The seven EU institutions compared: role, members and voting

The first area of the EU knowledge test is the EU's institutional set-up, and almost every question in it rests on a handful of Treaty articles: Articles 13 to 19 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) and Articles 223 to 287 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). This hub puts the seven institutions side by side, then sends you to one page per institution for the detail.

The seven institutions under Article 13 TEU

Article 13(1) TEU lists the institutions in a fixed order. Learn it in that order, because questions often borrow the Treaty's wording:

1. The European Parliament
2. The European Council
3. The Council (the Council of the European Union)
4. The European Commission
5. The Court of Justice of the European Union
6. The European Central Bank
7. The Court of Auditors

The same article sets the ground rule for how they relate to each other:

Two points are worth fixing early. The European Council became an institution only with the Treaty of Lisbon; europa.eu dates it as an informal forum from 1974, formal status from 1992 and an official EU institution from 2009. And the Court of Justice of the European Union is one institution made up of several courts: under Article 19(1) TEU it includes the Court of Justice, the General Court and specialised courts.

Who sits in each institution, and for how long

The terms are where questions catch people. Five years for Parliament and the Commission; two and a half years, renewable once, for the President of the European Council; six years, renewable, for judges and for members of the Court of Auditors; eight years, not renewable, for the ECB Executive Board. The numbers guide sets every one of these figures in a single table, with the seats per country.

What each institution does, and how it decides

Two of these rules are the subject of their own pages. The Council's default, qualified majority, is a double majority of member states and population. And the line between the European Council and the Council is the most common confusion in the whole syllabus: see the three Councils compared.

Institutions against bodies: why the Treaty is the citation

The EU's own portal, europa.eu, counts "7 European institutions, 9 EU bodies and over 30 decentralised agencies". Its nine bodies are the European External Action Service, the European Economic and Social Committee, the European Committee of the Regions, the European Investment Bank, the European Ombudsman, the European Data Protection Supervisor, the European Data Protection Board, the European Public Prosecutor's Office and the European Cybersecurity Competence Centre.

Who makes EU law: the Commission, Parliament and Council

Three institutions do the law-making, which is why textbooks call them the "institutional triangle" (the phrase is a label, not a Treaty term). The Treaty divides the work like this:

• The Commission proposes. "Union legislative acts may only be adopted on the basis of a Commission proposal, except where the Treaties provide otherwise" (Art 17(2) TEU). The exceptions are listed in Article 289(4) TFEU: a group of Member States, Parliament, the ECB, the Court of Justice or the EIB, in specific cases.
• Parliament and the Council adopt. Each exercises legislative and budgetary functions "jointly" with the other (Art 14(1) and Art 16(1) TEU). Under the ordinary legislative procedure they adopt a regulation, directive or decision together on a Commission proposal (Art 289(1) TFEU).
• The European Council steers but does not legislate. Article 15(1) TEU says so in terms: "It shall not exercise legislative functions."

The steps, deadlines and majorities of that joint adoption are set out in the ordinary legislative procedure, step by step.

The two advisory committees

One rule applies to the Committee of the Regions only: "No member of the Committee shall at the same time be a Member of the European Parliament" (Art 305 TFEU).

Five confusions the test exploits

1. European Council or Council? The first is the Heads of State or Government and decides by consensus; the second is ministers and decides by qualified majority by default (Art 15(4) and 16(3) TEU).
2. 720 or 750? 720 MEPs sit in 2024-2029 under Decision (EU) 2023/2061. The Treaty sets a ceiling of 750 plus the President (Art 14(2) TEU). Neither figure is "wrong" in itself; the question decides which one it wants.
3. Two-thirds or one per Member State? Article 17(5) TEU provides for a Commission of two thirds of the number of Member States from 1 November 2014, "unless the European Council, acting unanimously, decides to alter this number". It did: Decision 2013/272/EU keeps one member per Member State.
4. Eight or eleven Advocates-General? Article 252 TFEU still says eight. Council Decision 2013/336/EU raised the number to eleven from 7 October 2015.
5. Six or eight years? Judges, Advocates-General and members of the Court of Auditors serve six years, renewable. The ECB Executive Board serves eight years, not renewable.

More of these, outside the institutions too, are collected in common traps.

How the institutions come up in the test

The Commission's guidance to candidates names the EU's institutional set-up as one of the test's three content areas and promises that every question rests on public official sources. In our reading of the format, institution questions tend to take a Treaty sentence and change one number or one actor, and the wrong options are real figures from a neighbouring article (we estimate this from the style of the published material; no question bank is public). So learn each figure with its institution attached.

Worked example (our own question)

For how long are the Judges and Advocates-General of the Court of Justice appointed? (a) Five years; (b) Six years; (c) Eight years; (d) Two and a half years.

Answer: (b). Article 19(2) TEU: they "shall be appointed by common accord of the governments of the Member States for six years". Five years is the term of Parliament and the Commission, eight years that of the ECB Executive Board (Art 283(2) TFEU), and two and a half years that of the European Council President (Art 15(5) TEU).

A ten-point self-check

Before moving on, make sure you can state each of these from memory, with its article:

1. The seven institutions, in the order of Article 13(1) TEU.
2. The two advisory committees named in Article 13(4) TEU.
3. Parliament's Treaty ceiling and its 2024-2029 size (Art 14(2) TEU; Decision (EU) 2023/2061).
4. The minimum and maximum seats per Member State: six and 96 (Art 14(2) TEU).
5. Who sits in the European Council, and who only takes part in its work (Art 15(2) TEU).
6. The term of the European Council President (Art 15(5) TEU).
7. The Council's default voting rule (Art 16(3) TEU).
8. The three steps that appoint the Commission (Art 17(7) TEU).
9. The composition of the Court of Justice and the General Court (Art 19(2) TEU and the Statute).
10. Who gives the statement of assurance, and to whom (Art 287(1) TFEU).

For a timed check, the EU institutions quiz has twenty questions with sources, and the free test mixes institutions with the other two areas in the real format.