The chapter considers the powers of the central administrative and legislative institutions. The Commission comprises a college of twenty-seven Commissioners appointed for five years. It has four central types of power. It can adopt quasi-legislation. It proposes laws, policies and the budget. It administers EU policies. Finally, it has powers to police the observance of EU law. The Council of Ministers, comprised of national ministers, has the final power of decision over almost all fields of EU law. It votes either by unanimity or by Qualified Majority, where fifteen States representing 65 per cent of the Union population must vote for a measure. The European Council comprises the Heads of Government. Its central role is to provide political direction for the other EU Institutions. The European Parliament comprises 705 directly elected representatives. Depending upon the field, it has the power of veto over legislation, has to assent to it or must be consulted over it. The Parliament also has significant powers to hold the other EU Institutions to account. This chapter concludes by examining the circumstances when individuals can seek disclosure of documents from the EU Institutions.

This chapter explores the key policy and law-making institutions in the EU – the European Parliament (the EP), the European Council (the EC), the Council of Ministers (the Council) and the European Commission (the Commission). The elements of the exploration will be taken from Article 13(2) TEU, where each institution is mandated to act ‘within the limits of the powers conferred on it in the Treaties, and in conformity with the procedures, conditions and objectives set out in them’. The chapter will outline the powers: what authority does each institution have, for what functions and how is it exercised? It will discuss their composition and identify supervisory relationships between the institutions.

To understand ‘Europe as a bureaucracy’, this chapter lays down a central principle underlying the EU’s bureaucracy – the notion of ‘institutional balance’. What is the EU’s institutional structure trying to balance? Answering this question is important to understanding how different institutions in the EU inter-relate. It also outlines the composition and powers of the main EU institutions and examines how these institutions produce law, examining the EU’s central decision-making process. As we will see, the practice of EU decision-making is often untransparent and complex. Yet these very features are difficult to avoid given the need to balance the different interests that have to be brought on board for EU policy to be both effective and legitimate. The EU’s bureaucracy creates inevitable trade-offs, the resolution of which depend on one’s normative view of what Europe is for.