The working groups of the Council of the European Union: Supranational or intergovernmental negotiations?

The purpose of the article is to look at how far the functioning of Council working groups contributes to a supranational or to an intergovernmental communication network. For this we use data collected by interviewing diplomats and civil servants involved in these working groups. Our analysis consists of three steps. First, we describe the communication networks in general. Secondly, we look at how far Member States' representatives perceive similarities between their potential partners. Thirdly, we investigate to what extent there exist affinities between negotiators and their partners. In a final section, the potential of some explanatory variables will be explored.