Abstract
If Jacques Delors, one of the most famous President of the European Commission (between 1985 and 1995), called the European Union as a UPO or Unidentified Political Object, it can be explained by the special characteristics of its architecture. The European Commission (EC) is undoubtedly one of the key institutions of the EU, one that makes of the Union an international organization very different from the others. In a lot of articles we can read that the EC has taken a very important decision, or that a politician of a member state criticized the influence of "Brussels". Because of its importance and its specificities, it's very interesting to try to analyze this very special institution, which is an original body if one considered its history, its powers and its composition. In May 1950, in his Declaration from the Salon de l'Horloge, Robert Schuman proposed to place France and West Germany's production of coal and steel under joint management. The institution that was created to manage this production (and the one of the 4 other members of the European Coal and Steel Community) was the High Authority. It consisted in 9 members, and sat in Luxembourg.
