We highly recommend "Decision-Making Procedures of the European Union" - a new book on the EU edited by prof. dr hab. Jan Galster and dr Aleksandra Szczerba-Zawada.
The first edition of Decision-Making Procedures of the European Union provides analysis of the sui generis EU’s decision-making system. The uniqueness of the decision-making processes of the EU lays with the diverse status and capacities of the involved actors along with the differential nature and effects of adopted instruments dependent upon the level on which decision is taken in the multi-level governance structure of the EU. Therefore the policy-making in the EU is a product of varied forms of governance (understood as the way in which decisions are taken) and the quality of decisions taken in decentralized system of EU “governing without government”.
This book provides the framework for the analysis of EU decision-making by contrasting a traditional conception of EU law adopted under the classic ‘community method’ of governance and variety of the forms of so-called ‘new-governance’ pursued through other processes and instruments.
The overall argument that may be drawn is that the development of integration process implies changes not only in the instruments applied in the course of the EU decision-making but also in the array of actors involved and to some extent the values to be pursued and interests to be achieved. Hence the effectiveness of the governance in the EU is determined by the tension between the democratic and technocratic modes of decision-taking reflected in the input- and output-oriented legitimation of EU decision-making processes.