COSAC

COSAC is the Conference of Community and European Affairs Committees of Parliaments of the European Union. COSAC is made up of six representatives from each of the national parliaments of the 25 EU Member States and six representatives of the European Parliament. The parliaments of the candidate and acceding countries each delegate three parliamentarians as observers to its conferences. COSAC meets every six months in the country that currently holds the EU presidency. Meetings of committee chairs are held in advance of the full COSAC meetings.

Founded in 1989 in Paris as an informal forum for talks between national parliaments, COSAC was granted a more permanent status in 1997 by the Protocol to the Treaty of Amsterdam on the role of national parliaments in the European Union. Within the German Bundestag, responsibility for questions relating to COSAC lies with the Secretariat of the Committee on the Affairs of the European Union.