EU legislative process

This subtopic contains a range of resources relating to EU legislative process, procedures and principles relevant to the types of legislation which fall under the umbrella of EU law, including:

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EU Treaties (and all their amendments)
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Regulations
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Directives
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Decisions
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Opinions and Recommendations
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Tertiary legislation (including implementing and delegated legislation)

EU law is developed further by the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union and legal principles developed by it.

The EU is based on the rule of law. Actions taken by the EU are founded on Treaties approved voluntarily and democratically by all Member States. Under the principle of conferral, if a policy area is not cited in a treaty, the European Commission cannot propose a law in that area as it is not an EU competence.

There are different types of EU legal documents. A treaty is a binding agreement betweenMember States setting out EU objectives, rules for relevant EU institutions, how decisions are made and the relationship between the EU and its Member States. Amendments allow for EU enlargement, and areas of co-operation.

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Latest EU Law News

EU Law weekly highlights—24 July 2025

This week's edition of EU Law weekly highlights includes analyses on the decision of the EU court for privacy activist Lisa Ballmann to access files in the Meta case, the EU trade mark dispute on Iceland foods which lost over link to nation's name, the Commission’s guidelines on the EU AI Act’s rules for general-purpose AI models, the final version of the General-Purpose AI Code of Practice, the country's first national collective database to be licensed for training AI formed by a group of Dutch media outlets, the Commission’s guidelines for the protection of minors online and a Market Insights Trend Report’s analysis on the sustainability disclosures and climate transition plans. In addition this week, the Commission proposed a new Multiannual Financial Framework, published the July 2025 infringement package, initiated procedures to adopt new adequacy decisions for EU-UK personal data transfers, initiated a call for evidence seeking input on a future omnibus package to simplify environmental legislation, published an Explanatory Notice and Template to guide providers of General Purpose AI models and launched a consultation for its proposed Digital Fairness Act. Further, the Council of the EU adopted a regulation modifying the Entry/Exit System implementation framework, adopted a regulation postponing the application of due diligence obligations under the EU Batteries Regulation and adopted amendments to extend the gas storage regulation by two years beyond its current 2025 expiry date.

ICJ publishes advisory opinion on States’ climate change obligations

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has published its advisory opinion on the obligations of States in respect of climate change. The ICJ unanimously held that climate change treaties, including the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Kyoto Protocol, and the Paris Agreement, impose binding obligations on States parties to protect the climate system and the broader environment from anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. It further concluded that under international human rights law, States must respect and ensure the effective enjoyment of human rights by taking necessary measures to safeguard the climate and environment. The ICJ emphasised that any breach of these obligations by a State constitutes an internationally wrongful act that entails State responsibility. The responsible State remains under a continuing duty to fulfil the breached obligation. Legal consequences of such wrongful acts may include: (a) cessation of the wrongful actions or omissions, if ongoing; (b) provision of assurances and guarantees of non-repetition of wrongful actions or omissions, if required by the circumstances; and (c) full reparation to affected States through restitution, compensation or satisfaction, provided that the general conditions of the law of State responsibility are met.

ESMA publishes update on transition to single volume cap under MiFIR

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has announced that, from October 2025, the volume cap mechanism (VCM) under the Markets in Financial Instruments Regulation (EU) 600/2014 (MiFIR) will transition from the current double volume cap mechanism (DVCM) to a single VCM following the MiFIR review. Under the new system, trading under the reference price waiver is expected to be limited to 7% of total EU trading volume over the previous 12 months for each equity and equity-like instrument. If this threshold is exceeded, trading venues will be required to suspend the use of the waiver for three months, based on data published by ESMA.

Commission publishes template for public summary of training content for GPAI models

The European Commission has published an Explanatory Notice and Template to guide providers of general-purpose AI (GPAI) models in meeting their obligation under Article 53(1)(d) of the EU AI Act (Regulation (EU) 2024/1689) to publicly disclose a sufficiently detailed summary of the data used to train their models. This requirement applies from 2 August 2025 and aims to promote transparency, support rights enforcement, and balance commercial confidentiality with public interest.