25 November 2024

LSE's Kleine,Huntingdon: How lunch breaks reduce transparency and help EU leaders reach agreement

Lunch breaks during meetings have become an increasingly important setting for confidential discussions between EU leaders. These discussions make it easier to reach agreements, they raise critical questions about the trade-off between transparency and confidentiality in EU and global governance.

In October 2024, EU ministers met informally with British Foreign Secretary David Lammy to discuss the UK’s potential reengagement with the EU on foreign affairs and defence policy. Described as an opportunity to sound out British and European positions regarding future cooperation, this meeting marked the first ministerial exchange of its kind since Brexit. While the formal agenda was publicly available, the most sensitive discussions occurred during a private lunch, with no official record kept.

This lunch exemplifies a broader phenomenon within EU policymaking. In a recent study, we argue that while the EU has made significant progress in enhancing transparency and opening decision-making to public scrutiny, these reforms have also unintentionally driven governments to increasingly rely on informal, opaque settings for sensitive exchanges.

Transparency often leads to performative behaviour, where negotiators focus on signalling to domestic audiences rather than reaching substantive compromises. Consequently, as transparency in formal meetings increases, governments create “pockets of confidentiality” to negotiate efficiently. However, these practices raise critical questions about the trade-off between transparency and confidentiality in EU and global governance.

Discussions during meal breaks

Our research draws on a dataset spanning 30 years of Council meetings, from 1990 to 2019, which tracks informal meal breaks during these sessions, mainly over lunch. These breaks provide ministers with opportunities for confidential discussion, as they temporarily suspend the formal rules of procedure.

This allows governments to limit participation (typically only government ministers and one Commission and one Council official are in attendance), minimise remote translation and forgo official documentation. And while it is customary to serve lunch during Council meetings, the Secretariat only makes note of those breaks that address substantive Council business. We identified over 800 such instances across more than 2,300 meetings over the past three decades, with a marked increase following key transparency enhancements.

Figure 1: Meals per session over time

 

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