The EU has two types of legal instrument: directives and regulations.
- Directives set minimum standards and parameters for the EU, but leave the actual implementation down to the states themselves. When a directive is passed, the EU sets a deadline by which every member state must have put it into force, whether by national law or regulation, or another initiative.
- Regulations are legally binding across the EU from the date they come into effect, and do not need to be transposed into national laws.
