About the Committee of Ministers
Restricted access: Login
Disconnect
Who we are
The Committee of Ministers is composed of the Ministers for Foreign Affairs of the 46 member States of the Council of Europe or their Permanent Representatives in Strasbourg.
- Council of Europe Member States and Observer States
- Committee of Ministers - Foreign Ministers
- Permanent Representatives - Ministers' Deputies
Secretariat
The Secretariat of the Committee of Ministers (SecCM) comprises some 22 members of the General Secretariat. It is headed by the "Secretary to the Committee of Ministers", who has the rank of a Director General.
Presidency
Luxembourg
13 November 2024 - 14 May 2025
- Priorities of the Luxembourg Presidency
- Presidency website
- Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs, Defence, Development Cooperation and Foreign Trade
The Presidency of the Committee of Ministers is transferred each six months, in May and November, from one member State to the next in English alphabetical order.
What we do
The Committee of Ministers is the Council of Europe’s decision-making body. It is both a governmental body where national approaches to European problems are discussed on an equal footing and a forum to find collective responses to these challenges.
With the Parliamentary Assembly, it is the guardian of the Council’s fundamental values, and monitors member states’ compliance with their undertakings.
Structure and functioning
The role and functions of the Committee of Ministers (CM) are described in Chapter IV of the Statute of the Council of Europe.
The CM meets at ministerial level and at Deputy level.
The CM is assisted by a Bureau and by subsidiary groups which meet regularly to consider certain issues in depth before decisions are taken. These subsidiary groups are informal working structures of the Deputies and have no decision-making power. They prepare decisions for the Committee of Ministers for adoption, ideally without debate.
The Secretariat of the CM services the meetings of the Ministers and Ministers' Deputies and of their informal working structures.
