ABSTRACT

Understanding the institutions responsible for shaping policy at the level of the European Union presents considerable conceptual challenges. They can be compared in some respects with national government institutions, but there is no EU ‘government’ as such; instead there is a system of governance, in which decisions are shaped and made both with and without input from the kinds of formally constituted institutions we normally associate with national government, and involving interactions among a complex variety of actors. In other words, the EU institutions fulfil a combination of executive, legislative, and judicial functions without constituting a formal system of European government: there are intergovernmental treaties but no European Union constitution, there is a degree of authority but only a pooling of sovereignty, and the extent to which the EU institutions are involved in shaping policy varies from one policy area to another; their role is strongest in trade and competition policy, for example, but weakest in tax policy and criminal justice.