The Institutions of the European Union

The European Union's institutions may be divided into two categories: those which has super national orientation such as Commission, European Parliament and Court of Justice and those with inter-governmental orientation as: Council of Ministers and European Council.
The Commission is made up of representatives appointed by the member states for a four years period. They don't represent their government interests but they constitute the idea of European unity. The Commission is a symbol of a super national integration idea and provides its functioning much more than any other body. The officers don't have after they have been appointed either connection with the Governments' interests which had proposed them. With the head office in Brussels, the Commission identifies the problems agenda and proposes solutions which it submits to the Council of Ministers. Under the leadership of Jacques Delors the Commission increased its staff reaching about 13 000 officers which provides from administrative point of view European Union's functioning.

The European Parliament is working in Strasbourg and is "the first and the only experiment in the transnational democracy" as Conway Henderson said. It was created in 1952 as a part of ECSC. It can not adopt laws but has prerogatives regarding the control of Union's budget being able to block some series of executive proposals. The Parliament has even the right of dissolve the Commission, if such a decision comes with two thirds of suffrages. Since 1979 the European Parliament's members are directly elected by the citizens from the states where they came from. When the Union had 12 members, the parliamentaries' number reached 518 persons, after the Union was enlarged at 15th members, the parliamentaries' number increased up to 626 persons. We should also mention that the parliamentaries are elected proportionally with the number of member country population there they came from and in the European forum they aren't grouped by national blocks but by ideological ones. In this way the European Parliament offers an overview upon the European Union's political spectrum . 

The Justice Court was founded in 1952 and represented an important element for the European integration. The Court is made up of 13 judges appointed by the member states for a mandate of six years. For European Union the treaties which it adopts represent the supreme law. The Court is called to regulate and mediate different conflicts starting from these treaties. In other words, the European regulations are prior to the national ones. Due to this fact, we may say that this forum went further in national autonomy constraint.

The Council of Ministers is the main decision-maker of European Union's institution, being especially an inter-governmental forum. The governmental teams from each member state send their representatives to this Council, where they represent especially the state's interest. The Council of Ministers doesn't have a permanent feature, the meetings among members take place in order to discuss a certain subject. Because of this, the technical problems have most of the time priority before the political ones. The meetings are focused on topics as: agriculture, financing and external policy.
In 1975 it is founded, outside of the Community, the European Council, made up of the presidents of European Union's member states. The setting up of the Council was formed as an expression of the resistance which the leaders of these countries had about the idea of being led by a super national forum. This body becomes legally an integrated part of European Union since 1986. By summits, the Council tries to reach agreements by which the member states' political orientation should be harmonized. The role is crucial for the European integration process because the Council's members are those who have the power of putting into practice any decision made at European level in their countries. Being a body which particularly represents an intergovernmental point of view, the Council may promote a block the supranational idea.