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The European Union can issue various legal acts in order to achieve the aims set out in the treaties.

Figure 1.6 shows the interaction between EU law and member state law. In the center you can see the normal structure of an EU member state and its parliament, issuing national law. For subjects agreed to in the TFEU², the EU Council or the EU Commission and the European Parliament can issue a directive. According to the TFEU, Member States must then (within a given time frame) issue national law to achieve the purposes set out in the directive, but the directive itself is not applicable law. Only in cases where less intrusive methods are not possible³, the EU Commission and Parliament can issue a regulation (like the GDPR). This is the most powerful legal act the EU has, as a regulation it supersedes national law. This is shown in the figure with the dotted area on the right, indicating that regulations and national law together constitute “applicable member state law”.

Figure 1.6 also shows that the other EU legal acts, decisions and recommendations, have no direct effect on member state law. In the following section we will look into the various legal acts in more detail.

Figure 1.6 Interaction between EU law and Member State law