Do specific Council of Ministers configurations run on rotation?

Question

There are a number of different configurations for the Council of Ministers, each corresponding to a policy area.

Do these configurations gather ad-hoc or on rotation?

Answer 1

It might depends on the configuration.

• ECOFIN (Economic and Financial), which is one of the oldest (configurations) generally meets once a month. (Likewise for AGRIFISH and Foreign Affairs.)

• COMPET, which is newer, meets (at least) four times a year. Likewise for the Environment (ENV) and JHA (Justice and Home Affairs).

• TTE (Transport, Telecommunications and Energy) even though it's theoretically one config, in practice it's three:

The composition of the TTE Council and the number of its meetings varies according to the items on the agenda:

• transport ministers usually meet four times a year

• energy ministers meet three or four times a year

• telecommunications ministers meet twice a year

• Another "jumbo" config is Education, Youth, Culture and Sport Council configuration (EYCS)

The precise composition of the Council depends on the items discussed in a particular meeting. [...] The EYCS Council meets three or four times a year; twice in its full configuration.

Etc. I'm not sure there's one that meets entirely ad-hoc. It looks like twice a year is the minimum frequency and once a month is the maximum for regular meetings of some arbitrary config.