C

Candidate Country
A country that has applied to join the European Union and whose application has been officially accepted. Before a candidate country can join the EU it must meet the "Copenhagen criteria". The official candidate countries at present are: Croatia, The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Turkey.

CAP
This accronym stands for the "Common Agriculture Policy". It is composed of two pillars; the first pillar finances direct payment to farmers and the second pillar supports actions for rural development . It has been reformed several times but still occupies a major part of the total EU budget.

CAP reform
The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) was first introduced in 1960, to ensure that Europe had secure food supplies at affordable prices. But it became a victim of its own success, generating unwanted surpluses of some products such as beef, barley, milk and wine. Also, the subsidies paid to European farmers were distorting world trade. In 1999, the European Commission began to review the CAP and additional reforms were made in 2003, placing a greater emphasis on high-quality farm produce and animal-friendly farming practices that respect the environment and preserve the countryside. The EU plans to cut back on direct subsidies to farmers to redress the balance between EU agricultural markets and those of the developing world.

Chamber of commerce
Organisations working to improve the business environment. The local Chambers of Commerce in each country are connected in a national network and these national Chambers of Commerce are all members of Eurochambres

Citizenship of the Union
All nationals of EU Member states have the status of citizen of the Union, which compliments the national citizenship and ensure, among other things, the freedom of movement and residence within the territory and voting rights for the European Parliament

Civil society
Name for the organizations and associations that are not part of government but that represent professions, interest groups or sections of society. It includes trade unions, employers' associations, environmental lobbies and groups representing women, farmers, people with disabilities, etc. The EU regulary consults civil society organizations because of their expertise in specific areas and their involvement with implementing and monitoring EU policies. The EU is working to get civil society organization more involved.

Codecision procedure
This decision-making procedure covers 43 areas under the first pillar. It was established by the Maastricht Treaty and is based on the principle of parity, meaning that neither the European Parliament nor the Council can adopt legislation without the other’s assent.

Cohesion Fund
Established in 1994, the original objective of this fund was to support Member States who could not meet the convergence criteria concerning the budget deficit. Member States wiching to benefit from this fund can not have a GDP per capita above 90 % of the EU average.

Comitology
Officially known as "committee procedure". It describes a process in which the Commission, when implementing EU law, has to consult special advisory committees made up of experts from the EU countries.

Commission of Representatives Permanent
The acronym for this term is COREPER and its task is to prepare the meetings of the Council. It is composed by permanent representatives of each Member State.

Commission working documents
The Commission publishes these documents in order to stimulate the discussion of a specific topic.

Committee of Regions
This is a consultative committee made up of 263 representatives of local and regional authorities of the Union. It represents the interests of settlements and regions and its main task is to ensure the principle of subsidarity

Common Foreign and security policy
This policy was established and is governed by Title V of the Treaty on European Union (EU). It replaced the European Political Cooperation (EPC) and provides for the eventual framing of a common defence policy, which might in time lead to a common defence. The policy's objectives are set out in Article 11 in the EU Treaty and are to be attained through specific legal instruments (joint action and common positions), which must be adopted unanimously by the Council. Its fundamental objectives are to safeguard common values, fundamental interest, independence and integrity of the EU in conformity with the UN charter, strengthen the security of the Union, preserve peace and strengthen international security, promote international cooperation and develop and consolidate democracy and the rule of law and respect for human rights and fundamental freedom.

Common market
When the EEC was founded in 1957, it was based on a "common market". The idea was that people, goods and services should be allowed to move freely between the Member States as if they were all one country, with no checks carried out at the borders and no customs duties paid. However, this took a while to achieve: customs duties between the EEC countries were not completely abolished until 1 July 1968. Other barriers to trade also took time to remove, and it was not until the end of 1992 that the "Single Market" (as it became known) was in place.

Communications
A European Institution introducing new programmes or policies transmits this type of document, which has no legal value.

Community bridge
This is a procedure for transferring certain matters from the third "pillar" of the EU (see below) to the first "pillar" so that they can be adressed with using the Community method. Any decision to use the bridge has to be taken by the Council, unanimously, and then ratified by each Member State.

Community Initiatives
Under the programming period 2000-2006 there are four Community Initiatives; Interreg III (stimulating cross-border, transnational and inter-regional cooperation), Urban II (encouraging social and economic regeneration of declining urban districts), Leader +(promotes rural development) and Equal (support new or experimental methods to combat inequality and discrimination on the labour market). These initiatives search for common solutions to common problems and are financed by the Structural Funds. These initiatives will be mainstreamed into other funds for the period 2007-2013.

Community method
This is the EU's usual method of decision-making, in which the Commission makes a proposal to the Council and Parliament, who then debate it, propose amendments and eventually adopt it as EU law. In the process, they will often consult other bodies such as the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions.

Community policies
These policies are under the competence of the EU and consists of the Common Agricultural, the Common Trade Policy, the Policy of Transport and the Financial Policy.

Community Programme
These programmes are a series of integrated measures aiming to strengthen the cooperation between Member States regarding Community policies with a long time perspective.

Competencies
Eurojargon for "powers and responsibilities". It is often used in political discussions about which powers and responsibilities should be given to EU institutions and which should be left to national, regional and local authorities.

Concentration
This principle for EU funding by Structural Funds means that objectives for the funding should be clearly defined.

Consolidated legislation
Integrating the basic instruments of Community legislation, their amendments and corrections into a single non-official documents in order to provide a more transparent and easier access to EU-law. This on-going project is undertaken by the Office for Official Publications of the European Community and is available in HTML or PDF format. Consolidated text has no legal value and for legal purposes, users should refer to the texts published in the Official Journal.

Constitution of the EU
At present, the EU is founded on four basic treaties that lay down the rules by which it must operate. The treaties are long and complex, and EU leaders would like to replace them with a single, shorter, simpler document spelling out the EU's purposes and aims and stating clearly who does what. This new document (technically known as the "constitutional Treaty") would rather have been similar to the constitution of a country - even though the EU is not, and does not aim to be, a single country. A proposal for an EU Constitution was drawn up in 2003 by the Convention on the future of Europe, but the ratification by each Member State failed.

Convention on the future of Europe
The European Convention (also known as the Convention on the future of Europe) was set up in December 2001. It had 105 members, representing the presidents or prime ministers of the EU Member States and candidate countries, their national parliaments, the European Parliament and the European Commission. Its Chairman was former French President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing. The Convention's job was to draw up a new Treaty that would set out clear rules for running the European Union after enlargement. It was, in effect, to be the Constitution of the EU.

Convention
This term has various meanings, including (in the EU context) a group of people representing the EU institutions, the national governments and parliaments, who come together to draw up an important document. Conventions of this sort met to draw up the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and to draft EU Constitution.

Convergence criteria
In order to be able to participate in the third stage of EMU, each Member State must satisfy these four Convergence criteria: The inflation rate must not exceed more than ½ percentage point that of the three best performing Member States and the ratio of gross government debt to GDP deficit must not exceed 3 % and the deficit the ratio of gross government debt to GDP must not exceed 60 %. The Member State must have participated in the ERM during the two years preceding the examination and not have devalued its currency during the same period. The nominal long-term interest rate must not exceed more than 2 percentage points that of the three best performing Member States

Copenhagen criteria
In June 1993, EU leaders meeting in Copenhagen set three criteria that any candidate country must meet before it can join the European Union. First, it must have stable institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights and respect for minorities. Second, it must have a functioning market economy. Third, it must take on board all the acquis (see above) and support the various aims of the European Union. The EU reserves the right to decide when a candidate country has met these criteria and when the EU is ready to accept the new member.

CORDIS
This acronym stands for Community Research and Development Information Service and provides information about all EU-supported R&D activities including projects and programmes.

Council
There are three different European bodies with the word "council" in their names:

The European Council: This is the meeting of heads of State and government (i.e. presidents and/or prime ministers) of all the EU countries, plus the President of the European Commission. The European Council meets, in principle, four times a year to agree on overall EU policy and to review progress. It is the highest-level policy-making body in the European Union, and its meetings are called “summits”.

The Council of the European Union: Formerly known as the Council of Ministers, this institution consists of government ministers from all the EU countries. The Council meets regularly to make detailed decisions and to pass European laws.

The Council of Europe: This is not an EU institution. It is an intergovernmental organization based in Strasbourg, France and aims (amongst other things) to protect human rights, promote Europe’s cultural diversity and combat social problems such as xenophobia and intolerance. The Council of Europe was established in 1949 and one of its early achievements was to draw up the European Convention on Human Rights. It set up the European Court of Human Rights to enable citizens to exercise their rights under that Convention

Court of Auditors
Monitors the management of Community finances and controls the spending and incomes of the EU.

Court of First Instance
It was created in 1989 in order to strengthen the protection of individuals' interests. It consists of one president and 25 judges, one from each Member State. It is an independent Court attached to the European Court of Justice. By the Treaty of Nice, CFI became the ordinary court for all direct actions, i.e. appeals against a decision, failure to act and damage with the exception of those assigned to a judicial panel and those reserved to the court of Justice.

Court of Justice
This is the supreme court of the EU. It handles disputes between Member States and upholds tTreaties of the EU. It is based in Luxembourg and is composed of 25 judge, one from each Member State.

Critical mass
This term is used when an important amount of resources will be mobilised, example: critical mass of human resources

Cultural capitals
Every year a number of European cities are designated as "cultural capitals". The aim is to publicise and celebrate the cultural achievements and charms of these cities and make European citizens more aware of the rich heritage they share.

CURIA
This is the official website of the Court of Justice