Expression used in the EU for secret negotiators on behalf of the prime ministers or/and foreign ministers. In 2007 the German presidency used Sherpas from the member states to negotiate the declaration from Berlin 25 March 2007 and the constitutional process.
The word originally comes from an ethnic group from the most mountainous region of Nepal, high in the Himalaya. The Sherpas migrated from eastern Tibet to Nepal within the last 500 years.