The Principal Policy Institutions

This chapter examines the EU’s principal policy institutions. It is assumed that readers have some prior familiarity with the institutions and so the chapter does not, as a general text on the EU might, examine such features of the institutions as their organizational structures and memberships. Some core information on such matters is presented in boxes, but otherwise the chapter directs its attention wholly to how the institutions affect policy matters. (Readers may wish to consult comprehensive texts such as Bache et al., 2011; Nugent, 2010; Peterson and Shackleton, 2012, for in-depth treatments of EU institutions.)