The institutions of the European Union

Book abstract:

Monetary union, eastern enlargement, a new defence role, and globalisation all promise to make the EU of the twenty- first century radically different from its earlier permutations. This publication is the latest in 'The New European Union Series', published by Oxford University Press under the general editorship of John Peterson and Helen Wallace. The series offers undergraduates detailed coverage of the major aspects of EU politics.

This book examines the functions, powers and compositions of the EU institutions. As with most textbooks on the same topic there is detailed coverage of the main institutions - the European Council, the Council of Ministers, the European Commission, the European Parliament, the European Court of Justice, the Committee of the Regions and ECOSOC. However, this book also offers students a thorough analysis of the role of the European Central Bank, the European Court of Auditors, OLAF, the European agencies and COREPER. Analysis of the European Commission is also broken down into a chapter on the College of Commissioners and a separate chapter on the Commission's services while the European Parliament's Party groups are also discussed in a separate chapter from the European Parliament. There are also two sections which cover the other two pillars of the European Union, namely Justice and Home Affairs and the Common Foreign and Security Policy.

Each chapter follows a similar format and there is extensive use of figures, tables and boxed features. The end of each chapter also provides the reader with suggestions for further reading, a range of discussion questions and any relevant web links.

Students of EU politics who are looking to grasp how the institutions operate and interact with each other on a daily basis will benefit from reading this book.

John Peterson is a Jean Monnet Professor of European Politics at the University of Glasgow and Michael Shackleton is Head of Division in the Secretariat of the European Parliament, Brussels, Belgium