The institutional design of the EU is unique in its setup as a supranational entity - it's neither an international organisation nor a state, it's something in

The institutional design of the EU is unique in its setup as a supranational entity - it's neither an international organisation nor a state, it's something in between. Usually it mainly acts on 'market stuff' and the institutional structures are designed for careful compromise finding, especially to balance out any excess weight of the big countries. But since 2005 or so it has been pushed more and more in the geopolitical and criss-reaction realm where these careful but slow processes struggle. The UK gov can take an important spending decision on its own authority (or at most involving the commons and lords) but where it doesn't have the ultimate authority itself (e.g. some trade deals) the EU has to get agreement from the European parliament and 27 national governments.