The European Union is made up of countries that remain independent sovereign nations but pool their sovereignty in order to gain a strength and world influence none of them could have on their own.
Pooling sovereignty means, in practice, that the member states delegate some of their decision-making powers to shared institutions they have created, so that decisions on matters of joint interest can be made democratically at a European level.
The EU's decision-making process in general and the co-decision procedure in particular involve three main institutions:
the European Parliament, which represents the EU citizens and is directly elected by them;
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.
This "institutional triangle" produces the policies and laws that apply throughout the EU. In principle, it is the Commission that proposes new laws, but it is the Parliament and Council that adopt them.
Two other institutions have a vital part to play: the Court of Justice upholds the rule of European law, and the Court of Auditors checks the financing of the Union’s activities.
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.
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