Analysis: Fishing for a hierarchy of sources in EU executive rule-making: Case C-259/21, European Parliament v Council of the EU

Non-legislative acts based directly on the Treaties are left outside the categorisation of legal acts introduced by the Lisbon Treaty which, as is well known, distinguishes between legislative, delegated and implementing acts. Yet, they are an important part of the EU’s executive machinery. How these ‘uncategorised’ or sui generis acts should be conceived within the hierarchy of EU sources, and how they relate to the other categories of acts are questions the Court of Justice of the EU has been faced with in cases such as Parliament v Council (C-259/21), analysed here.