European Union Organizational Structure

About the institution

The European Union is a political and economic union of 27 member states, with its executive and administrative centre in Brussels. Its executive arm is the European Commission, a college of 27 commissioners — one per member state — that alone has the right to propose EU law, and that enforces the law the member states and the European Parliament have adopted. The Commission's staff of roughly 32,000 runs the union's day-to-day machinery.

The EU is deliberately hard to org-chart because it has no single 'top'. There are four institutions — the Commission, the Parliament, the Council of the member states, and the Court of Justice — and none of them is the executive in the way a national government is. The Commission proposes, the Council and Parliament decide, the Court interprets. A chart of the 'government of the EU' is really a chart of the Commission, which is the part with an internal reporting structure anyone could draw, and that is what this page depicts.

This snapshot is dated August 2026. Ursula von der Leyen is President of the Commission, having been re-appointed for a second term in 2024. The Commission she leads is the 2024-2029 college: five executive vice-presidents coordinate the Commission's political priorities, the High Representative leads the EU's foreign policy, and a further group of portfolio commissioners each run a policy area through a directorate-general.

European Union organizational chart

European Union's reporting structure as of 2026-08. Drag to pan, scroll to zoom — or open it in QueryChart and edit it as your own.

A college, not a hierarchy: the Commission's two layers and their directorates

The root is the President of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen. Reporting directly beneath her are the members of the college of commissioners, of whom this chart shows seventeen: the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (Kaja Kallas), the five executive vice-presidents, and the portfolio commissioners who run the EU's day-to-day policy areas.

The first tier is the executive vice-presidents, who do not run directorates of their own so much as coordinate groups of them. Teresa Ribera leads the clean, just and competitive transition; Henna Virkkunen the tech sovereignty, security and democracy portfolio; Stéphane Séjourné prosperity and industrial strategy; Roxana Mînzatu people, skills and preparedness; and Raffaele Fitto cohesion and reforms. These five are the closest thing the EU has to a political leadership layer above the departments.

The second tier is the portfolio commissioners, each owning a policy area that maps to a directorate-general: Maroš Šefčovič on trade, Andrius Kubilius on defence and space, Dan Jørgensen on energy and housing, Wopke Hoekstra on climate, and so on through financial services, international partnerships, agriculture, health, justice and environment. Each commissioner is politically the head of their policy area; the directorate-general beneath them is the permanent civil service that actually writes the proposals.

Two structural facts keep this chart honest. First, the college is a collective body: commissioners decide by majority, and no commissioner — not even the President — can order another one to change a proposal. So the 'reporting lines' here are political and administrative, not hierarchical commands. Second, the European Council (the member states' governments) and the European Parliament are not shown because neither sits inside the Commission: they are the people the Commission proposes and answers to, which is a different relationship from reporting.

Key leadership roles

1. Ursula von der Leyen

   President of the European Commission — First woman to lead the Commission and the first President since Jacques Delors to serve two consecutive terms.

2. Kaja Kallas

   High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy — A Vice-President of the Commission who leads the EU's foreign and security policy through the European External Action Service.

3. Teresa Ribera

   Executive Vice-President for a Clean, Just and Competitive Transition — Co-ordinates climate, energy and competition policy as one transition portfolio.

4. Henna Virkkunen

   Executive Vice-President for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy — Co-ordinates digital, security and democracy policy across the directorates.

5. Stéphane Séjourné

   Executive Vice-President for Prosperity and Industrial Strategy — Co-ordinates the EU's industrial and competitiveness agenda.

6. Roxana Mînzatu

   Executive Vice-President for People, Skills and Preparedness — Co-ordinates education, skills, labour and crisis preparedness.

7. Raffaele Fitto

   Executive Vice-President for Cohesion and Reforms — Co-ordinates regional, cohesion and reform funding.

8. Maroš Šefčovič

   Commissioner for Trade and Economic Security — A veteran commissioner; runs EU trade policy and the union's economic security agenda.

How this structure supports the mandate

A college of one commissioner per member state is a structure that buys legitimacy at the price of efficiency, and for the EU that is the correct trade. Because every member state has a commissioner at the table, no country can be written out of the union's executive, and the proposal stage of EU law already reflects the national sensitivities that would otherwise sink it later. A smaller, more efficient executive would be one the member states trusted less — and the EU's laws are only as enforceable as the member states' willingness to enforce them.

The portfolio-commissioner model works because it pairs a political head with a permanent administration. A commissioner like Dan Jørgensen is the public face of EU energy policy, but the actual proposals are written by the directorate-general's career staff, who have been working the file for decades. That is the same elected-on-top, permanent-beneath pattern as the UK and U.S. systems, applied at a scale where the 'ministers' are 27 national appointees rather than one party's front bench.

The executive vice-presidents exist to solve the coordination problem that a 27-person college creates. A college of equals can coordinate itself only with difficulty, so the five EVPs act as the political layer between the President and the portfolios — grouping related directorates into tranches that the college can discuss as blocks. It is a staff structure overlaid on a committee, and it is the reason the Commission can move as fast as it does for an institution with no single boss.

Advantages and disadvantages

One commissioner per member state means every national government has a voice in the executive, which is what makes the EU's law enforceable at all.

Twenty-seven commissioners is a committee, and committees are slow: the college must build a consensus among 27 national appointees before anything is proposed.

The Commission's monopoly on proposing legislation gives the union a genuine agenda-setting executive rather than a pure intergovernmental forum.

That monopoly also concentrates technocratic power in a body nobody directly elects, which is the EU's central democratic deficit criticism.

Executive vice-presidents coordinate related portfolios, solving the fragmentation a 27-person college would otherwise produce.

The EVP layer adds a political tier between the President and the commissioners, and with it a new set of internal competitions about who coordinates what.

Interesting facts

• The Commission is the only executive on earth that must be re-created by a parliamentary vote of confidence, then individually confirmed by a hearing before the European Parliament, then approved as a college by the member states.
• The High Representative is double-hatted: Kaja Kallas is simultaneously a Vice-President of the Commission and the chair of the Council's foreign-affairs meetings, sitting in two institutions at once.
• The Commission's right of initiative is exclusive — in most policy areas, nobody but the Commission may propose EU law, a power no national parliament gives its executive.
• The European External Action Service, run by the High Representative, is the EU's diplomatic corps, with roughly 140 delegations worldwide and its own ambassadorial rank.
• The Commission President is appointed by the member states but must be approved by a majority of the Parliament — a confirmation fight that has twice nearly rejected the nominee.

Frequently asked questions

Who runs the European Union?

No single person does. The Commission proposes law, the Council of member-state governments and the European Parliament decide it, and the Court of Justice interprets it — a four-way structure with no single top.

What is the difference between the Commission and the Council?

The Commission is the EU's appointed executive — it proposes and enforces law. The Council (of the member states) is the governments of the 27 countries meeting to decide on those proposals. National governments, not Brussels, own the final decision.

Why is there one commissioner per member state?

It is a political compromise that dates to the founding treaties: every member state insisted on a seat at the executive table, and reducing the college to a smaller number has been discussed for decades and never agreed.

Do the commissioners report to Ursula von der Leyen?

Politically and administratively yes, but legally no — the college decides by majority, and the President cannot instruct a commissioner to change a proposal. The lines in this chart are coordination, not command.

Use this org chart template

Turn the Commission's structure into a chart you can rearrange, relabel and annotate.

Open this EU org chart as your own