The purpose of this paper is to present the basic role, purpose and operation of the European Council as one of the key institutions of the European Union. The European Union is a special form of political creation consisting of a set of Member States with common economic, sociological and geopolitical interests, and as such the EU has its own autonomous legal order which is neither ideal nor relevant for meaningful comparison with the legal order of any of the Member States. with the world international legal order. It is in this aspect that the specificity of the core and nature of the existence of such a political construction as the European Union is reflected. The European Union operates through its key political institutions and bodies, and one of the key bodies of the European Union is the European Council, which can be said to be the driving force of the European Union, while setting its general political guidelines and top priorities. The policy guidelines adopted by the European Council are also reflected in the work of institutions such as the Council of the European Union, the European Parliament, the European Commission and the Member States. Sessions of the European Council always attract a lot of attention from the media, which always closely follow the sessions and, after the meetings, inform the public about the key conclusions reached at the meetings. The European Council is an institution or body of the European Union consisting of the Heads of State or Government of the Member States. The main task of the European Council is to give impetus to the development of the European Union and the adoption of general priorities and policy guidelines. The European Council does not in principle have legislative powers, but the political importance of the European Council implies its key role in European legislation and the legal order, as it includes Heads of State accountable to the Ministers of the Council of Ministers. The European Council mainly takes decisions in the form of consensus and political agreement, ie agreements between the heads of the member states, and only in certain exceptions according to EU regulations are the decisions made unanimously or by a qualified majority. The institution of the President was implemented by the Lisbon Treaty, which resulted in the abolition of the six-month presidency of the Union with the rotation of member states.