The European Union is unique among international organizations in having a complex and highly developed system of internal law which has direct effect within the legal systems of its member states. In contrast to nations such as the United States, European nations subscribe to the principle that international law adopted by a nation overrides national law, and hence it is the case European Union law overrides the national laws of its member states.

There are three sources of Union law:

• primary legislation: the treaties
• secondary legislation: regulations, directives, decisions, recommendations and opinions made by the Union's institutions in accordance with the treaties
• decisions of the European Court of Justice and the Court of First Instance

It is more correct though, to make the distinction between European Community (EC) law and European Union law, as it is only EC law that overrides the national laws of the member states. The European Community constitutes one of the 'three pillars' of the European Union.

Primary legislation: the treaties

Main article: Treaties of the European Union

The primary legislation, or treaties, are effectively the constitutional law of the European Union. They lay down the basic policies of the Union, establish its institutional structure, legislative procedures, and the powers of the Union. The treaties that make up the primary legislation include:

• the ECSC Treaty of 1951 (Treaty of Paris)
• the EEC Treaty of 1957 (Treaty of Rome)
• the EURATOM Treaty of 1957 (Treaty of Rome)
• the Merger Treaty of 1965
• the Acts of Accession of the United Kingdom, Ireland and Denmark (1972)
• the Budgetary Treaty of 1970
• the Budgetary Treaty of 1975
• the Act of Accession of Greece (1979)
• the Acts of Accession of Spain and Portugal (1985)
• the Single European Act of 1986
• the Treaty of Maastricht of 1992
• the Acts of Accession of Austria, Sweden and Finland (1994)
• the Treaty of Amsterdam of 1997
• the Treaty of Nice of 2001
• the Treaty of Accession 2003 of 2003

The various annexes and protocols attached to these treaties are also considered a source of primary legislation.

Secondary legislation

Secondary legislation include regulations, directives, decisions, recommendations and opinions.

Secondary legislation also includes interinstitutional agreements, which are agreements made between European Union institutions clarifying their respective powers, especially in budgetary matters. The Parliament, Commission and Council are capable of entering into such agreements.

The classification of legislative acts varies among the First, Second and Third Pillars.

In the case of the first pillar: Secondary legislation is classified based on to whom it is directed, and how it is to be implemented. Regulations and directives bind everyone, while decisions only affect the parties to whom they are addressed (which can be individuals, corporations, or member states). Regulations have direct effect, i.e. they are binding in and of themselves as part of national law, while directives require implementation by national legislation to be effective. However, states that fail or refuse to implement directives as part of national law can be fined by the European Court of Justice.

Directives and regulations can comprise of a mixture of maximum harmonisation and minimum harmonisation clauses, and can be enforced on either a home state or a host state basis

All EU legislation must be based on a specific treaty article, which is referred to as the "legal basis" of the legislation.

The European Convention's Working Group on Simplification, identified in total 15 legal instruments of the European Union. These, divided in the three pillars of the European Union are the following:

If the planned European Constitution is ratified, these acts will be reduced to only six: EU laws, EU framework laws, decisions, regulations, recommendations and opinions.

Legislative procedures

There are three main legislative procedures in the European Union, with the main difference between them being how the European Parliament interacts with the Council of the European Union.

• Codecision procedure
• Assent procedure
• Consultation procedure

Acquis

The whole body of EU law is together called the acquis communautaire, broken into 32 chapters for purposes of accession negotiations.

Specific topics in EU law

• European Company Statute
• Community Patent
• Corpus Juris
• EU competition law
• Direct effect
• Indirect effect
• Incidental effect
• Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union
• Directive 95/46/EC on the protection of personal data
• Gold-plating
• Maximum harmonisation
• Minimum harmonisation
• Home state regulation
• Host state regulation

External links

• EUR-Lex (http://europe.eu.int/eur-lex/) - online access to European Union legislation
• EUR-Lex: Treaties (http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/en/search/search_treaties.html)
• EU Law web log (http://www.sparkpod.com/EULaw/)