Introduction

Abstract

By taking a transversal approach to the issues raised by a focus on EU legal acts, the Introduction suggests a number of useful keys through which to read the contributions. A first is to reflect on how despite stability in the categories of legal acts in the EU legal order from the Treaty of Rome onwards—regulations, directives, decisions, and international agreements—the EU has proven remarkably able to adapt and expand its tools of governance. A second is to distinguish standard and non-standard EU legal acts and to focus on the issues and practices that complicate this seemingly straightforward distinction. A third is to stress the range of ways in which acts associated with the EU can cross the boundaries between EU and non-EU norms, and between law and non-law, and the challenges that this poses to EU constitutional structures and traditional forms of accountability.