Union institutions

Introduction The creation of governmental institutions is the central task of all constitutions. Each political community needs institutions to govern its society; as each society needs common rules and a method for their making, execution, and arbitration. The European Treaties establish a number of European institutions to make, execute, and arbitrate European law. The Union’s institutions and their core tasks are defined in Title III of the Treaty on European Union (TEU). The central provision here is Article 13 TEU: The Union shall have an institutional framework which shall aim to promote its values, advance its objectives, serve its interests, those of its citizens and those of the Member States, and ensure the consistency, effectiveness and continuity of its policies and actions. The Union’s institutions shall be: – the European Parliament, – the European Council, – the Council, – the European Commission (hereinafter referred to as ‘the Commission’), – the Court of Justice of the European Union, – the European Central Bank, – the Court of Auditors. The provision lists seven governmental institutions of the European Union. They constitute the core “players” in the Union legal order. What strikes the attentive eye first is the number of institutions: unlike a tripartite institutional structure, the Union offers more than twice that number. The two institutions that do not – at first sight – seem to directly correspond to “national” institutions are the (European) Council and the Commission. The name “Council” represents a reminder of the “international” origins of the European Union, but the institution can equally be found in the governmental structure of Federal States. It will be harder to find the name “Commission” among the public institutions of States, where the executive is typically referred to as the “government”. By contrast, central banks and courts of auditors exist in many national legal orders.