Set in stone? Exploring the role of precision and vagueness in intergovernmental deliberations in the Council of Ministers of the European Union

This study examines the role of precision and vagueness in policy debates in the Council of Ministers of the European Union (EU). We hypothesise that ministers manipulate the precision of their interventions to explain support for policy change to their colleagues. We introduce a novel measure of precision constructed using large language models and validate these measures against human coding efforts. We then demonstrate how precision varies significantly across policy areas, member state representatives, and time. Our results provide new insights into the manner in which member states justify their voting behaviour to one another and the rhetorical structures that shape Council deliberations.