EUROPEAN POLITICS FUNDAMENTALS — Chapter 4, Exercise 2
Which Body Handles This?
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QUESTION:
Sort each of the following into "Council of the EU," "European
Council," or "Council of Europe": (a) the EU's 27 finance ministers
negotiating a new banking regulation, (b) EU heads of government
agreeing on a shared long-term strategic priority, (c) a human rights
case being heard in Strasbourg.

SOLUTION:

(a) The EU's 27 finance ministers negotiating a new banking
    regulation → COUNCIL OF THE EU. This is the Economic and
    Financial Affairs (ECOFIN) configuration — national ministers
    meeting by policy area to work toward binding EU legislation,
    exactly the Council of the EU's real legislative function.

(b) EU heads of government agreeing on a shared long-term strategic
    priority → EUROPEAN COUNCIL. Setting general political direction
    and priorities, rather than passing binding legislation, is
    precisely the function Article 15(1) TEU assigns to the European
    Council specifically.

(c) A human rights case being heard in Strasbourg → COUNCIL OF
    EUROPE. The European Court of Human Rights, which sits in
    Strasbourg, is the real judicial body of the Council of Europe —
    a completely separate, non-EU international organization, not
    the EU's own Court of Justice (which sits in Luxembourg).

WHY THIS WORKS AS AN ANSWER
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Each example was chosen to map cleanly onto one, and only one, of the
three bodies' own real defining features: policy-area ministerial
composition for the Council of the EU, direction-setting rather than
lawmaking for the European Council, and the Strasbourg/human-rights
association unique to the non-EU Council of Europe. The location cue
in part (c) — Strasbourg, not Luxembourg — is itself a useful, real
shortcut for distinguishing the two very differently-purposed courts.