A regulation is a legal act of the
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...
which becomes immediately enforceable as law in all
member states
A member state is a state that is a member of an international organization or of a federation or confederation.
Since the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) include some members that are not sovereign states ...
simultaneously.
Regulations can be distinguished from
directives which, at least in principle, need to be
transposed into national law. Regulations can be adopted by means of a variety of
legislative procedures depending on their subject matter. Despite their name, Regulations are
primary legislation
Primary legislation and secondary legislation (the latter also called delegated legislation or subordinate legislation) are two forms of law, created respectively by the legislative and executive branches of governments in representative democ ...
rather than
regulatory delegated legislation; as such, they are often described as "Acts" (e.g. the
Digital Services Act
The Digital Services Act (DSA) is an EU regulation adopted in 2022 that addresses illegal content, transparent advertising and disinformation. It updates the Electronic Commerce Directive 2000 in EU law, and was proposed alongside the Digital ...
).
Description
The description of regulations can be found in Article 288 of the
Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union
The Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) is one of two treaties forming the constitutional basis of the European Union (EU), the other being the Treaty on European Union (TEU). It was previously known as the Treaty Establish ...
(formerly Article 249
TEC).
Article 288
To exercise the Union's competences, the institutions shall adopt regulations, directives, decisions, recommendations and opinions.
A regulation shall have general application. It shall be binding in its entirety and directly applicable in all Member States.
A directive shall be binding, as to the result to be achieved, upon each Member State to which it is addressed, but shall leave to the national authorities the choice of form and methods.
A decision shall be binding in its entirety upon those to whom it is addressed.
Recommendations and opinions shall have no binding force.
The Council can delegate legislative authority to the Commission and, depending on the area and the appropriate legislative procedure, both institutions can make laws.
There are Council regulations and Commission regulations. Article 288 does not clearly distinguish between legislative acts and administrative acts, as is normally done in national legal systems.
Legal effect
Regulations are in some sense equivalent to the
legislative act
Legislation is the process or result of enrolling, enacting, or promulgating laws by a legislature, parliament, or analogous governing body. Before an item of legislation becomes law it may be known as a bill, and may be broadly referred to a ...
s of the member states, in the sense that what they say is law and they do not need to be mediated into national law by means of implementing measures. As such, regulations constitute one of the most powerful forms of
European Union law
European Union law is a system of Supranational union, supranational Law, laws operating within the 27 member states of the European Union (EU). It has grown over time since the 1952 founding of the European Coal and Steel Community, to promote ...
and a great deal of care is required in their drafting and formulation.
When a regulation comes into force, it overrides all national laws dealing with the same subject matter and subsequent national legislation must be consistent with and made in the light of the regulation. While member states are prohibited from obscuring the
direct effect
In the law of the European Union, direct effect is the principle that Union law may, if appropriately framed, confer rights on individuals which not only the courts but also the public administration (on national, regional or local level) of m ...
of regulations, it is common practice to pass legislation dealing with consequential matters arising from the coming into force of a regulation.
Although a regulation in principle has a direct effect, the
Belgian Constitutional Court
The Constitutional Court ( Dutch: ; ; ) plays a central role within the federal Belgian state. This is a judicial court founded in 1980. Its jurisdiction was augmented in 1988 and 2003.
History
Founded as the Court of Arbitration, the court owe ...
has ruled that the international institutions, such as the EU, may not derogate from the national identity as set out in the political and constitutional basic structures of the country, or the core values of the protection of the Constitution.
Subclasses
See also
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List of European Union directives
This list of European Union Directives is ordered by theme to follow EU law. For a date based list, see the :European Union directives by number.
From 1 January 1992 to 31 December 2014, numbers assigned by the General Secretariat of the Cou ...
*
List of European Union regulations
This is a partial list of notable European Union Regulations.
Regulations of the European Parliament and of the Council 1987
*Council Regulation (EEC) No 2658/87 of 23 July 1987 created the goods nomenclature called the Combined Nomenclature (CN) ...
References
External links
*
UK House of Commons: Report of the EU Legislative Process and scrutiny by national parliaments
EUR-Lex, European Union Law database
{{Legislation of the European Union
Regulation
Regulation is the management of complex systems according to a set of rules and trends. In systems theory, these types of rules exist in various fields of biology and society, but the term has slightly different meanings according to context. Fo ...