 One intention of the Council — originally known as the "German-American Council" — was to provide "points of contact" between members of the Methodist Church (Great Britain) and the United Methodist Church (USA) moving in and out of Germany and members of the German United Methodist congregations (Evangelisch-methodistische Kirche).Another intention involved strategic planting of English-language United Methodist congregations within German-language church structures, as had previously been done in Vienna, Austria, by the Austria Provisional Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church in the Central Conference of Central and South-eastern Europe.The Council meets normally once or twice a year with German and international representatives from the various regions (Annual Conferences) of the German church and the U.S. church agencies.