THE INSTITUTIONS OF THE EUROPEAN UNION

The main institutions of the European Union, involved in the decision-making process are:

· the European Parliament (EP), which represents the EU’s citizens and is directly elected by them;

· the European Council/ The Council of the European Union, which represents the individual member states;

· the European Commission, which seeks to uphold the interests of the Union as a whole;

Other institutions have a vital part to play:

· the European Court of Justice(together with the Court of First Instance) upholds the rule of European law;

· the Court of Auditors, checks the financing of the Union’s activities;

· the European Ombudsman, which investigates and reports on maladministration in the
institutions and bodies of the European Community;

The powers and responsibilities of these institutions are laid down in the Treaties, which are the foundation of everything the EU does. They also lay down the rules and procedures that the EU institutions must follow. The Treaties are agreed by the presidents and/or prime ministers of all the EU countries, and ratified by their parliaments.

Numerous European bodies support and advise the main institutions. The most important of these additional bodies are:

· the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) represents civil society, employers and employees;

· the Committee of Regions (CoR)represents regional and local authorities;

· Europol;

· Eurojust;

The financial institutions are represented by :

· the European Investment Bank finances EU investment projects, and helps small businesses via the European Investment Fund;

· the European Central Bank is responsible for European monetary policy;

The institutions of the EU are interdependent and complementary: the Parliament represents the guaranty of the democracy in the EU; the Council, where the Member States are represented on the ministers’ level and the European Council, with Member States represented by heads of state and government, have the power of decision; the Commission with a role of preserving the treaties, has powers of legislative and executive initiative; the Court of Justice, adjudicates on all legal issues and disputes involving Community law; the Court of Auditors, checks that the EU's money is being properly spent and carries out special investigations into specific spending areas.

These institutions, created throughout 40 years, reflect the evolution of the European Union structure and currently are passing through a reorganization process, caused by the EU enlargement in 2004 and the next one in 2007.

The personnel of all EU institutions compose a service of European servants, independent of their national states.

The main work languages are English and French, but at the official meetings the translation is ensured from and into all 20 EU official languages (Danish, English, French, Finnish, German, Greek, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Czech, Slovene, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Hungarian, Slovak, Maltese, and Polish).

The official documents are also translated and published into all 20 official languages.