This course aims to familiarise students with the law of the European Union, in the light of the Union’s system of governance and its political organisation. It begins with an overview of the European integration process and its evolution, followed by an examination of the Union’s mission, objectives, competences as well as the principles governing their exercise. The course then focuses on the Union’s institutional architecture, the role, powers and operation of the EU institutions, the sources of EU law, the Union’s legal acts and their making, the Union’s regulatory function and mechanisms of differentiated integration. The course concludes with an examination of fundamental aspects of the Union as a Union of Law, with emphasis on the mechanisms of judicial protection within the EU legal order, the role of the Court of Justice of the European Union in determining its essential characteristics, and the relationship between EU law and national law.