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Is the European Union (EU) an international organization or a State? Is it democratic or technocratic? Are EU citizens benefitting from EU integration and if so how and why? These are among the existential questions that have accompanied the development of the EU and its law in the last decades. These questions grow louder in our present days, when the model of EU integration is challenged on many fronts; from Brexit to the migration crisis, from the financial crisis of 2008 and the ensuing great recession to the current pandemic and growing geopolitical tensions. Still, the EU remains the most advanced regional experiment of rule-based transnational governance: its law has transformed the lives of EU citizens and provides a model for regional integration to the world. The course offers an overview of the law and institutions of the European Union; it focuses both on its constitutional structure and its substantive law in key areas of EU policymaking, such as the internal market, competition, human rights and external relations. Employing both an interdisciplinary and comparative perspective (comparing the EU with nation states and other international organizations), the course will address topics including the historical development of the EU, its current constitutional arrangements and form of government, the nature of EU law and its enforcement, the functioning of the EU internal market, the EU Trade Policy, the charter of Fundamental Rights and EU enlargement.