plan accordingly. It will be up-dated regularly;
4. The Deputies’ Bureau selects Chairs of Rapporteur Groups in accordance with all the following criteria: seniority, qualifications, availability and stated interest in the field of activities. Gender balance should be borne in mind when considering candidates;
5. The outgoing Chair of the Deputies may be offered the chairmanship of a group, regardless of his/her seniority;
6. The Bureau submits recommendations to the Deputies who then take a decision;
7. The Bureau should seek to make a recommendation by consensus, in principle within two meetings;
8. When more than one candidature is received, the Chair will carry out consultations with the candidates, in order to identify a consensual solution to be presented to the CM;
9. If the Bureau does not reach consensus, then the full list of candidates should be submitted for a decision by the CM. The list will contain the candidates who have expressed to the Chair the wish to maintain their candidature, in alphabetical order of the member State they represent;
10. If the Bureau makes a recommendation, but a candidate maintains his/her candidature, then the list of candidates will be submitted for a decision by the CM.
In case of a vote on the list of candidates, the candidate obtaining the simple majority of votes within the meaning of Article 10.4 of the rules of Procedure for the Meetings of the Deputies (ie, half of the number of the Deputies entitled to vote, plus one) and the largest number of votes shall be declared elected.6
1.2.2 Length of chairmanship
The term of office of each Chair of a Rapporteur Group is two years, in principle non-renewable, from the date of his/her nomination by the Deputies. This period may, however, be extended by the Deputies in exceptional cases, where continuity in the activities embarked upon by a particular group is required.
1.2.3 Duties
Within each Rapporteur Group the Chair has an instigating and guiding role in the group's sphere of work. He or she reports to the Deputies on the group's work when the items that the group has prepared come up for discussion.
Where appropriate, the Chair of each Rapporteur Group and the Group itself may make any contact outside the Council. Such contacts are made after consulting the Chair of the Deputies in good time, who may decide to refer the matter to the Bureau and, if necessary, the Deputies. These contacts should not interfere with the statutory role of the SG when representing the Organisation.
The guidelines for the conduct of meetings of the Deputies (cf.
II.B, §6.1: Guidelines for the conduct of meetings above) apply mutatis mutandis to the Chairs of Rapporteur groups. In addition, the following guidelines should also be applied:7
· advance knowledge of items for the agenda, planned timetable and timely distribution of documents;
· in principle, documents for discussion should be distributed 15 workings days in advance;
· delegations should ideally present proposed amendments in writing 3-5 working days before the date of the meeting;
· preliminary debates or exchanges of views in the groups should not take place if the documents were not distributed on time;
· in principle, information documents are not discussed unless a delegation so requests;
· group synopses should be distributed no later than 4 working days after the meeting.
1.2.4 Absence
The absence of a Rapporteur Group Chair should not prevent the group from meeting when necessary. Therefore a Vice-Chair can be appointed to stand in for the Chair in case of absence. Any appointment is made in close consultation with the Chair of the Deputies.
If both the Chair and Vice-Chair of a Rapporteur Group are absent or unavailable, it is recommended that a replacement be appointed on an ad hoc basis.
1.3 Responsibilities and powers
Each Rapporteur Group deals, in close contact with the SG, with matters falling within its field of activity.8 As such, it plays a part in the supervision of progress and results of the programme of activities.
Rapporteur Groups may engage in general policy discussions of relevance to their sectors of activity. They will develop their activities in contact with:
- the Assembly, its committees, their chairs and Rapporteurs, and, mutatis mutandis,
- the Congress and its bodies, as well as with
- steering committees, their Bureaux and chairs,
- conferences of specialised ministers and their preparatory committees.
Rapporteur Groups are responsible for maintaining dialogue with the steering committees and partial agreements (working in their respective sector of activities); this shall include, where necessary, the holding of hearings.
Rapporteur Groups may appoint working parties or thematic coordinators for a fixed time, after consultation with the Bureau, to consider specific issues within the Group’s field of competence.
Rapporteur Groups have no decision-making power.
The Secretariat is responsible inter alia for:
- providing general services such as preparation and distribution of documents to be discussed by Rapporteur Groups, including synopses of meetings;
- convening Rapporteur Groups meetings in accordance with the general practices of good management;
- where appropriate and under the supervision of the Bureau, co-ordinating the work of the different Rapporteur Groups.
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1.4 Functioning
1.4.1 Organisation of work
Work is organised on the following lines:
- Chair of the Deputies and Bureau (under the supervision of the Deputies): co-ordination of Rapporteur Groups' responsibilities;
- Rapporteur Groups:
· forums for information exchange and identifying problems,
· preparing Deputies' discussions, with the aim, ideally, of drawing up draft decisions grouped in a box in the draft order of business to be presented to the Deputies for adoption without debate,
· no rules of procedure and, in particular, no rule on quorums.
If a delegation considers it necessary, after the Rapporteur Group meeting, to continue discussion on an item at plenary level, the Chair of the Deputies and the Chair of the Group should be informed accordingly and if possible this fact should be mentioned in the synopsis of the meeting;
- Deputies: adoption of Decisions, discussion of general policy matters and rulings on questions not resolved within the Rapporteur Groups.
1.4.2 Meetings9
A timetable of meetings should be prepared, as far as possible well in advance, according to the following guidelines:
· meetings should only be convened when the agenda justifies it; as appropriate, the GR-DEM may hold a meeting every 3-4 weeks; the GR-PBA and GR-H every 4 weeks; the other GRs every 6 weeks; GTs as their task requires; additional meetings may be organised if necessary;
· Mondays and Fridays should generally be meeting-free days;
· meetings should be no longer than 3 hours;
· the GR-J and GR-H should in principle not take place during the same week;
· whenever possible, meetings should be avoided during school holidays.
1.4.3 Languages
Interpretation is in principle provided, unless there is an express agreement from the Chair of a particular group that a meeting may be held without interpretation.10
1.4.4 Agenda
Rapporteur Groups’ agendas are in principle drawn up at the instigation of the Deputies or the Deputies' Bureau.
Within their particular spheres of activity, the Chair of each Rapporteur Group and the Group itself has room for initiative. In the interest of consistency, however, they keep the Chair of the Deputies informed of their draft agendas, and he or she may decide to consult the Bureau and, if necessary, the Deputies.
1.4.5 Documentation
Convocations to and synopses of the meetings of the Rapporteur Groups are issued under the responsibility of each group’s Chair. Copies thereof are sent to all delegations and, where appropriate, to observers, in order to ensure that they are kept regularly informed of the work in progress in the different groups.
At their meetings, Rapporteur Groups endeavour to make use of annotated agendas and Chairs of the Deputies' Rapporteur Groups seek to comply with the deadline for circulation.
Meeting synopses should provide a succinct record of the content of the debates without, as far as possible, identifying the delegations concerned.
The presentation of documents should be standardised according to the following principles: concise, clear, and short. They should include at the beginning a summary, clearly defined recommendations for action to be taken, resource implications (financial and human) and a contact point.11
Documents should be presented within the deadlines set by the CM. In very exceptional and urgent cases, documents should be submitted no later than 24 hours before their consideration. In principle, the deadlines for Rapporteur Group documents are:12
- annotated agendas: the Friday before the week preceding the meeting
- documents for discussion: 15 workings days in advance
- synopses: 4 working days after the meeting
- delegations should ideally present proposed amendments in writing 3-5 working days before the date of the meeting.
Steering and expert committee reports and reports from conferences should be presented in the first instance to the competent Rapporteur Groups/Thematic coordinator within one month of the meeting; it being understood that the work of the Steering Committees will not be duplicated.13
1.4.6 Participation in meetings:
1.4.6.1 Non-member States without observer status
Representatives of non-member States without observer status are allowed to participate, on an ad hoc basis, in meetings of the Rapporteur Groups, if the topic to be discussed directly concerns those countries, upon invitation by the Chair of the relevant Group and with the prior agreement of the CM, in accordance with Article 20.a. of the Statute.14
1.4.6.2 Other external personalities
Where appropriate, the Chair of each Rapporteur Group and the Group itself may make any contact outside the Council. Such contacts are made after consulting the Chair of the Deputies in good time, who may decide to refer the matter to the Bureau and, if necessary, the Deputies. Delegations should be informed in good time of the participation of outside personalities in group meetings.15
1.4.6.3 Staff Committee
The Chairperson of the Staff Committee is authorised to attend meetings and follow the proceedings of the GR-PBA on a regular basis, it being understood that the existing provisions on relations between staff and the CM, as set out in the Article 7 of the Regulations on staff participation (Appendix I of the Staff Regulations), remained valid.16
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