What to read for the EU knowledge test: official sources ranked by exam value per hour

Last checked against sources: 26 October 2026. Every document below is dated before 29 May 2026, the estimated AD5 cut-off, unless the table says otherwise. Test facts carry a label: the notice states or the Commission's guidance states (confirmed), reported (a vendor or a staff union), we estimate (our inference).

There is no official bibliography

The Commission's guidance to candidates names three areas: the EU's institutional set-up; the Commission's governance, tasks, decision-making and procedures, including budget and human resources; and the Commission's mandate and priorities for 2024-2029. It promises that every question rests on publicly available official EU sources, and it excludes anything published after the application period opened. It lists no documents. How that date works for each competition is set out in the content cut-off guide.

To fill the gap, a Commission staff union has pointed candidates to EPSO's general reading list plus the Treaties (reported). That list is good background on the institutions and thin on the Commission's own rules and on the named 2025 packages (we estimate). So we built our own ranking from an 88-row register of official sources, which is public on our source register.

How we ranked the sources

• What counts as tested. The topics behind the Commission's own sample questions, and one candidate's recall of the July 2026 AD7 paper, which split roughly 13 items on institutions and procedures, 6 to 8 on governance, budget and HR, and 11 on priorities (reported, one sitting). We use these only as topic signals and never reproduce them.
• Exam value per hour. How many of those topics a document answers on its own, divided by the time it takes to read the parts that matter.
• Reading time. About 200 words a minute on dense legal text, counting only the articles or sections named (we estimate from word counts; nobody has timed it).

Tier 1: four blocks of Treaty articles (about 1 hour 45 minutes)

These four blocks answer about a third of the topics in the recalled AD7 paper and most of the Commission's sample topics on their own (we estimate). No other hour of reading comes close. They are also where the numbers live: majorities, thresholds, time limits and terms of office, which make the best wrong options. Read them with how qualified majority is calculated and the ordinary legislative procedure step by step open beside you.

Worked example (our own question, from TFEU Article 226)

At whose request may the European Parliament set up a temporary Committee of Inquiry?

• A. A quarter of its component Members
• B. A third of its component Members
• C. A majority of its component Members
• D. A majority of the votes cast

Answer: A. The other options are real Parliament majorities in the wrong place: a majority of the votes cast is Parliament's default rule (Article 231 TFEU), and a majority of its component Members is what it needs to ask the Commission for a proposal (Article 225 TFEU). The Treaty sets no one-third threshold here.

Tier 2: the 2024-2029 priorities (about 2 hours)

Learn the seven chapter headings word for word. The European Green Deal is not one of them: the Guidelines mention it only as earlier work whose goals the Commission will keep. For how the headings turn into named packages, see the 2024-2029 priorities and the 2025 packages, dated.

Tier 3: the Commission's governance, budget and staff rules (about 2.5 hours)

One warning on the Rules of Procedure: the 2024 decision renumbered everything. The written procedure now sits in Articles 17 to 28, the empowerment procedure in Articles 29 to 35 and the delegation procedure in Articles 36 to 40. Material written before December 2024 cites Articles 12 to 14 of the old rules, C(2000) 3614. More in how the Commission takes decisions and the Commission's powers under Article 17 TEU.

Tier 4: law-making agreements, the first-100-days package and the work programme

The first-100-days package (the Compass, the e-commerce toolbox, the 2025 work programme, COM(2025) 47, the Clean Industrial Deal and the Preparedness Union Strategy, January to March 2025) sits inside every 2026 cut-off and carries much of the priorities area (we estimate). The 2026 work programme of 21 October 2025 is also inside every 2026 cut-off. See the 2026 work programme and the MFF explained.

What to skip or swap

• Re-issued fact sheets. Most of Parliament's fact sheets on the institutions and treaty history were re-issued between April and June 2026, after the AD7 cut-off, with older facts in them. Learn the fact from the Treaty article and use the fact sheet as a reading aid.
• Counting the College. Parliament's fact sheet 25 (April 2026) describes the College as the President, six Executive Vice-Presidents, the High Representative and 19 Commissioners. The Commission's College page lists five Executive Vice-Presidents, the High Representative and 20 Commissioners. Count from the College page.
• Summaries that say 'EPSO sources'. EPSO's study materials are general background. The Publications Office says so itself, below.

If you sit EPSO's AD5 Part 2 test instead

EPSO's open competition EPSO/AD/427/26 has its own EU knowledge test: the notice states 30 questions in 40 minutes, pass mark 15/30. EPSO's FAQ states that references to the source materials will be published on the EPSO website about two months before the testing session. No list was out on 26 October 2026. Until it appears, Tier 1 is the safest start, because the notice describes a test about the EU, its institutions, procedures and main policies. When EPSO's list is out, it replaces this ranking for EPSO candidates. See EPSO AD5 Part 2: the EU knowledge test.

How to read: test yourself, don't re-read

Reading is only half the job. A major review of study methods rated practice testing and spaced practice as the most useful techniques, and rereading among the least (Dunlosky and colleagues, 2013, as reported by the Association for Psychological Science). After each document, close it and write down its numbers, its actors and its dates, then check. The 4-week study plan turns this ranking into a calendar, and the traps that catch candidates shows which figures to learn twice.