Together with the European Parliament, the Council of the European Union (CEU) is the main decision-making body in the EU. One minister from each national government attends CEU meetings. Which minister attends a meeting depends on the topic to be discussed. The minister represents his/her Member State. Food safety issues, for example, are dealt with at meetings of the “Agriculture and Fisheries” CEU, while food labelling can be addressed in both the “Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs” CEU, and “Agriculture and Fisheries” CEU, depending on the nature of the labelling.

European legislation in the area of consumer health protection and food and feed safety is adopted through the “ordinary legislative procedure”, the most frequently applied legislative procedure in EU law. The “ordinary legislative procedure” means that draft legislation needs to be adopted by both the CEU and the European Parliament (EP).