Economic and Financial Affairs Council
Configuration of the Council of the European Union
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Through Financial market and Balance of payments
ECOFIN often works with the European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs and the President of the European Central Bank.
Tasks
The Council covers a number of EU policy areas, such as economic policy coordination, economic surveillance, monitoring of Member States' budgetary policy and public finances, the euro (legal, practical and international aspects), financial markets and capital movements and economic relations with third countries. It also prepares and adopts every year, together with the European Parliament, the budget of the European Union which is about €145 bn.
Art. 284 of the TFEU enables the ECOFIN president can attend the meetings of the ECB's Governing Council as an observer.
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Decision making
The council meets once a month and decides mainly by qualified majority, in consultation or codecision with the European Parliament, with the exception of fiscal matters which are decided by unanimity. When the Ecofin Council examines dossiers related to the euro and EMU, the representatives of the Member States whose currency is not the euro do not take part in the vote of the council.
ECOFIN delegates some of its tasks to the Code of Conduct Group. For example, that Group has resolved issues of tax policy on Jersey, Gibraltar and other "dependent or associated territories", and investigated the UK Patent Box tax treatment.