Special chefs are a meeting of a member of each cabinet (for a certain area), the legal service and the secretariat general. They perform last minute preparations to proposed laws before they go before the College of Commissioners, but they are a "political equivalent of a College of Cardinals" with a great degree of cloak and dagger work.
The most "special" of these is the group for inter-institutional relations (formerly Parliamentary affairs) as it provides the Commission with an early warning on what the European Parliament is thinking - before it rejects the Commission's proposals. The most astute civil servants get sent to these meetings.
The heads of cabinets meet weekly in the "Hebdo" - the most important meeting of European Civil Servants who direct the work of the Commission and the Commissioners.
Read more about this topic: Cabinet (European Commission)
Famous quotes containing the word special:
“Here in the U.S., culture is not that delicious panacea which we Europeans consume in a sacramental mental space and which has its own special columns in the newspapers—and in people’s minds. Culture is space, speed, cinema, technology. This culture is authentic, if anything can be said to be authentic.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)