The institutional organisation of the European Union (EU) is unique and differs radically from the institutions of its 27 Member States. There is no single president, nor any European prime-minister, and not even a single European government in charge. Every institution has its own structure, members and specific place among the other European institutions.

There are seven EU institutions :

These institutions are assisted by two advisory bodies :

• The Economic and Social Committee (ESC) : its main purpose is to stand for the interests of the various economic and social groupings of civil society (ex. employers, workers, farmers, liberal professions, etc.). The ESC must be consulted on a large number of topics (ex. social issues, public health, environment...) and can also be consulted by the European Commission, the European Parliament, and th Counsil of the European Union. It can also gives its opinion on its own initiative.
  

• The Committee of the Regions (CoR) : its main purpose is to represent the interests of the regional and local authorities of the Member States of the European Union. Its consultation is mandatory in certain domains (ex. education, culture, trans-european networks, etc.) and can also be consulted freely by the European Commission, the European Parliament, and the Council of the European Union. Just like the ESC, the Committee of the Regions may also take the intiative to issue opinions in cases deemed appropriate.
  

Being or not being a European institution involves (aside from the prestige) above all legal effects. The title "institution" gives for instance the right to petition the Court of Justice of the European Union in the case of failure by any EU-institution concerning the respect of rights and obligations defined at community level. There are also institutions and not the bodies that adopt legal acts (regulations, directives, decisions, recommendations and opinions) necessary for the exertion of the European Union's power.

However, not having the "institutional seal" does not mean being without importance:

The European Investment Bank (EIB) for instance grants credits and gives guarantees for the financing of investment projects, which contributes to a balanced development of the European Union. This bank, seated in Luxembourg, finances projects of common interest in several Member States, a substantial task which has become increasingly important since the introduction of article 4B of the Maastricht Treaty, which raises considerably the status of the European Investment Bank by placing it officialy among the major organs of the EU.
The EIB, located in Luxembourg, has already supported several projects of the EU-Member States such as for instance, the construction of a health science campus in Belgium, the construction of a bio-ethanol factory in Poland, the development of the TGV network in France, etc.


The next part will be dedicated to the detailed study of the main EU-institutions that take part in the elaboration of the European legislation.

The European Council

The idea of creating the European Council dates back to 1974. Through its foundation, the Community's Heads of State or Government wanted to create an informal forum for top-level political discussion.

The Single European Act (SEA) officially stated the existence of the European Council, but did not clearly define its role or its competences. It was in 1993, with the Treaty of Maastricht, that its role was finally defined: "it gives to the Union the necessary impulses for its development and it defines the general political orientations". (Treaty of Maastricht, art.D).

The European Council is an offical institution of the European Union since the entering into force of the Treaty of Lisbon, on the 1st of December 2009. The presidency of the institution is held by a permanent president (the former Prime-Minster of Belgium, Herman van Rompuy) elected by qualified majority by the members of the European Council for two-and-a-half-years, with the aim of giving a face and voice to the Union. The president is elected by qualified majority by the members of the European Council, and he is charged with presiding over and coordinating the meetings of the Council. One of his other roles is to represent the European Council abroad, for the relevant matters of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), without having the responsibilities, however, of a High representative of the Union regarding foreign affaires (position created by the Treaty of Lisbon in order to promote the activity of the European Union on an international scale).

The European Council consists of the Heads of state or government of the Member States, alongside its own President and the Commission President. The Head of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (the English Catherine Ashton, former european commissioner responsible for trade) also takes part in the activities of the Council.

The role assumed by the European Council is of crucial importance for the functioning of the European Union. It is actually up to the members of the European Council to decide on the future political occupations of the EU. For instance, it was during the Summit of Madrid in 1995, that the European Council definitively adopted the principle of the introduction of a common currency by the 1st of January 1999. It was during the European Summit in Brussels in June 2007 that the the European Council decided to relaunch the institutional process in spite of the standby NO of the French and Dutch in the Draft Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe in 2005. It is therefore not surprising that the media pays special attention to meetings of the European Council.

The members of the European Council meet at least two times each semester, but the president of the Council can call together for extraordinary meetings if necessary. Generally, the European Council decides by consensus of opinion, but it can also pronounce decisions by vote.

The Council of the European Union has its seat in Brussels. The presidency of the Council is rotating at a six-month interval among the 27 member states. The chairmanship is curranly held by Poland, until January 2012.

The Council of the EU is the institution representing the general interests of the member states of the European Union. It brings together the 27 ministers of the member states. The ministers do not meet systematically or on a regular basis, once a week or once a month. They meet according to the topics currently being discussed. If the topic of the day is an agricultural matter, the 27 ministers responsible for this subject meet in order to discuss it. If the subject on the agenda is transport, the 27 ministers responsible for this special domain will meet etc.

The minsiters of the Council come together to negociate and adopt community legislation (regulations and directives for instance). A Committee consisting of permanent representatives of the 27 member states (the COREPER) assists the Council, being in charge of the preparation of the items of its agenda (proposals, drafts, preparation of the sessions, etc.).

For decision-making within the Council of the European Union, there are three main processes:

• Voting by simple majority : requires 14 votes of 27
  
• Voting by qualified majority : requires 225 votes of the total of the 345 votes (see below)
  
• Voting by unanimity
  

The voting-procedure which is to be applied to a certain case, depends of the topic currently being discussed. For rather "sensitive topics" such as common foreign and security policy, or justice and home affairs co-operation, the voting by unanimity is to be employed. The simple majority voting is on the contrary used very rarely, principally when no other voting system is stipulated in the treaties.

Most of the decisions are however taken by qualified majority. In order to take into account the geographical and economic differences between the member states, the Council of the EUuses a weighted voting system. The 27 ministers of the Council have at their disposal a total of 345 votes, weighted in accordance with their geographical/economic importance : the "big" countries such as Germany, France, United Kingdom and Italy hold 29 votes each; Spain and Poland 27 votes each; Belgium, Greece, the Netherlands, Portugal, Hungary, and the Czech Republic 12 votes each; 4 each for Cyprus, Estonia, Latvia, Luxembourg, and Slovenia; and finally Malta, the very smallest of the European member states, holds 3 votes.


Thus, at Council level, the smaller countries of the Union seem to be over-represented. Malta for instance, counts 3 votes for a population of 402.700 persons, while Germany with its 82.5 million of citizens has only 29 votes!

Beginning in 2014, a new majority will apply for qualified majority votes in the Council of the Union. It will be defined as being equal to at least 55% members of the Counsil (comprised of at least fifteen of the members states) and representing the member states comprising at least 65% of the population of the European Union. New modifications can be made after the accession of Croatia to the European Union previewed for the 1st of July 2013.

For some ''sensible'' subjects like common foreign and security policy, however the voting by unanimity is applied. The voting by simple majority is used very seldom (especially in the areas where no particular procedure is previewed by the treaties)


The Council of the EU has its headquarters in Brussels. The presidency of the Council is exerted in turn by the Member States of the European Union for the period of six months. From the 1st of January the presidency of the Council is ensured by Denmark. After this will be the turn of Cyprus in the second semester 2012, and later the one of Ireland from the 1st of January 2013

The European Commission is responsible for a large part of the practical tasks of the Union. It can indeed be considered as the central administrative machinery of the Community. About 30.000 agents are working to set up the European law proposals which are to be submitted to the voting of the Council of the EU and of the European Parliament. Hence, these people are known as the "eurocrats" or "techonocrats."

It is indeeed the European Commission which, in a large number of domains, holds the monopoly of the initiative at community level. It plays an essential role in the preparation and execution of european politics. Before submitting a legislative text, the Commission conducts preliminary interviews with the governments of the member states, the representatives of industry and unions, and other experts to take into account their interests in its initiatives.

The workforce of the Commission is mainly located in Brussels (about 18.000 agents), yet another 2.500 agents are working in Luxembourg. Research centers are also to be found in Ispra (Italy), Geel (Belgium), Karlsruhe (Germany) and in Petten in the Netherlands.

But the European Commission is not only "administator," nor initiator in the decision-making process, it also has several other functions :

• It ensures that Community legislation is properly implemented ("guardian of treaties")
  
• It is in charge of the implementation of the common budget of the Union
  
• It represents the interests of the European Union on a world-wide basis (following instructions given by the Council of the Union, notably concerning the setting up of commercial agreements with third countris or the setting up of international agreements).
  

Today, the President of the European Commission is the Portuguese José Manuel Barroso. He was appointed to this function in November 2004, and he will preside for five years. This nomination was approved by the European Parliament.

The work of the Commission is carried out by a college of 27 persons, called Commissioners. Each member state has only one Commissioner, whose term is for 5 years.

Each Commissioner is in charge of very specific domains such as education, transports, health, etc.

Some exemples :

Androulla Vassiliou (CY): Education, Culture and multilingualism and Youth
Günther Öttinger (DE): Energy
Michel Barnier (FR): Domestic market and public services
John Dalli (MT) : Health and Consumer protection
Siim Kallas (EE) : Transports


Even if the Commissioners are in charge of very different domains, the European Commission always decides collectively (that is unanimously) on every file. The deliberations are acquited by the majority of the members. The dispatching of the domains is undertaken at the beginning of the mandate of the Commissioners by the president of the Commission.

Before submitting new proposals, the European Commission however, proceeds by preliminary consultations with the governments of the member states, the representatives of the industry, the unions and/or other experts, so that their interests can be taken into account in its initiatives.

The members of the European Commission come together once a week in Brussels. Meetings taking place during the plenary session of the European Parliament are nevertheless held in Strasbourg, the official seat of the Parliament.

The commissioners are named by common agreement by the members states after a vote by the European Parliament. They are completely independent of their member states. The commissioners represent the general interes of the European Union and they are collectively responsible to the European Parliament (which can censure the Commission and force the commissioners to abandon their functions). In March 1999, the Commission chose to disperse itself after receiving an official censure from the European Parliament.
Like the college of commissioners, the president of the European Commission and the High Representative of the Union for foreign affaires and security matters (commissioner and vice-president of the Commission) were also subject to a vote of approval from the European Parliament.

The seat of the European Commission is in Brussels. The administrative personnel of the Commission is dispersed throughout many workplaces of which the principal locations are Brussels (about 24000 agents) and Luxembourg ( where about 4000 agents work). There are also people in charge of research activities in the name of the Commission allocated among research centers in Ispra in Italy, Geel in Belgium, Karlsruhe in Germany, and Pettan in the Neverlands.

The European Parliament allows the citizens of the EU to participate directly in European political affairs. The citizens of the 27 member states appoint thier deputies in the national circumscriptions for a five-year period. These deputies are to represent the interests of their electors on a European level. The latest elections (by direct universal suffrage) took place in June 2009.

The Parliament counts 754 directly elected members coming from the 27 member states. These Members of European Parliament (MEPs) represent the 500 millions citizens of the EU.The number of deputies from a given country does not always reflect the size of its population. For example, each German member of Parliament represents some 828.000 citizens, while his collegue from Luxembourg represents only about 82.000 inhabitants.

The deputies do not group together by nationality, but by political affinity. A total of seven political groups are represented in Parliament (including several non attached members-NI) and all the tendencies from the very right to the very left are thus taking part in the forum:

• Group of the European People's Party (EPP)
  
• Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament (S&D)
• Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALD)
• Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance (Greens/EFA)
• European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR)
  
• Confederal Group of the European United Left-Nordic Green Left (GEU/NGL)
• Europe of Freedom and Demoracy Group (EFD)

To see the exact distribution of the seats of the deputies, have a look at the Members of the European Parliament.

The minimal number of deputies to form a political group is 25 (elected in at least a quarter of the member states).

The European People's Party (EPP) and the Socialists (P&D) has the greatest number of members (279 and 190 deputies respectively - facts from the 18th of January 2012).


The European Parliament organises a large part of its work by means of parliamentary committees. These can be permanenet, temporary or of inquiry. 20 permanent committees exist, dealing with different topics such as budgetary and economic matters, institutional questions etc. Their principal task is to prepare for the plenary sessions of the Parliament. They are for instance in charge of the elaboration of the reports which are to be voted on during the sessions.

The head of the European Parliament is of course its president, appointed for two and a half year period. Since January 2012, the presidency is held by Martin Schulz (of Germany).

The seat of the Parliament is located in Strasbourg. All the plenary sessions, as well as the budgetary sessions take place here. The additional sessions take place in Brussels, while the secretary of the Parliament is located in Luxembourg.

Since 1957, the role of the European Parliament has grown gradually:

The Parliament shares the budgetary power with the Council of the European Union. It has the right to modify (within certain limits) the distribution and the amounts of the non-compulsory expenditures (functioning expenditures of the EU institutions for instance) and to propose modifications of the compulsory expenditures corresponding to the commitments taken with the framework of the treaties (such as agricultural expenditures). The Parliament establishes the Community budget in its final shape. It can reject the entire budget if it has "important reasons" to do so (this has already happened several times).

The Parliament plays a central role in the management of the European Union by the fact that it is participating directly in the elaboration of European legislation (in collaboration with the Commission and the Council of the EU).

In effect, no European law can see the day without the preliminary consultation of the Parliament, which has to be consulted about the legislative entity of any proposal. Today, the most common legislative procedure applied in the EU is the co-decision procedure, concerning more than 85 different domains, from the free-passage for workers, to the consumer protection, also counting the environment, the non-discrimination on nationality reasons, and the fight against the tax evasion. This procedure allows the European Parliament to collect legislative taxes, in the same way as the Council of the Union.

The Court of Justice of the European Union is the Union's single control body of legal nature. It is a sort of legislative watchdog in charge of verifing the interpretation and the application of the community legislation

This institution must not be confused with the European Court of Human Rights (based in Strasbourg), in charge of the respect of human rights, neither with the International Court of Justice (in the Hague, Netherlands).

The Court of Justice, which has its seat in Luxembourg, is composed of 27 judges (one judge per member state), as well as 8 advocates-general, appointed for a renewable six-year term, by agreement among the member states of the European Union. The judges are selected from "persons whose independance is beyond doubt" and who are legal experts of recognised competence.

Just like the judges, the advocates-general are appointed for six years by agreement of the gouvernments of the member states. They are to respect the same criteria of independence and competence as the judges. The advocates-general are in charge with the public presentation of the conclusions of affairs submitted by the judges of the Court.

The Court can be petitioned by all parties - community institutions, member states, person or entity - on the occasion of a dispute concerning a community act or an EU institution. A private person (having exhausted all the means of national appeals) has then the right to appeal to the Court of Justice to claim or to defend his or her rights at a European level.

The main forms of appeal are:

• Appeal in neglect (in case of disregard of obligations introduced by the community law)
• Annulment of binding acts (in case of non-legality of the community acts)
• Proceedings for failure to act (in case of illegal activity of the community acts)
  

The decisions of the Court are pronounced at the majority of its members (27 judges). The rulings are to be applied immediately in the member states.

To ease the burden of the European Court of Justice, a Court of First Instance (made of 27 members) was set up in 1989 dealing with appeals introduced by persons and entities against decisions of the EU institutions. They are occupied with:

• Administrative disputes within the EU institutions and their staff
• Disputes due to competition cases (company concentrations, dumping, etc.)
  

The Court of Justice of the European Communities is often solicited with appeals concerning a wide range of matters. The best known judgements, however, concerned the domestic market. For instance, this was the case of the judgement "Cassis of Dijon" of 1979, about the principle of mutual confidence. By this judgement, the Court of Justice stated that any product legally manufactured in one of the member states of the European Union, must be immediately admitted to any other market of the 27 member states. This judgement thus introduced the priciple of free movement of goods, whenever they satisfy the essential European health and security requirements. The "Cassis of Dijon" judgement was an important contribution to the opening of a real, single European market.

The Court of Auditors is responsible for controling the Community budget. It assures the good financial management of the European Union. Its role is to check that revenues are received and that expenditures are incurred "in a lawful and regular manner". It is thus up to the Court of Auditors to assure that the European Union's financial affairs are managed legally and properly.

At the end of each year, the Court of Auditors establishes a financial report which is published in the Official Journal of the European Communities. This report provides an efficient means of pressure on the EU institutions and organs to assure correct funds management. Throughout the year, the Court of Auditors is also called upon to comment or gives opinions. The other institutions are obliged to consult it before adopting texts relative to financial regulation and to resources on the community level. It is invited to give an opinion on all legislation (new or in effect), having a financial impact on the fonction of the European Union.

In order to organise its control activities, the Court of Auditors has 250 agents. They supervise the institutions of the Union, the member states of the Union, and the organisations that benefit from managing funds from the European Union. In member states, monitering is done in close collaboration with national audit bodies. However, the Court of Auditors does not have any judicial power of its own. Potential situations of irregularity or fraud are reported to the communitary organs in charge (especially the European Office of anti-fraud fight).

The Court of Auditors has its seat in Luxembourg. It is composed of 27 members (one member per Member State) appointed for a six-year period by the Counsel of the Union (by a qualified majority) after consulting the European Parliament, based on proposals made by the member states. The members proposed by teh states must belong, in their respective countries, to an external audit organization or possess a particular qualification for this fonction.