Advisory bodies to the European Union

The institutions of the European Union are the seven principal decision-making bodies of the European Union and Euratom governed under the Treaties of the European Union and European Union law. They are, as listed in Article 13 of the Treaty on the European Union:

• the European Parliament,
• the European Council (of heads of state or government),
• the Council of the European Union (of member state ministers, a council for each area of responsibility),
• the European Commission,
• the Court of Justice of the European Union,
• the European Central Bank and
• the European Court of Auditors.

Institutions are distinct from both advisory bodies to the European Union and agencies of the European Union.

The main bodies of the European Union and Euratom are:

• the seven principal institutions of the European Union, including the one which is an international entity (the European Central Bank)
• other bodies of the EU established through primary (treaty) legislation, either as international law bodies (the European Investment Bank Group entities, the European University Institute, the European Stability Mechanism and the Unified Patent Court) or as bodies without juridical personality (the European Ombudsman, the advisory bodies to the European Union)
• the agencies, decentralised independent bodies and joint undertakings of the European Union and Euratom, which are bodies of the EU established as juridical persons through secondary legislation,
• other bodies of the EU established through secondary legislation, which lack juridical personality (e.g. European Data Protection Supervisor)
• the inter-institutional services

Apart from them, some several other bodies exist.

The European Union and Euratom have agencies, decentralised independent bodies, corporate bodies and joint undertakings which are established as juridical persons through secondary EU legislation and tasked with a specific narrow field of work. They are a part of the wider set of bodies of the European Union and Euratom and are therefore distinct from:

• international law juridical persons established through primary (treaty) legislation, either as an EU institution (the European Central Bank) or as an EU body of another type (such as the European Investment Bank Group entities, the European University Institute, the European Stability Mechanism or the Unified Patent Court)
• other EU institutions
• other EU bodies lacking juridical personality, including the advisory bodies, the independent offices held by a single person (European Ombudsman, European Data Protection Supervisor), and the (non-independent, auxiliary) EU inter-institutional services, regardless of whether established through treaty or through secondary legislation
• the pan-EU organisational forms which are not considered constituent bodies of the EU or Euratom, regardless of whether possessing juridical personality (European Research Infrastructure Consortium, European political party, European political foundation, European grouping of territorial cooperation, Societas Europaea, Societas Cooperativa Europaea) or lacking it (European economic interest grouping)