A Council working party or working party is a preparatory body of the Council of the European Union. The more than 150 working parties are tasked with the first examination of legislative proposals by the European Commission and play a role during the trilogue meetings which serve to shorten the legislative procedure of the European Union.

Working parties are made up of civil servants of the Member States, the European Commission and the General Secretariat of the Council and chaired by the Member State, which currently holds the rotating Council presidency.

Scholars argue that working parties informally make the majority of Council decisions.

The legal basis for Council working parties is Article 19(3) of the Council's Rules of Procedure. According to this rule, "working parties may be set up by, or with the approval of, Coreper with a view to carrying out certain preparatory work or studies defined in advance". Coreper, the Committee of Permanent Representatives, thus creates or approves every Council working party.

In the legislative procedure of the European Union, the European Commission has – with some rare exceptions – the sole right to propose new European legislation. If the European Commission proposes new legislation, this proposal (also called "dossier") is submitted to a Council working party for a first examination. The current Council presidency decides, which working party is to be tasked with the examination of the proposal.

In a Council working party, every Member State is represented by its civil servants, who come either from their ministries or their permanent representations. The members of the working party examine the commission's proposal and analyse whether the proposal is compatible with the legal system of the respective Member State and whether its policies are acceptable for their national government. For this work they receive instructions by their government. During the sessions of the working party, it is the task of the civil servants of the European Commission to explain and defend their proposal.

The examination of a Commission proposal ends, if the Council presidency – which rotates every six months between the Member States – concludes that there is enough support for the adoption of a common position of the Council on the dossier, called the general approach. However, no voting takes place in a working party.

The Council presidency then submits the position of the working party on the dossier to Coreper for a vote. In Coreper, the Member States are represented by their permanent representatives, thus at ambassadorial level. If the vote is successful, the file goes to the Council of the European Union – which is convened at ministerial level – for a further final vote on the general approach.