The EU Knowledge You Need to Pass.
17 chapters covering everything EPSO tests: treaties, institutions, procedures, policies, budget, external relations, and current affairs. Structured for efficient study.
Foundations
How the Union Was Built
The European Union is the visible result of a decision made in May 1950: that lasting peace on the continent depended on tying together the heavy indu...
The Legal Architecture of the EU
EU law is a self-standing legal order — neither classical international law (which binds states) nor purely domestic law (which binds citizens through...
Values, Objectives and Fundamental Rights
What the EU *is for* lives in three articles. Article 2 TEU names the **values** the Union claims as its foundation; Article 3 TEU sets the **objectiv...
Institutional Architecture
The European Parliament
The European Parliament is the only EU institution chosen directly by citizens. Once a powerless "assembly" attached to the Coal and Steel Community, ...
Two Councils: European Council and Council of the EU
Confusing the two Councils is a perennial pitfall in EU institutional questions and a perennial source of journalistic muddle. The **European Council*...
The European Commission
The Commission is the EU's executive: it proposes legislation (with a near-monopoly on initiative), enforces compliance with EU law, manages the budge...
The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU)
The CJEU in Luxembourg ensures EU law is interpreted and applied uniformly. It comprises two layers — the **Court of Justice** and the **General Court...
The Other EU Bodies: ECB, ECA, EESC, CoR, EIB, EEAS, Ombudsman, Euratom
Beyond the "big four" (Parliament, the two Councils, Commission, Court), Article 13 TEU lists three more **formal institutions** (ECB, Court of Audito...
Operating Procedures
How EU Law Is Made
The EU has one main way of making law (the **Ordinary Legislative Procedure**, OLP) and several variants used for specific subjects. In the OLP, the P...
The EU Budget and the MFF
The EU budget is small in macroeconomic terms — roughly **1 per cent of EU Gross National Income**, about €170 billion a year — but politically centra...
EU Citizenship, Democracy and Languages
EU citizenship is an additional layer attached to the nationality of a member state. It cannot be applied for separately, and it is lost if a state le...
Policy Engine Rooms
The Internal Market and the Four Freedoms
The internal market is the EU's central economic project: an area without internal frontiers where goods, persons, services and capital move freely. I...
Economic and Monetary Union (EMU)
EMU is the deepest economic integration the EU has so far attempted: a single currency, a single monetary policy run by the ECB, and a set of fiscal r...
The Big-Ticket Policies: Cohesion, CAP, Environment & Climate
Three policies absorb roughly 70 per cent of the EU budget, dominate EU regulatory output and animate most of the politics of redistribution and susta...
The EU Outward and Inward
The Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (AFSJ)
The AFSJ is the EU's name for everything that crosses the internal-borders → external-borders → migration → police → judicial-cooperation chain. It is...
External Relations: CFSP, Trade, Development, Enlargement
The EU is the world's largest trading bloc, the largest humanitarian donor, the largest provider of development assistance, and a heterodox foreign-po...
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