Is the European Union an international organisation or an association of States?
The European Union is neither an international organisation in the usual sense nor an association of States, but rather an autonomous entity somewhere in between the two. In legal circles, the term supranational organisation is now used. The European Union is built on an institutional system which is the only one of its kind in the world. The Member States delegate sovereignty for certain matters to independent institutions which represent the interests of the European Union as a whole on questions of joint interest.
