June 1, 2009 
Author: Grigore Silaşi, Ioana Vădăşan
Abstract: The European Union is a governance model, in today’s more and more opened world, and will have an increasingly important role on the international stage, in order to achieve world-wide efficient governance. In this paper, authors approach the governance concept, and the European Union as a multi-level system of governance. We present the different actors that can influence the European governance system, and study the way different major events had influenced the European governance. The authors will also link the policies to the European Union governance and instruments, in the attempt of showing that the EU is governed through the policy-making process. The governance in the EU is all the time-associated to the intergovernmental conferences model, where the states keep their prerogatives, as well as to the supranational model, where a part of the states sovereignty is delegated to the EU. The EU governance model is one of the stakes of influence fights among different European institutions: the Parliament, the Commission and the Council of Ministers. The Parliament, the only direct elected body by the citizens, has obtained, during the EU history, an increased importance in the EU governance. From a simple consultative body, at the beginning, it has obtained a real co-decision power, on a par with the Council of Ministers, in many issues.
Keywords:decision-making process,European Union,governance,institutions, policies